Forgotten Australia

This week in 1944, Australia's most famous war cameraman — whose film Kokoda Front Line! had won us our first Oscar the previous year — was killed while filming American Marines trying to retake a tin...

11 Sep 202513min

One hundred and thirty years ago this month, Mark Twain, creator of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, and hailed as the world’s funniest man, arrived in Australia for the start of a months-long speaking tour....

8 Sep 202510min

As winter became spring in Australia in 1939, the world stood on the edge of the abyss.Then, on Father's Day, 3 September, everyone's worst fears were confirmed: Australia would once again go to war w...

31 Aug 202511min

180 years ago this month, Australia suffered what is still our worst civil maritime disaster when the emigrant ship Cataraqui struck a reef off King Island and sank in Bass Strait. Of the 409 aboard, ...

29 Aug 202513min

With Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre now flooded, we look back on the first time this happened in white history. Seventy-five years ago, Australia’s driest and most inhospitable region became a huge inland sea ...

27 Aug 202513min

Having enjoyed a trifecta of splashy Sydney skydiving successes, Stanley makes a new start in Melbourne only to learn that disasters come in threes.It’s easy to get a free trial that will give you acc...

24 Aug 202553min

After Stanley Thomas’s rapid rise to parachuting success in Sydney, his career starts to stall with a series of jumps that are erratic and dangerous.*Part Three is available now early and ad-free for ...

21 Aug 202529min

Stanley Thomas was a young parachutist who made himself into a star in Sydney in the early years of the Great Depression. In public, he thrilled with his daredevil stunts. In private, he wrestled the ...

17 Aug 202549min