ABC Rewind

Fifty years ago, in the early hours of Christmas Day 1974, Cyclone Tracy killed 66 people and decimated the city of Garramilla/Darwin. Afterwards more than 30,000 residents were evacuated, many never returning to Darwin. Writing down memories of the event helped some survivors of the cyclone process the experience. Hear a handful of these stories, set in crumbling houses, airborne cars, a busy restaurant and an overcrowded hospital, all set to the terrifying real-life soundtrack of Cyclone Tracy.(image courtesy of the NT Archive : LANT LJ Adams NTRS 3129 P2, item 1 Caption "Chris Adams looking at Cyclone Tracy destruction, 26 December 1974")

It’s the early 1900s and a gang of men moves through the gritty streets of inner-city North Melbourne: they dress sharp and inspire fear wherever they go. This gang, the Crutchy Push ruled the streets of North Melbourne over a ten year period, from late 1890s. And the reason for their curious name? All the members of this gang were amputees: mostly one-legged, and they used a crutch - and not just for walking!To mark the International Day for People With Disability, Melbourne-based writer and disability advocate Kaitlyn Blythe digs up the little-known story of the gang and its’ charismatic leader Valentine Keating, and explores how it busts a lot of myths about disabled people in Australian history.Guests:Brendan GleesonTansy BradshawReadings - Toby Truslove Credits:Producer - Kaitlyn BlytheSound design and production - Matthew CrawfordSupervising Producer - Michelle Rayner

It’s March 25th, 1999, and Australia’s most remarkable prison escape has just taken place, after a helicopter hovers above the recreation grounds at the Silverwater maximum security prison, in Sydney. In the blink of an eye, a prisoner runs towards the chopper, climbs onboard, and is on his way to freedom.This is the story of that airborne escapee, John Killick, a man who spent much of his life leading the authorities on a merry dance. Somehow he survived his dangerous escapades and many prison stints.Today, in his early 80s, John is a writer, a public speaker. and a counsellor to ex-crims.Credits:Producer: Brian McKenzieSound Engineer: Tim Symonds

In a shocking and brutal end to a colourful life, Australian wallpaper designer Florence Broadhurst was murdered in her Paddington studio on the 15th of October, 1977. So who was suspected of this crime and why is the case still unsolved to this day? Please listen with care - this episode contains graphic content. Guests:Tony Russell – Former NSW Police officer Helen O’Neill – Journalist and author, Florence Broadhurst: her secret and extraordinary lives Mark Whittaker – Journalist and author, Granny killer: the story of John Glover Babette Hayes OAM – Interior designer Vincent Jones – VP Sales & Licensing, Asia-Pacific, Centa IP David Lloyd-Lewis – Grandson of Florence Broadhurst Credits:Producer – Zoe Ferguson Engineer – Simon Branthwaite Executive Producer – Michelle Rayner

She’s one of Australia’s most prolific and popular designers, and yet not many people know her name, let alone her audacious life story. Florence Broadhurst was from regional Queensland but people who met her later in life, thought she was English aristocrat. She reinvented herself many times throughout her life. Today she’s known for her wallpaper designs that cemented her in Australian design history. But a shadow lingers over her legacy; her unsolved murder in 1977.Guests:Helen O’Neill – Journalist and author, Florence Broadhurst: Her secret and extraordinary lives Dr Andrew Field – Associate Professor of Chinese History, Duke Kunshan University Babette Hayes OAM – Interior designer David Lennie – Screen printer, Signature Prints Sheridan Black – Owner, Signature Handprints Tony Russell – Former NSW Police officer David Lloyd-Lewis – Grandson of Florence Broadhurst Laura Doble – Interior design graduateCredits:Producer – Zoe Ferguson Engineer – Simon Branthwaite Executive Producer – Michelle Rayner

When superannuation pioneer Mavis Robertson was in her seventies, she was showered with awards and honours. But something was missing from the life story shared with the public at this time: the more than 30 years she spent as a leading member of the Communist Party of Australia. Historian Alice Garner and Mavis's son Peter Robertson delve into this part of his mother's life, including her extensive ASIO security file.

