Show overview
No One Saw It Coming launched in 2025 and has put out 59 episodes in the time since. That works out to roughly 20 hours of audio in total. Releases follow a weekly cadence.
Episodes typically run twenty to thirty-five minutes — most land between 25 min and 26 min — and the run-time is fairly consistent across the catalogue. None of the episodes are flagged explicit by the publisher. It is catalogued as a EN-language History show.
The show is actively publishing — the most recent episode landed 5 days ago, with 19 episodes already out so far this year. Published by ABC Australia.
From the publisher
The bit players, the unexpected twists, the turning point you missed. Join Walkley award-winner Marc Fennell as he uncovers the incredible moments that changed the course of history. New episodes out Tuesday.
Latest Episodes
View all 59 episodesBeware gifts from Soviet spies
The Met Gala began in a dead woman’s closet
The telegram that caught a killer
Clogged sink doomed a space mission
Ancient Greek built a steam engine for dinner parties
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) the story of how one man’s spinning little gadget went on to power the modern world.Binge all the episodes of No One Saw It Coming now on ABC listen (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.Get in touch:Got a story for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]
She gave her son smallpox. Her bet paid off.
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 the scientific establishment and helped spark a medical revolution.Binge all the episodes of No One Saw It Coming now on ABC listen (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.Get in touch:Got a story for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]
Cocaine wine: The Pope’s energy drink
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 the precursor to a product that millions of people around the world - including children - drink every day. Binge all the episodes of No One Saw It Coming now on ABC listen (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.Get in touch:Got a story for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]
A horse race and a murderer invented cinema
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 photography, and she tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) the story of Eadweard Muybridge and how his photographs of a horse race stopped time, helped the world understand motion, and created the moving image. Binge all the episodes of No One Saw It Coming now on ABC listen (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.Get in touch:Got a story for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]
Starving for freedom: The prison death that changed Ireland
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 independence and how food, pride and prison would reshape the future of Ireland and the British Empire.Binge all the episodes of No One Saw It Coming now on ABC listen (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.Get in touch:Got a story for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]
Let slaves dance: The secret of New Orleans jazz
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 Sakakeeny is Department Chair and Associate Professor of Music, Ethnomusicology from Tulane University. He sits down with Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) to chart this fascinating history of a music genre that’s gone on to become a cultural force felt around the world. Binge all the episodes of No One Saw It Coming now on ABC listen (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.Get in touch:Got a story for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]
She faked insanity. Then became a star.
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 and made her a household name.Binge all the episodes of No One Saw It Coming now on the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.Get in touch:Got a story for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]
The mafia bar riot that sparked gay pride
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 that started the Stonewall Riots. The veteran activist and journalist, one of the last living eyewitnesses to the Stonewall uprising, tells host Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole) about what really happened that night and how it sparked the first Pride march and launched the gay rights movement not just in America but around the world.Binge all the episodes of No One Saw It Coming now on ABC listen (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.Get in touch:Got a story for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected] episode was first published in September 2025
The royal roots of French fries
‘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. She tells Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole) how the history of the humble potato is really a history of empire; a story that can be traced through the jungles of the Americas, to a Prussian prison, through the fields of Ireland, and to a fateful dinner party where Queen Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI were guests and turned the potato from a suspicious root vegetable into a fashion icon and culinary hit. Get in touch:Got a story for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected] episode was first published in April 2025.
Three words brought down the Berlin Wall
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 a routine press conference.Dr Katrin Schreiter is a Senior Lecturer in German and History at Kings College London and she has a deeply personal connection to this story. She tells Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole) that while powerful men have been credited with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the true heroes were everyday men and women. Get in touch:Got a story for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected] episode was first published in May 2025.
The art heist that made the Mona Lisa famous
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 tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) about one of art history’s most sensational crimes and its patriotic perpetrator.Get in touch:Got a story for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected] This episode was first published in April 2025.
The colony that broke Scotland (and made Great Britain)
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 Scotland, deepened economic despair, and indirectly paved the way for the 1707 Act of Union with England, arguably changing the course of British history.Binge all the episodes of No One Saw It Coming now on the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.Get in touch:Got a story for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]
The Hollywood femme fatale who invented wi-fi
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 Trinity College Dublin, tells Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole) about how Hedy Lamarr invented the foundations of wi-fi and why it took decades for it to be a part of her legacy.Binge all the episodes of No One Saw It Coming now on the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.Get in touch:Got a story for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]
The ballet that caused a riot and changed music
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 went on to change music forever.Binge all the episodes of No One Saw It Coming now on the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.Get in touch:Got a story for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]
The Forgotten Female Codebreakers of WWII
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 codebreakers and how they secured the Allies’ victory in the Pacific, only to be lost in history... until now. Binge all the episodes of No One Saw It Coming now on the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.Get in touch:Got a story for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]
Time is Chaos. The Calendar Tries (And Fails) to Fix That.
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 ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.Get in touch:Got a story for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]