Rum, Rebels & Ratbags - podcast cover

Rum, Rebels & Ratbags

ABC listen•www.abc.net.au
Society & Culture
History
Rum, Rebels & Ratbags is history not for the faint-hearted. Historian and author of 'Girt' David Hunt and ABC Radio Sydney's Dom Knight uncover the characters and events left out of your high school history class.
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Episodes

Mothers of a nation

Delve into the challenging yet empowering experiences of women in Australia's convict colony, from the grim realities faced by transportees and free settlers to their remarkable social and economic mobility. The episode uncovers how women defied expectations, established businesses, fought for better conditions, and played a pivotal role in Australia becoming a global leader in women's suffrage, despite initial widespread misogyny.

Jun 24, 2015•36 min

Let's call it Macquarie

Lachlan Macquarie was a hard drinking, penny pinching Scottish army officer with syphilis and an impressive history of financial fraud. Yet he became the colony’s most successful governor, erecting new towns and buildings, integrating ex-convicts into society, and naming just about everything Macquarie.

Jun 23, 2015•40 min

The Bounty bastard

William Bligh was an incredible navigator, breadfruit fancier, coconut hoarder, reforming governor and utter bastard. The mutiny prone swear-bear was brought down in Australia’s only military coup by John Macarthur and the Rum Corps, who finished off what Fletcher Christian started.

Jun 22, 2015•28 min

The man who bought Australia

John Macarthur, a.k.a. Bodice Jack, had two favourite things: alcohol and money, both of which came in brown paper bags. Macarthur and the New South Wales Rum Corps ran dodgy land deals, intimidated government officials, stole from the public purse and introduced 'corruption on a scale probably unexceeded until the days of Eddie Obeid'.

Jun 21, 2015•47 min

Bass Straight?

There are more statues of Matthew Flinders in Australia than of any other man. And there are more statues of his cat, Trim, than of any other cat. Flinders circumnavigated and named Australia, discovered that Tasmania was an island, and spent a lot of time in a very small boat with his 'good sailing buddy', George Bass.

Jun 20, 2015•33 min

The Eora ambassador and the rainbow warrior

Australia's Indigenous people dealt with the white ghosts from across the sea in different ways. Bennelong pursued a path of accommodation and was the first Indigenous man to visit England, whilst the warrior Pemulwuy, dressed in his Amazing Technicolor Dreamingcoat, fought a bloody 12-year guerrilla war.

Jun 19, 2015•38 min

Naked and starving

New South Wales' first governor, Arthur Phillip, dreamed of an antipodean utopia. Instead he founded Sydney, a town full of drunk, starving and naked criminals.

Jun 18, 2015•35 min

Tea, taxation, criminals and cannabis

Did you know the colony of Australia only came about because of tea, taxation, criminals ... and cannabis?! And, find out how a cockney hypochondriac whaler ended up as the first Governor of NSW.

Jun 17, 2015•34 min

Australia's worst serial killer

More than 140 years before Captain Cook sighted the Australian coast, Dutch merchant Jeronimus Cornelisz murdered over 120 shipwreck survivors off the coast of WA in a killing spree that makes Lord of the Flies look like Mary Poppins.

Jun 16, 2015•31 min

Sir Joseph Banks, the playboy botanist

Australians might know Banks as 'that plant guy’ but he was actually a wealthy playboy who inspired Star Trek and discovered surfing. Captain Cook just steered the ship for Banks and his groupies.

Jun 15, 2015•30 min
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