ABC Rewind

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 soli...

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..

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.

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.

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 Lorrain...

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 Austral...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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..

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.

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

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 

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 ho...

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.

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.

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.

It’s 6 weeks into this epic 3300-kilometre adventure, and competitors face the longest leg of the race, across the Simpson Desert and into Queensland.  The stakes are high, as they battle illness, flood, fatigue and flies, in the push towards the finish line on the Gold Coast, and call themselves the winner?

It’s April 1988, somewhere near Uluru, and the starter gun kicks off one of the strangest, most audacious events to mark Australia's bicentennial year, the Great Australian Camel Race. People came from all around the world to take part in a feat which spanned over 3000km, as camels and humans endured scorching heat, flooding rains and serious sickness that almost sent the race belly-up.

It's time to rethink the spices in your pantry. The long trade in clove and nutmeg lead to colonisation, but long before the Europeans arrived, it helped define the language, culture, religion and geography of Indonesia.

What's the story behind your favourite wine? This fermented drink has long been an important part of Australia's social and cultural history, used for ceremonial, medicinal and celebratory purposes.

Behind your humble shaker of table salt lies a curious and industrious history

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