No One Saw It Coming

When he got on the train to London, he thought he got away with it. He thought he got away with murder. But little did he know that something was racing alongside the train, pulsing deep underground, that would change his life forever.  Writer and cultural historian Kassia St Clair tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) how a horrific crime changed the way people living in the 1800s viewed t...

It’s 1926 and two men are working in a lab trying to create antifreeze. Instead, they make a thick, black goo that stinks out the lab and blocks the sink.  ABC Science reporter Fiona Pepper tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) about how this black gunk would go on to be used in cars, rockets and spaceships. And ultimately, would be responsible for one of the deadliest space missions in his...

Long before steam trains, before factories, before the Industrial Revolution, someone figured out how to turn steam into motion. And he did it almost two thousand years ago in Ancient Alexandria, and the device he built wasn’t meant to power anything. It was a toy. A party trick. Dr Tatiana Bur, Lecturer in Classics at the Australian National University, tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole...

It was one of the deadliest diseases known to humankind. And just 50 years ago it was officially eradicated. But there’s someone missing from the story of smallpox. A woman whose work was mocked. Who was branded a bad mother. And who helped bring inoculation to the West. Author Jo Willett tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) about how an 18th-century noblewoman ignited a moral panic, split...

If you looked at it, you wouldn’t bat an eyelid, but this red wine had something in it that today could land you in jail. It was drunk and endorsed by presidents, royalty and even popes and made its maker a millionaire.  Dr Tim Madge tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) the story of Vin Mariani, the cocaine-infused wine that was endorsed by royalty, presidents and popes and how it became t...

Before cinema, before Hollywood, before we even understood how to make pictures move, there was a man constantly reinventing himself. He was a bookseller, a photographer, an alleged fraud and eventually, a killer. But in between scandals and aliases, he conducted a strange experiment that would change the way we see the world.  Marta Braun is a renowned expert in 19th century stop-motion photograp...

As the Irish Revolution raged year after year, there was a space that the British didn’t expect to become places of revolution - prisons. Jailed rebels became martyrs and Britain’s grip on Ireland began to weaken, pushing a revolution to boiling point.  Dr William Murphy, Professor in Modern Irish History at Dublin City University, tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) the story of Irish in...

When you put on a jazz record, what do you hear? Beyond the trumpet and the sax of course...  Well etched into that vinyl and living in that music is a long story that dates back 300 years to a dusty public square where slaves would sing and dance. The history of jazz is a long and winding evolution that goes from Congo Square to New Orleans to a Chicago recording studio and beyond. Dr Matt Sakake...

She was put into an insane asylum at the age of 20. Ten days later she was a celebrity and two years later she had cemented a legacy that would last centuries.  But Nellie Bly was not insane. She faked it all. But why? Brooke Kroeger, journalist and emeritus professor at NYU, tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) about Nellie Bly’s career-defining investigation, how it inspired generations...

28 June 1969 was a regular Saturday night at the Stonewall Inn. Until it wasn’t.  “The bar lights blinked on and off. I'd never seen that happen before so I asked my friend what's going on, and my friend said, oh, just another raid. Well, it turned out not to be just the kind of raid that they were used to.” While Mark Segal had spent many nights at the unlicensed gay bar, none were like the one t...

‘Would you like fries with that?’ It’s a question you’ve likely been asked countless times. But what if the only reason French fries are so popular throughout the West today is because of a Queen who lost her head during the French Revolution?  Dr Lauren Samuelsson is an Associate Lecturer at the University of Wollongong where she investigates the history of food, drink, popular culture and gender...

The fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 is one of the most famous events of modern history. And with it came a wave of momentous events - the reunification of East and West Germany, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the end of the Cold War.  But the way it came about is stranger than fiction. The images of people swarming the wall and chipping away at it all came down to a small slip at...

It’s arguably the most famous painting in the world. But back in 1911, the Mona Lisa wasn’t an international icon. So what made the painting so famous it would attract millions of visitors to The Louvre every year?  This is the unbelievable true story of an art heist - one of the 20th century's most audacious art thefts that would turn a masterpiece into a legend. Art historian Mary McGillivray te...

