ABC Rewind

A chance discovery of a bag of old photographs leads two Asian-Australian artists, Mayu Kanamori and William Yang, to explore their histories.

In the early years of the twentieth century thousands of poor Chinese workers crossed the seas to a tiny dot in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Christmas Island was rich in phosphate, and when a British owned mine company set up on the island it needed workers. They came to seek their fortune and instead struck tragedy, as most of these men would never return home to China.

In 1824 Hamilton Hume and William Hovell with 6 convicts began an expedition south-west of Sydney into the unknown. Governor Brisbane wanted to find an inland route from Sydney all the way to Bass Strait.The country however was neither unknown nor uninhabited. Hamilton Hume's friendship with and assistance from local Aboriginal groups throughout the journey enabled the opening up of some of the most pristine land in New South Wales and Victoria

The D-Day landings in 1944 involved a lot of planning, deception, and in one case as comedic as it was dangerous, a bloke from Perth. An outlandish wartime caper that ended up on the silver screen.

Ecology didn’t exist in the nineteenth century. So, when, where, and how did it first begin in Australia?

In the 1860s, a group of well-intentioned settlers introduced animals from overseas, hoping they would thrive in Australia. Many did. Too many.

It was the Great Depression in Australia. People dreamt of a paradise, an escape from Nowheresville. And they found it, gathering on the beaches of coastal cities and crowding halls in country towns - to play Hawaiian steel guitar. Historian Robyn Annear discovers what drove thousands of Australians to learn this unlikely instrument?

What if the only tool you had to escape from a WWI Turkish prison camp was a homemade Ouija board?

Daniel Browning presents this special tribute to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, looking at the relationship she had with Australians; from the adoration she was shown in the 1954 tour to her extensive Aboriginal art collection and the way so many Australian women saw her as a role model.Guests: Jane Connors, Historian. Juliet Rieden, Editor-at-large of The Australian Women's Weekly

The story of a stoic, humane and wise man who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The tragic tale of a man sent to a detention camp where he was surrounded by his political enemies.

The story of one man's mind-bendingly long kayak journey that lead to an Australian Detention camp in World War 2.

This story is set on Worimi and Biripi country in the year 1894 The avid colonial botanist Joseph Maiden is making a trip through the forests around the NSW towns of Stroud and Gloucester, recording every tree, leaf, and plant he encounters in meticulous detail in his journal. 130 years later historian Jodi Frawley re-traces Maiden's journey, using his original records as a guide.

The little known story of perhaps the greatest endurance feat in Antarctic history. The survival of Robert Falcon Scott's Northern Party in the winter of 1912.

Britta Jorgensen grew up hearing many tales about her great Uncle Keith Byson, whose life sounded like something out of a children's story book - that he was a hermit who lived in a shack on a deserted island in the Great Barrier Reef, warding off strangers with a wooden shotgun, and who got around in his underwear. Years after his death Britta heads to her uncle's island home, to try and sort out the truth from the tall tales

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

On the night Dai Le was elected to Federal Parliament as an Independent she was remembering being a frightened 10 years old, out in the open sea, escaping Vietnam in a boat. For The History Listen Dai returns to the place she first landed, Hong Kong, looking for traces of the refugee camp where she lived, worked in factories and like so many thousands, waited for a visa to The West.

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.

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

From the very first night that ABC television beamed into loungerooms around Australia, it offered audiences live drama, initially plays and then serials. The story of the generation of pioneers who helped to create a new art form, shake off the cultural shackles of England, and pave the way for the Australian television which went on to conquer the world.

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, 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?

Were you at the Wanda gig in 1982? It's forty years since Triple J hosted a free outdoor concert on Sydney's Wanda Beach, where a massive crowd turned up to see the bands whose music defined an era, and who changed the sound of Australian rock forever

How did the largest deaths in custody site in Australia become a tourist mecca?

The dark history of Western Australia’s idyllic holiday playground.

In 1979 a man named Vico Virkez gave a surprise tip off that would lead to one of the longest criminal trials, and some say, the greatest miscarriage of justice, in Australian history.

The story of six Croatian Australian men who were incarcerated for 15 years for crimes they say they never committed.40 years later, new evidence has been found in their favour.

Diaries from two voyages to Sydney aboard the famous Scottish clipper, Samuel Plimsoll.It was a perilous time to be at sea. Disease and fever spread through the ship.Both journeys ended prematurely at Sydney's North Head quarantine station.

The Australian instrument that shaped the sound of the 1980s and forever changed how popular music was made

Sister Edith Blake’s gripping story, from her training in Sydney to nursing Australian soldiers in Gallipoli, to her tragic death in English waters where Germany had promised the safe passage of hospital ships.

Lake Pedder, in Tasmania’s vast south-west region, was known for its pink quartzite beach, its pristine waters, and its rugged beauty. 50 years ago, it became the site for one of the fiercest conservation battles ever seen in Australia

Australia's least remembered migrant camp for 'unsupported' mothers.

Working on the Sydney Harbour Bridge isn't for the fainthearted. Angela Heathcote’s dad Kelly told her adventurous tales of working up high on the famous arches. Years after his passing she meets more of the men and women who brave; the elements, the larrikinism, the fireworks and the brushes with death to maintain this Sydney icon.

In 1904, William Ah Ket became Australia’s first Chinese barrister. He went on to fight racist laws and social prejudice in and out of court.

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.

Forty years ago Australian women weren't fighting for equal pay, they were fighting for an equal right to work. This is the story of our nation's largest class action claim, instigated by a group of blue-collar women against the company known as The Big Australian.

The uplifting story of the Baby Memorial at Adelaide's West Terrace cemetery.

Comedian David Rose digs into the archives and discovers a very personal story: about a life lived on stage, the parallels of history, and a surprising family legacy which dates all the way back to the music hall era

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.

A journey back to the mean streets of Brisbane in the 1920’s with feisty private detective – Mrs Kate Condon.

The continuation of the amazing story of the first woman to sail around the world.

The amazing story of the first woman to sail around the world.

Ngarrindjeri elder Major Sumner tells the tale of two men from the opposite ends of Adelaide society at the turn of the twentieth century. The fates of fringe-dweller Tommy Walker and State Coroner William Ramsay Smith entwined and ultimately exposed what was really going on in the mortuaries, gaols, medical schools and graveyards of South Australia at that time.

In the early 1950s Adelaide housewife Anne Neill made a life-changing decision: she joined the Communist Party of Australia, and ended up travelling behind the Iron Curtain and befriending KGB spy Vladimir Petrov. But what did this extraordinary woman truly believe in?

Dyarubbin, the mighty Hawkesbury River, winds its way along the foot of the Blue Mountains, around the north western rim of Sydney’s Cumberland Plain. Settlement along the river, like much of Australia’s history, has been told from a colonial perspective. We hear from Darug knowledge holders about their long and enduring relationship with this country, and the river they know as Dyarubbin

A wild ride involving a Russian flying ace, an escape from Java in World War 2, and a missing package of diamonds.

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.

Where does the life of Australian poet and writer Eve Langley end and her fiction begin?

The statue of Western Australia's first governor, Captain James Stirling, in central Perth is hard to miss; there's also a mountain range, a suburban municipality and even a school named after him. But as the state looks towards its bicentenary in 2029, new questions are being asked about James Stirling, including his involvement in frontier violence and in the British slave trade. How should he be remembered?