An entire school is kidnapped at gunpoint. 9 students and their teacher are taken hostage by a prison escapee who demands a ransom of 7 million dollars, the release of 17 prisoners, 100 kilos of cocaine, automatic weapons, and an escape vehicle.

After World War Two, around 650 Japanese war brides crossed once enemy lines to make a home in Australia, at a time when the White Australia Policy still held sway. But 50 years on, how do the grandchildren of the Japanese war brides understand their family story?

The Martha Plan was a secret scheme created in the early 1960's to bring unmarried Spanish women to Australia, in the hope that they'd stay and populate the country. Did it work?

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?

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.

Where did Jack Karlson learn the lines he delivers in his famous viral video? This moving story of the prison playwright and the performer unravels why Jack uttered those now infamous words “This is democracy manifest.”

Who is the man behind Australia’s most iconic internet meme, who famously said “This is democracy manifest”?

59-year-old Ingrid was in her office one day when her phone rang. It was the German Red Cross. They asked if she was Ingrid von Oelhafen? Also known as Erika Matko? It was the call she’d waited for her whole life and it opened the door to a terrible secret from one of Nazi Germany’s sickest experiments. Who was she? And where was she from?

Ingrid von Oelhafen’s childhood in post-WW2 Germany was full of strange events - her mother inexplicably left her in a children’s home for five years, her doctor called her by another name. It took her decades to discover the horrific truth - a secret that led straight back to the highest powers of the Nazi regime.

The Kangaroo dog is unique to Australia. It's a mystery dog with a big story.Born in the early Sydney colony, this deerhound-greyhound mongrel dog was bred to hunt and kill kangaroos.

Swimmer Siobahn Paton won multiple medals at the Sydney 2000 games but her dreams were shattered when athletes in a different sport cheated spectacularly. Louise Sauvage delves into the controversy of classification along with the heightened visibility and respect the Games have brought to all people with disabilities.

Join wheelchair racing legend Louise Sauvage for the fascinating evolution of The Paralympics, from life-saving rehabilitation for World War 2 soldiers to today’s elite sporting event.

The mysterious tale of rich socialite Margaret Clement, who lived alone in the Gippsland bush in a decaying mansion encircled by waist-deep water. She was known to locals as 'the lady of the swamp' until one day in 1952 Margaret simply vanished.

The story of an epic 3300-kilometre adventure from the Australian desert to the coast. Half way through the race, Illness, flood, fatigue and flies are all taking their toll, as camels and riders push through to the finish line.

It’s April 1988, somewhere near Uluru, and the starter gun fires 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.

Don Dunstan had a dream - a futuristic city to rise out of The Mallee. What went wrong? After years of planning and designing why was it never built?

It's the 1980s, and the first devastating decade of the AIDS pandemic. A young student nurse tests positive for the virus. and this information ends up on the front page of his local newspaper. A tale of fear and prejudice. but also of great courage, and love.

Mercia Masson, one of Australia’s longest serving undercover ASIO agents, spied on her communist friends, while her only daughter remained in the dark.

A clever young street urchin disguises herself as aristocracy. She inconveniently finds herself in a convict cell in Tasmania - but only temporarily. Then it's onto the streets of 1850’s Melbourne to continue her deception.

The public watch the sky above Sydney as a Boeing 707 circles for hours. Fuel running dangerously low. Qantas flight 755 from Sydney to Hong Kong, is threatened by a terrifying phone call. Richard Roxburgh takes a deep dive into the events of that fateful day.On May 26th, Qantas flight 755 takes off on a routine flight from Sydney to Hong Kong. A man called Mr Brown telephones. He wants half a million dollars – or else 'the plane will blow up'.The public watches the sky above Sydney as a 707 circles in a holding pattern for hours. Bomb experts are called in as QF 755’s fuel runs dangerously low.