It was meant to be Scotland’s saving grace - a bold plan to build a colony and dominate global trade.  But disease, starvation, and frankly just bad planning was their undoing... and the failed outpost paved the way for a union with their biggest rival. Archaeologist Mark Horton tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) about the story of the Darien Scheme and how the failed venture bankrupted...

She was called the most beautiful woman in the world and was seen as an exotic Hollywood star in the 1930s. But Hedy Lamarr was more than that. She was also an inventor.  During WWII she patented a technology to sink German U-boats. It was ignored and shelved, only to be picked up decades later to and be used every day on our phones and computers. Ruth Barton, Emeritus Professor of Film from Trini...

When you combine Russian ballet, French aristocracy, and a little bit of Walt Disney you get a recipe for a riot and one of the most important musical moments in history. Host of Radio National’s The Music Show, Andrew Ford, sits down at the piano and tells Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole) about why Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring was so confronting that it caused a riot in 1913 and how it w...

As the Second World War raged in the Pacific, there was a team of codebreakers in Australia working around the clock intercepting and deciphering Japanese messages.  It was Australia’s own Bletchley Park, but the team were young, female and worked in a shed. And they called themselves The Garage Girls. Author Alli Sinclair tells Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole) the story of these codebreaker...

From moons to mind bending maths and revolutions, the story of how we got the modern calendar is messy.  Matthew Champion, Associate Professor in History at the University of Melbourne, takes Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole) through time to understand the many iterations of calendars and why the one we use today can still be improved. Binge all the episodes of No One Saw It Coming now on the...

You see it on Christmas cards, in shop windows and at your local church. The nativity scene is everywhere at this time of year.  But the scene you know of Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus in the manger, with some animals around is actually thanks to some mistranslations and a popular saint in the Middle Ages who wanted to imprint the story of the birth of Christ into people’s memory.  Art historian Mary M...

There’s one man you can thank - or curse - for your hand cramp after writing all your Christmas cards. Sir Henry Cole was a ‘dumpy’ Englishman who had too many jobs and not enough time to write back to his friends and family so he created the first Christmas card in 1843. It caused quite the stir, and not exactly in the way he expected.  Author and all-things-Christmas expert Ace Collins tells Mar...

It started as a deadly toxin and became a billion-dollar beauty secret. So how exactly did a poison become the world’s most popular cosmetic fix?  It’s all to do with one man who took a plunge and used it to treat eye spasms, and another who saw its potential in the pursuit of perfection.  Author and former ophthalmologist Dr Eugene Helveston tells Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole) the story...

Over a hundred years ago, some divers jumped into the Mediterranean to look for sponges. Instead, they found ancient treasures. Artefacts, statues, jewellery. And a corroded piece of bronze. Little did they know that lump of metal would be the most valuable of the lot.  Ancient Greek cultural historian Dr Tatiana Bur from the Australian National University tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Sto...

She entered the royal palace as a concubine and became the first and only female emperor of China. She was power hungry, a total operator and if you asked her enemies, a blood thirsty murderer. And her secret weapon to legitimise her rule wasn't just an unwavering belief in herself, but in Buddha.  Historian and author William Dalrymple (Empire, The Golden Road) tells Marc Fennell (Stuff the Briti...

It was a colour once reserved for emperors and the elite. But a lab mishap soon changed purple forever.  Cultural historian and author of the book The Secret Lives of Colour, Kassia St Clair tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) the story of how a London teenager’s failed experiment transformed how fabric dyes were made, how we dressed and how power was perceived. Binge all the episodes of...

There’s that phrase a picture says a thousand words... but what does a picture of child labour say?  Curator, educator, and photo-historian Beth Saunders (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) sits down with Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) to tell the story of photographer Lewis Hine and his photographs of children working in places like factories, coal mines and cotton mills in the ear...