The Benalla Experiment - a camp for mothers and children
The little known story of migrant camp that was home to over 60,000 people - single mothers and their children - in the years after World War II.
Oct 29, 2023•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
Fairlight CMI - the instrument of musical change
This is the story of - and the soundtrack to - one of the most influential instruments of the last 50 years. Meet the creators of the Fairlight, the super stars that used it and learn the tricks of the music production trade along the way.
Oct 21, 2023•32 min
Asbestos — Dusted 03 | The human cost of mining in Australia
Asbestos was once known as the wonder mineral. It's now banned in Australia. But before that happened, companies kept making and selling asbestos products despite mounting evidence of its deadly dust. Dusted, the human cost of mining in Australia is presented by Van Badham.
Oct 12, 2023•29 min
Coal — Dusted 02 | The human cost of mining in Australia
When a vast coal seam was found running through the escarpment around Wollongong it seemed that this beautiful place had got lucky. But had it? Van Badham heads back to her hometown and goes ‘on the coal’ with the miners. Dusted, the human cost of mining in Australia is presented by Van Badham.
Oct 06, 2023•29 min
Gold — Dusted 01 | the human cost of mining in Australia
Gold may have made Australia rich, but historians are now digging up evidence of the devastating consequences of the silica dust that surfaced with it. Dusted, the human cost of mining in Australia is presented by Van Badham.
Sep 29, 2023•29 min
Ep 2: The Buried Tea Chests
Hidden for nearly a century, two chests of mail found under a Sydney home was declared to be one of the most important hauls in Australia’s postal history. Why the secrecy? And why has a Sydney family been so shocked by their revelations?
Sep 19, 2023•29 min
Ep 1: The Buried Tea Chests
When journalist Annika Blau learnt of the discovery of two tea chests of very valuable mail under the floorboards of an old Sydney home, she uncovered secrets, silences and shame from a chapter of Australia's history some would prefer to forget.
Sep 15, 2023•29 min
The sands of Ooldea: part 4 Wankani
The story of how the traditional custodians of Ooldea got their sacred water soak back and the healing of the land.
Sep 08, 2023•29 min
The sands of Ooldea: Part 3 Mamu
North west of Ooldea in South Australia's Great Victoria Desert is Maralinga where the British exploded seven nuclear bombs. This episode explores the Cold War politics behind the bomb tests and their ongoing impact on the traditional owners of the land, the Maralinga Tjarutja people..
Sep 01, 2023•32 min
The sands of Ooldea: Part 2 Kabbarli
Ooldea's most famous resident was Daisy Bates, also known as "Kabbarli" or grandmother. She lived at Ooldea for sixteen years in a tent, helping to feed and clothe Aboriginal people, but these days her reputation is very mixed.
Aug 25, 2023•42 min
The sands of Ooldea: Part 1 Yuldi
On the edge of the Nullabor, Ooldea, with its ancient water soak "Yuldi Kapi", is one of the most important Aboriginal sites in Australia. Trading routes and dreaming stories crossed here for thousands of years, but then the transnational railway arrived in 1917.
Aug 18, 2023•32 min
One Tree: In Search of Stradivari's Sibling Violins
Producer David Schulman has been on a quest – he’s been trying to find a single tree. David’s a violinist. And for him, violins aren’t just boxes made of wood – they’re magical objects. With voices and spirits that can seem almost human. Old violins even work as a sort of ‘time machine’ – by the sound they make and by their stories, they carry us back into the past.And it turns out there’s solid science behind this method of time travel.
Aug 11, 2023•28 min
The Missing Magdalens
Magdalene Laundries for "fallen women" date back to 12th century Europe. These were Catholic run institutions to reform "wayward" women known as Magdalens, through strict religious observance and hard work..
Aug 08, 2023•36 min
A vapour of the mind: calling Sidney Jeffryes
The achievements of Sidney Jeffryes, a radio operator on the 1911 Australasian Antarctic Expedition, have been notably missing from the polar records. In an era that celebrated physical heroism, vulnerability was not tolerated.
Aug 01, 2023•30 min
Finding Fanny Finch
What if the most remarkable of all your ancestors was the one left off the family tree? Historian Kacey Sinclair and two of Fanny Finch’s direct descendants reconstruct and reflect on the life and legacy of a goldfields trailblazer, a woman of colour whose story was hidden for generations.