Is he a baronet or a butcher from Wagga Wagga? Can he claim the estate of an English aristocrat who has been lost at sea?

One of Australia’s craftiest counterfeiters forges two million dollars in his suburban basement in the 1950s. Richard Roxburgh, renowned for playing shady characters on screen, tells the story of Robert Baudin and his brazen ability to make fake money.

Australian history’s littered with con artists. Renowned Australian actor Richard Roxburgh tells the stories of these brazen and downright deviant identities who used their charm and smarts to spy, extort and steal. How did they get away with it? The first episode drops on the 1st of June.

In an unprecedented political move, the Western Australian state government will end logging of native forest. Meet the people who have dedicated their lives to saving these incredible forests.

When India was divided to create Pakistan more than a million people lost their lives. People who were there remember the chaos, violence and moments of kindness of Partition.

In the summer of 1978, Australian narcotics agents intercepted a campervan being unloaded on the Melbourne docks. What they discovered inside the van turned out to be the largest haul of an illicit substance, black hashish, to land on Australian soil at the time. The campervan belonged to two elderly American women tourists, whose overseas holiday odyssey quickly spiralled into a hellish nightmare.

In the summer of 1978, narcotics agents discovered the largest ever haul of illicit drugs to land in Australia, stashed inside a campervan belonging to two elderly American women tourists. But were these women truly drug smugglers or naive puppets in an elaborate plot masterminded by someone else?

Activist and lawyer Michael Mansell has been fighting for Aboriginal rights in Australia for over 50 years. In this episode his daughter Nala Mansell sits down with her father for a conversation about his life on the frontline, and the resilience of palawa identity in lutruwita Tasmania

A story of swagger, bravery, skill and ultimately, friendship, set on the frontline of war

In the second part of the bitter and long-running case known as the Hindmarsh Island bridge affair, the battle heads all the way to the High Court.

Ever wondered how the term "secret women's business" entered the Australian vernacular? 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? Two key High Court cases, 50 years apart, which put this question to the test.

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 be jailed for up to 21 years for having sex with another man in Australia. This is the story of the High Court case that changed that law.

In 1824, the British waged war against the Wiradjuri people of western NSW, a battle that shook the new colony.But many Australians have never heard of this conflict and the heroic Wiradjuri warrior, Windradyne. Two centuries on, this history is being remembered and retold.

Growing up Regina looked totally different from her brothers and sisters, she thought she was adopted. But her mother told her that was only partly true. With just a handful of letters from both her parents Regina starts to dig into her family story and finds a while lot of surprises along the way.

In 1806, Maori chief Te Pahi was gifted a silver medal by Sydney Governor Philip Gidley King. He had come from Aotearoa to establish trade.But the medal then disappeared.Two centuries later, Te Pahi's medal resurfaced – in a Sydney auction house

Minna Muhlen-Schulte knew her surname came from her German grandfather who’d married her Australian grandmother in the 1930s and had lived in Berlin. But she knew very little about her grandparents’ experience during World War Two, except that her grandfather fought on the ‘other’ side, with the German army. So Minna goes in search for her family’s wartime story.

Producer Fiona Pepper had always known her great grandmother died far too young, but until recently, she never knew the full story.

At the height of the Cold War a New Zealand teenager is sent to a hospital in the Soviet Union to grow new fingers on her left hand. Sounds like fiction? This actually happened to Miranda Jakich and she tells her tale on The History Listen.

Hidden family truths are discovered as two sisters follow the trail of their late fathers' secret life.

It's the 19th February 1937, and a Stinson passenger plane leaves Brisbane for a routine flight to Sydney, but it never arrives. Instead, its disappearance sparks one of the most extensive air searches in Australia.

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.

What if the only tool you had to escape from a prisoner-of-war camp in WW1 was a homemade Ouija board? The story of a wild and elegant hoax concocted by two British soldier POWs to hoodwink their captors.