ABC Rewind

Salleh Ben Joned is a witty, fearless and charismatic poet and writer that some have called the ‘bad boy of Malaysian literature’. Come on a wild ride through his life and times with his eldest daughter Anna, starting with the influential decade he spent in Australia as a young Colombo Plan scholar.

It's 20 years since Sydney hosted the Olympics, and one of the most memorable parts of the 2000 games was the torch relay. This story follows the journey of the flame, from the red dirt country of Uluru to the suburbs of Sydney, hearing the tales and memories that it fuelled along the way.

The music of Johann Sebastian Bach is a lifetime companion for many violinists. And in our time of Covid-19 isolation, his Six Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin have taken on a new resonance. These pieces are spiritual, virtuosic, joyful - and enigmatic.

There’s a number going around audio-visual archivist circles, that has many of them worried: 2025. Magnetic tape — from reel-to-reel, to cassettes and VHS — that is not digitised by 2025 might be lost forever.

Through the chance finding of an old German book in an antiquarian bookshop we discover the life and work of Elisabeth Krämer-Bannow, an artist and ethnographer who explored New Ireland in 1908.

A cavalcade of Japanese Prisoners of War, in makeshift 'cages' on the back of utes and small trucks, makes its way across dusty western NSW. Tension in Hay ramps up, peaking on one long night of drama when it appears the POWs are making another escape attempt.

The mysterious war-time drowning of a young woman in the Murrumbidgee River leads Ann Arnold on a trail of drama and suspense, from the Torres Strait to the outback.

In the 1950s a romantic proposition from 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.

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.

Nah Doongh's story tells of a life that was lost and found; a life that spanned the entire 19th century and bore witness to the colonisation of Australia. It is also a story of love, loss and one woman’s tenacity to die on the land on which she was born.

In 1977, the New Zealand government passed the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act which made it virtually impossible for a woman to legally terminate an unwanted pregnancy. Enter the group known as the Sisters Overseas Service (SOS); this is their little known story.

What happens when a small town puts the word "massacre" on an historical monument?

Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov’s most famous novel, The Master and Margarita, was written during the brutal 1930s Stalinist purges. It has become a cult classic; inspiring artists like Patti Smith and the Rolling Stones we ask why.

Cold war Australia 1949. The enemy was everywhere, and according to many the country was in extreme danger. Enter Diver Dobson, and a drama that entertained and enthralled Australians as they navigated an uncertain decade.

What would it take to bring home the 43 Australian servicemen still missing from the Korean War?

A soap opera about soap starring the Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis.

An extra episode in the series about High Court cases which have changed Australia. Series producer Jane Lee unpicks the origins and uses of Section 51(26) of the Australian Constitution, which gives the federal parliament the power to make special laws for a particular race of people.

In the second part of the long running and divisive case known as the Hindmarsh Island bridge affair, the battle heads inside the High Court.

Ever wondered how the term "secret women's business" entered the Australian lexicon? It's part of a bitter legal battle over land, culture and history in South Australia.

How much power does the federal government have to protect Australians from international threats?

The High Court showdown over religious freedom that could help you understand how schools are funded to this day.

It might surprise you to learn that until 1997, a man could go to jail for up to 21 years for having sex with another man in Australia.

Acoustic Views by Bill Fontana and produced for radio by Andrew McLennan was a sound sculpture realized through eight giant speakers on the roof of the Art Gallery of New South Wales during the 1988 Sydney Biennale. Bill Fontana's idea was to associate sounds with the distant places that could be viewed from the art gallery, "to create a situation in which visitors to the Art Gallery could hear as...

Imaging the Forest by Andrew McLennan. A journey through Australian forests. From the Nullarbor Plain to the Arctic Beech Forests of the New England National Park, from Maralinga to Timber Town, surprising acoustic images of the forest emerge. Meanwhile on the shifting sands of the Central Australian Desert, left sterile from atomic testing, eerie whistling sounds disturb the night air. Somewhere...

Colleagues called him maestro, visionary, experimenter, radio magic man. To long-time close friend, John Bell, he was “Merry Andrew”. This is the story of an unsung legend in Australian broadcasting and radio as you may not have heard it. Andrew McLennan's friends and collaborators speak up.