ABC Rewind

With his hands deep in the West Australian government ‘s coffers, a chance meeting with a man named Tiny could spell the beginning of the end for Alan ‘Bondy’ Bond. The Black Monday stock market crash sends shock waves through the world economy, threatening to turn Bondy’s business empire upside down. With everything on the line, Bond needs to act fast but his recklessness catches the attention of his enemies, who seize the opportunity to bring him down. This is episode 4 of a 6-part history podcast series for ABC Rewind from Radio National and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Diamonds, mansions and mistresses, Bondy has been living the high life, but his ruthless pursuit of success begins to have devastating consequences for his marriage to Eileen. After his win in the America’s Cup banks lend Bond billions and he’s doing deals with the likes of Donald Trump. But his true character is revealed when he becomes a beer baron and ruins the lives of people on the edge of his empire. This is episode 3 of a 6-part history podcast series from ABC Rewind for Radio National and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

As his yacht crosses the finish line of The America’s Cup and sails into history, the world holds its breath, but does Alan Bond have an ulterior motive when he enters this race? Bondy infuriates the Yanks with his radical boat design and brazen attitude. But combined with a crack crew and heaps of underdog energy, the Aussies' are in Newport Rhode Island to win. This is episode 2 of a 6-part history podcast series from ABC Rewind for Radio National and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Determined to make his first million before his 21st birthday, Alan Bond's questionable business ethics ruffle feathers in small-town Fremantle and earn him a reputation as an audacious English upstart. Shaped by his deprived childhood in post-war Britain, Bondy develops the gift of being able to sell anything to anyone. In his new home of Perth WA his rapid rise from juvenile delinquent to property developer is astonishing. This is episode 1 of a 6-part history podcast series from ABC Rewind for Radio National and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

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?

In 1836, the convict ship the Moffatt left Portsmouth harbour in England to travel halfway around the world to the colony of NSW. On board were eighteen convicts from the West Indies, including former slaves William Buchanan and Richard Holt. Jamaica born, Sydney based author Sienna Brown goes on a deep dive into the archives to uncover the little known history of these men, and their lives in Australia.

In the lead up to Christmas 1986, a battle was fought on the streets, in the hospital wards, and on the tram lines around Melbourne. Nurses, trained to care for the sick with no complaint or question, had had enough. Tired of overcrowded wards, poor pay and lack of career opportunity, they decided to take matters into their own hands.

For most of its life, the Art Gallery of NSW was dank and dingy. In the 1970s, there was no air conditioning or electric lights in its exhibition spaces. A short history of this institutions' amazing transformation.

Nazi collaborator is a label that still resonates in Belgium 75 years after the end of the Second World War. Peter Lenaerts grew up listening to his grandmother’s stories, about her brother Paul and how, one night in September 1944, he was dragged out of bed and nearly killed by an angry mob, about her brother Bert, who volunteered and fought in the horrors of the Eastern Front. Peter’s intrigued and goes digging in the archives to understand why his family took one side in the war and what happened to them because of that decision. He discovers that in war it’s never a simple story of winners and losers.

In 1899 two thousand people attended the funeral of an African-American banjo player in Sydney. Who was he? How did he come to be in Australia and why was he so loved? Stéphanie Kabanyana Kanyandekwe tells the story of Hosea Easton, along with the history of minstrel music and the banjo, in Australia and the United States.

History, tragedy, and triumph. Marrickville’s Henson Park is an icon of Sydney's inner west. But before the unshakable Newtown Jets footy fans called it home, the community oval was a giant hole in the ground supplying Sydney's building boom. When at least nine children drowned at the site, council took charge and began to dream big. It paid off for them when their hidden suburban park wound up on the world stage.

'I can do things no woman ever did before in the history of the circus business.' May Wirth

There's a brutal history behind the imposing walls of Melbourne's Pentridge prison, stretching from 1851 right up until its closure in 1997. Today there's a playground, supermarket, cinema and apartments on site – but not everyone's happy about it. Those who know Pentridge best offer their answers to a difficult question: how should you treat a site with such a violent past?

With nothing to lose, Raymond Denning escapes Grafton prison in a rubbish bin. He has help from prisoner rights groups and an agenda to raise awareness about police corruption. The man-hunt for Denning turns farcical when he uses the media to make the police look foolish.

The story of one of Australia's most misunderstood criminals. After a traumatic childhood, Raymond Denning jumps from juvenile detention to jail. When an escape attempt goes wrong, a prison warder is critically injured and the finger is pointed at Denning. As his treatment within the correctional system deteriorates Denning begins to find his voice.

Have writers been imprisoned in Australia for their work? Most definitely and PEN has worked to have them freed. In this history of PEN in Australia Arnold Zable tells the story of Cheikh Kone, a journalist from the Ivory Coast who was detained in Port Hedland and writer Behrouz Boochani detained on Manus Island. As well as the letters members of PEN have written to imprisoned writers around the world, like those in Myanmar, to tell them that they are not alone. I am a stranger to you but please know that you are no stranger to me – Maria Tumarkin in a letter to Kylie Moore-Gilbert, an Australian writer detained in Iran until recently.

Writers go to prison for the courageous pursuit of their craft and PEN has been working to get them out. Melbourne writer Arnold Zable tells the story of PEN International - from its creation out of the scars of World War 1 to bring societies together through their literature, to its growing human rights work across the globe, protecting freedom of speech and supporting imprisoned writers. If you don’t know the truth you can’t act – Jennifer Clements - President of PEN International

How a South Australian geologist named Reg Sprigg helped solve Charles Darwin's dilemma

When a Norwegian container ship - the MV Tampa – rescued 438 asylum seekers from a sinking boat on August 26, 2001 who was to know the political fallout it would leave in its wake?

We travel to the west coast of Tasmania, to meet the mining communities who carry on a rich cultural tradition of storytelling in poetry and song.

On the 100th anniversary of Sydney's Archibald portrait prize, artist Wendy Sharpe takes a look at some its most controversial moments.

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.

In the Cold War winter of July 1971 ALP leader Gough Whitlam made an audacious trip to Beijing. This is the story of the events, 50 years ago, that turned Australia towards communist China.

Early in 2020, a vegetarian version of the iconic Four’N Twenty meat pie hit service stations around the country. For lifelong vego Carly Godden, this re-imagining of an Aussie classic was a sign - vegetarianism had finally gone mainstream.

One soldier's incredible World War II escape story through southern Europe. Why haven't Australian's heard more about the heroic ANZAC campaign in Greece? ON the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Tempe Gorge, the story is revealed.

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

Martin Orne was one of the leading psychologists of the 20th century, his specialty was the science of hypnosis. In the 1960s, his scientific method brought him to the University of Sydney, and it's world respected psychology faculty. Unbeknownst to his Australian researchers, however, Professor Orne was being secretly funded by the CIA, in their Cold War quest to control the human mind.

The whip played a central role in the development of Australia. What can it tell us about our society today?

The refreshing beverage that revolutionised the law.

An envelope is a humdrum communications device – except when it’s full of misinformation, tucked into the pocket of a dead man, and dropped by a submarine off the coast of wartime Spain.

The story of how the humble cup of tea came to represent a ruthless British Empire.

How did one long, skinny strip of paper plunge the world into the worst global economic downturn history had ever seen?

The story of the train carriage which propelled the globe from WWI, straight into WWII.

This special podcast extra episode tells the story of the world's most powerful, imaginary telephone.

This pistol lies at the centre of one of history's most famous duels - Hamilton Vs. Burr.