An Object in Time - The Envelope
An envelope is a humdrum communications device – except when it’s full of misinformation, tucked into the pocket of a dead man, and dropped by a submarine off the coast of wartime Spain.
Jun 08, 2021•29 min
ABC Rewind
The History Listen is now ABC Rewind, the home of gripping narrative history series. Dive into true stories told by the people who lived through them.
Episodes
An Object in Time - The Cup of Tea
The story of how the humble cup of tea came to represent a ruthless British Empire.
Jun 01, 2021•29 min
An Object in Time - The Ticker Tape
How did one long, skinny strip of paper plunge the world into the worst global economic downturn history had ever seen?
May 25, 2021•29 min
An Object in Time - The Train Carriage
The story of the train carriage which propelled the globe from WWI, straight into WWII.
May 18, 2021•29 min
An Object in Time - The Telephone
This special podcast extra episode tells the story of the world's most powerful, imaginary telephone.
May 13, 2021•17 min
An Object in Time - The Pistol
This pistol lies at the centre of one of history's most famous duels - Hamilton Vs. Burr.
May 11, 2021•29 min
An Object in Time - The Umbrella
Umbrellas aren't known for being dangerous, but this one is famous for being deadly.
May 04, 2021•29 min
The Kitchen Table — Spice
The clove and nutmeg trade not only lead to colonisation, but long before the Europeans arrived, it helped define the language, culture, religion and geographic spread of Indonesia.
Apr 27, 2021•33 min
The Kitchen Table - Wine
What's the story behind your favourite wine? This fermented beverage has long been an important part of Australia's social and cultural history, used for ceremonial, medicinal and celebratory purposes.
Apr 20, 2021•29 min
The Kitchen Table — Salt
Behind your humble shaker of table salt lies a curious and industrious history
Apr 13, 2021•29 min
The Kitchen Table - Tea
By the turn of the twentieth century Australians were the world’s most obsessive tea drinkers. Four cups with a meal wasn’t uncommon. Where did this insatiable thirst start? and did it ever really stop? A story about Australia's tea drinking history, and the beverage that keeps us brewing
Apr 06, 2021•29 min
The Little Sparrow - the ASIO spy inside the Communist Party
In the early 1950s Adelaide housewife Anne Neill made a life-changing decision: she joined the Communist Party of Australia, and ended up travelling behind the Iron Curtain and befriending KGB spy Vladimir Petrov. But what did this extraordinary woman truly believe in?
Mar 30, 2021•29 min
The story of Kevin 'the Head' Brennan: Bondi surfing legend
The story of 1960s surfing legend Kevin Brennan charts a young man's path to fame and to premature obscurity set against the backdrop of Sydney's Bondi Beach.
Mar 23, 2021•29 min
The Lost Boys of Daylesford
On a clear cold Sunday morning in June 1867, three little boys wandered away from their home near the town of Daylesford, on Dja Dja Wurrung country in central Victoria. Over the next six weeks the boys’ story gripped the colony.
Mar 16, 2021•29 min
The harder they fall - stories of life and death in the South East Forests of NSW
Immerse yourself in the sounds and histories of the old growth forests; from logging to woodchipping, protesting and preserving.
Mar 09, 2021•35 min
The Train is Back
The Overland is a train whose tracks were once plagued by both squabbling and pandemic. But it is back, although both the plague and the squabbling still exist.
Mar 02, 2021•29 min
Who was Jimmy Possum?
There’s a mystery surrounding the elegant and ingenious Jimmy Possum chairs that were made 130 years ago in Tasmania. Did their maker live in a tree trunk? Did he even exist? Claudia Taranto goes in search of the real Jimmy Possum and learns about the enduring power of a good story.
Feb 23, 2021•29 min
Windradyne's forgotten war
In 1824, the British waged war against the Wiradjuri people of western NSW. It was known as the Bathurst War and it shook the new colony. But many Australians have never heard of it, or of the heroic Wiradjuri warrior, Windradyne. The town is now remembering this history.
Feb 16, 2021•29 min
Australia's greatest miscarriage of justice? The Croatian Six - part two
In 1979 a man named Vico Virkez gave a surprise tip off that would lead to one of the longest criminal trials, and some say, the greatest miscarriage of justice, in Australian history.
Feb 09, 2021•29 min
Australia's greatest miscarriage of justice? The Croatian Six - part one
The story of six Croatian Australian men who were incarcerated for 15 years for crimes they say they never committed. 40 years later, new evidence has been found in their favour.
Feb 02, 2021•29 min
Diamond Jack, Smirnov and the Pelikaan
A wild ride involving a Russian flying ace, an escape from Java in World War 2, and a missing package of diamonds.
Jan 26, 2021•31 min
Spies, lies and hairdryers - How a single mum became a double agent in Cold War Australia
In the 1950s a romantic proposition by a Russian diplomat transformed Kay Marshall from an admin worker into one of Australia’s most important double agents. It was the beginning of a four-year intelligence operation which revealed that there was more going on at the Soviet Embassy than met the eye.
Jan 19, 2021•29 min
Manuscripts Don't Burn: The Master and Margarita
Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov’s most famous novel, The Master and Margarita, was written during the brutal 1930s Stalinist purges. It's become a cult classic, inspiring artists like Patti Smith and the Rolling Stones. Find out why.
Jan 12, 2021•29 min
Heavenly and demonic: the story of the saxophone
Find out why, in its relatively short history, one instrument has offended ideologues, drawn the ire of dictators, and been reviled and outlawed.
Jan 05, 2021•29 min
Two spoons — the general who plotted to kill Hitler
A little known assassination attempt against Hitler cast its shadow over a family in Sweden. Johan Gabrielsson digs deep into the family vault and discovers the complicated truth about one of his distant relatives.
Dec 29, 2020•29 min
Tupaia, star navigator
In 1768 when James Cook sailed from Tahiti looking for the great southern land, Tupaia, a traditional Polynesia navigator was on board. His knowledge proved invaluable to Cook and his sailing skills astounded the crew. What role did Tupaia actually play in the voyage and why haven't we heard heard about him?
Dec 22, 2020•29 min
Experiment street — the true history of a city lane
It's the early 1900's in Sydney. Fictional Pyrmont resident and neighbourhood gossip Lizzie Absalom tells what really went on in those back lanes.
Dec 15, 2020•30 min
Silence at the sugar mill
Every family has a secret, the saying goes. But the Ninnes family had a big one. It wasn't until eldest daughter Mae was 80 years old that she began to talk. And the skeletons came out of the cupboard. In this program Mae's daughter Lesley searches for answers to the silence and the secrecy of her mother's childhood.
Dec 08, 2020•29 min
Clutha 1970 - the biggest battle over coal you’ve never heard of
A huge coal project by a foreign company. Environmentalists concerned about the impacts. A government talking about jobs. Sound familiar? But this battle happened 50 years ago, when a small group waged a David–and-Goliath campaign against a coal terminal planned for the coast south of Sydney.
Dec 01, 2020•29 min
Australia and the rise of terrorism; a tale of this century
The September 11th attacks in the United States by Al Qaeda changed the way western countries perceived the threat of terrorism. Before the events of 2001, Australia had no national terrorism laws. But fifteen years later it would have more terror-related laws in place than any other comparable nation.
Nov 24, 2020•33 min