Podcast Episodes

This Week in 1981: Don't Believe the Hype

Season 9 Episode 57

The death of stuntman Dale Buggins, the arrival of Adam Ant in Australia and new ‘evidence’ in the Azaria Chamberlain case – it was a big week for sensational tabloid stories. Plus: the birth of the …

Published on 10 hours ago

This Week in 1956: TV debuts, rock ’n’ roll riots and a dancing senior citizen takes on the world

Season 9 Episode 55

In the third week of September 1956, a small number of Australians finally saw what all the fuss was about when regular TV broadcasts began. It was a quiet start - unlike the arrival of the raucous, …

Published on 6 days, 11 hours ago

Short: The Death of Damien Parer

Season 9 Episode 54

This week in 1944, Australia's most famous war cameraman — whose film Kokoda Front Line! had won us our first Oscar the previous year — was killed while filming American Marines trying to retake a ti…

Published on 1 week, 3 days ago

Short: Mark Twain Down Under

Season 9 Episode 53

One hundred and thirty years ago this month, Mark Twain, creator of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, and hailed as the world’s funniest man, arrived in Australia for the start of a months-long speaking tour…

Published on 1 week, 6 days ago

Short: When War Came on Father's Day

Season 9 Episode 52

As winter became spring in Australia in 1939, the world stood on the edge of the abyss.

Then, on Father's Day, 3 September, everyone's worst fears were confirmed: Australia would once again go to war …

Published on 3 weeks ago

Short: Australia's Worst Shipwreck

Season 9 Episode 51

180 years ago this month, Australia suffered what is still our worst civil maritime disaster when the emigrant ship Cataraqui struck a reef off King Island and sank in Bass Strait. Of the 409 aboard,…

Published on 3 weeks, 2 days ago

Short: From Dead Heart to Inland Sea

Season 9 Episode 50

With Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre now flooded, we look back on the first time this happened in white history. Seventy-five years ago, Australia’s driest and most inhospitable region became a huge inland sea…

Published on 3 weeks, 4 days ago

This Week in 1931: The Man Who Fell To Earth – Part Three

Season 9 Episode 49

Having enjoyed a trifecta of splashy Sydney skydiving successes, Stanley makes a new start in Melbourne only to learn that disasters come in threes.

It’s easy to get a free trial that will give you ac…

Published on 4 weeks ago

This Week in 1931: The Man Who Fell To Earth – Part Two

Season 9 Episode 48

After Stanley Thomas’s rapid rise to parachuting success in Sydney, his career starts to stall with a series of jumps that are erratic and dangerous.

*Part Three is available now early and ad-free for…

Published on 1 month ago

This Week in 1931: The Man Who Fell To Earth – Part One

Season 9 Episode 47

Stanley Thomas was a young parachutist who made himself into a star in Sydney in the early years of the Great Depression. In public, he thrilled with his daredevil stunts. In private, he wrestled the…

Published on 1 month ago