Jul 25, 2023•29 min
Invasion 1975 - the untold story of the Chinese-Timorese
Millie Skoko had never really thought much about her Mum’s side of the family, who are Chinese Timorese, and who came to live in Australia in the early 1970s. Until one day, when she was online, Millie discovered her Grandfather’s former home and building, Toko Lay, in stories about the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, in December 1975. This discovery leads Millie, in tandem with her mum Lorraine, on a quest to uncover the hidden history of the Chinese-Timorese community in Timor-Leste and hea...
Jul 14, 2023•29 min
Visions of the Filipina bride
Growing up in the 1990s, Alan Weedon always wondered why he was one of many kids born to an Australian father and Filipina mother. It was a pattern replicated in the various backyard barbecues and play dates of his youth — where Filipino men were far and few between. Following the tragic death of his mother Jesusita in 2022, Alan, in his grief, decided to trace his Mum's story of coming to Australia. In doing so, he unravelled a great southern migration, where tens of thousands of Filipinas migr...
Jul 10, 2023•29 min
Fanny Smith: Icon
In 1899, twenty-three years after her people were declared ‘extinct’, Fanny Smith made a revolutionary recording where she announced to the world that she was The Last Tasmanian. Far from ‘extinct’, she was a proud Aboriginal woman raising her eleven children and publicly singing and speaking her Pakana language. This is her extraordinary story.
Jul 04, 2023•29 min
Laya's Way Home Part 2
In 1945, Adolf Semler, a German World War One hero, was sent to a slave labour camp for refusing to denounce his Jewish wife Laya. In 2022, their great-grandchildren return to Germany to discover a town finally wrestling with the extent of its role in the Nazi regime.
Jun 23, 2023•29 min
Laya's Way Home Part 2
In 1945, Adolf Semler, a German World War One hero, was sent to a slave labour camp for refusing to denounce his Jewish wife Laya. In 2022, their great-grandchildren return to Germany to discover a town finally wrestling with the extent of its role in the Nazi regime.
Jun 23, 2023•29 min
Laya's Way Home Part 1
In 1945, Laya Semler became the last Jew sent to a concentration camp from Wennigsen, Germany. Her non-Jewish husband Adolf chose slave labour rather than abandon her. Theirs is a love story for the ages.
Jun 20, 2023•28 min
Laya's Way Home Part 1
In 1945, Laya Semler became the last Jew sent to a concentration camp from Wennigsen, Germany. Her non-Jewish husband Adolf chose slave labour rather than abandon her. Theirs is a love story for the ages.
Jun 20, 2023•28 min
Spies, lies and hairdryers
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..
Jun 13, 2023•29 min
Through Samurai Eyes, ep 2
When amateur historian Nick Russell stumbled across a set of very old Japanese manuscripts, he unearthed a dramatic tale of convict mutineers, samurai warriors and a hijacked ship, which sheds new light on one of the greatest escape stories in Australian history.
Jun 06, 2023•29 min
Through Samurai eyes: one of Australia's greatest convict escape stories
A dramatic tale featuring pirates, Samurai warriors, a historical detective and a ship of escaped convicts from Australia who washed up in Japan in 1830
May 30, 2023•29 min
Those Bloody Vegos - a short history of vegetarianism
A plant-eating sleuth uncovers the hidden history of vegetarianism in Australia - featuring spiritualists, nudists, and politicians, plus plenty of nutmeat and a vegan dish called Hampstead Cutlets
May 23, 2023•30 min
The Unknown Sailor
A lost ship, A lost sailor, a lost identity. In November 1941 as war drew closer to Australia. the HMAS Sydney and its crew of 645 sailors disappeared off the Western Australian coast after being ambushed by a German raider. Months later the body of a sailor washed up on tiny Christmas Island and was laid to rest by locals. Half a century on this unknown sailor would help unravel the mystery of how the pride of Australia’s navy just vanished.
May 16, 2023•31 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.
May 09, 2023•29 min
Green Mountains Plane Crash
19th February 1937, a Stinson passenger plane leaves Brisbane for a routine flight to Sydney, but never it arrives. Instead, its disappearance sparks one of the most extensive air searches in Australia.
May 02, 2023•29 min
Edie's War
When Penny Bristol Jones inherited a battered trunk full of family documents and memorabilia, little did she know the rich wartime history she would uncover. In amongst the bounty was a collection of diaries and letters written by Penny’s great grandmother Edie Digby, during the First World War, while her husband and two sons were away at the front.
Apr 25, 2023•29 min
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