Forgotten Australia
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Forgotten Australia
Bloody crimes, unsolved mysteries, eccentric celebrities, dark events and bizarre happenings: it's all here – the stuff you wish they'd taught you in school!Dive into our strange-but-true history via never-before-told stories, author interviews, weekly flashbacks and the weekly trivia quiz.Forgotten...
Recent Episodes
360 episodes
True Crime Classic Miniseries: Bloody Murder in the Blue Mountains – Part One
A Katoomba hotel. A locked room. Screams in the night and a body in the morning. The mystery of what happened in Australia’s favourite resort town in...
The Bunbury Bombing
Fifty years ago this month – 19 July 1976 – Australia’s first act of environmental terrorism was directed at the Bunnings-owned wood chip export facil...
Talking History – White Death: The American Legend Behind Australia’s Best-Worst Movie
In 1936, western author Zane Grey came Down Under to catch giant sharks and film his adventures. The result was White Death, a so-bad-it’s-good monste...
True Crime Classic – Sydney’s Wildest Woman
While 1950s eccentrics Bea Miles and Rosaleen Norton are well remembered, Luba Shishova was twice as wild yet she's all but forgotten.
Dubbed ‘...
Australia’s First Sporting All-Nighters
This week, when we stay up (or get up) to cheer the Socceroos, we’ll be doing what Aussies first did one winter nearly a century ago. In 1930, the Ash...
The Botanic Gardens Massacre
A True Crime Classic from the Forgotten Australia archives: Just over 100 years ago, Australia suffered one of the world's first random mass shootings...
Aussie History Pod Trivia Quiz #3 – Sexy Sinema, Ghostly Figures and a PM Minus His Pants
Who named Australia? Which former Prime Minister lost his pants in public?
Which celebrity came chasing ghosts Down Under?
What were the w...
A Murder of Note – Part Four: Cursed From Birth
Having bent justice to their will successfully once, Kenneth Brown and his supporters tried a new defence tactic: arguing that he’d been cursed from b...
A Murder of Note – Part Three: The Villain as Victim
With Mary Ann Brown dead, and no doubt that Kenneth killed her, his April 1876 murder trial appeared to be an open-and-shut case.
But he had th...
A Murder of Note – Part Two: Shotgun Marriage
In part one, we heard about Kenneth Brown.
In this episode, we look at Mary Ann Tindall and how she became his wife and victim.
If you’r...
New Miniseries: A Murder of Note – Part One: A Man of the Killing Times
We all know Edith Cowan – first woman elected to an Australian parliament – graces out $50 note.
But did you know she was shaped by a traumatic...
Talking History - Australia’s Real-Life Jack Sparrow
Ahoy, me hearties!
William Swallow became the pirate captain of the convict ship Cyprus after he seized the vessel in Tasmania in 1829. From th...
Aussie History Trivia Quiz #2
Failing film stars! Flailing Frenchmen! Falling space junk!
They’re all here, the true and the false, the serious and the deeply stupid.
...
Australia's Forgotten Serial Maniacs
In 1837, three cold-blooded killers committed a series of bloody outrages that left nine people dead. Two of these murderers were to face their own gr...
Aussie History Pod Trivia Quiz #1 – Plus: Exclusive Bonus Expert Round with Cash Prizes for Supporters!
Serial killers! Chocolate animals! Robot chaos!
They’re all part of the first-ever Aussie History Pod Trivia Quiz.
Three rounds. 30 ques...
Shoot to Kill – Our Accidental Olympic-ish Hero. Plus: Coming Soon – The Aussie History Pod Trivia Quiz!
Donald Mackintosh was the world’s best shooter and in 1900 in Paris he won what is still the most shocking sporting event ever associated with the Oly...
A Cannibal Convict & Other Grave Tales
This week in 1826 was a bad time to be a cannibal bushranger.
Plus: Bold Ben Hall bites the dust; the first Brit buried Down Under; and the mak...
Oi, Boofhead! Plus: Gold Coins & Great Comets
Who was Boofhead and where did he come from? We say happy 85th birthday to an iconic yet idiotic Aussie bloke who appeared in our midst when we needed...
Talking History – The Wildest One: The Life Of Showman Lee Gordon
Author and music journalist Jeff Apter joins us to discuss his recent book, Lee Gordon Presents: How One Man Changed Australian Life Forever, the firs...
Blue Murder On The Golden Mile — Part Five
In this final instalment, the jury delivers its verdict in the marathon trial of Phillip Treffene and William Coulter for the murders of Detective-Ins...
Blue Murder On The Golden Mile — Part Four
On Monday 16 August 1926, a large crowd gathered outside Perth's Supreme Court, hoping to get access to what promised to be the most sensational crimi...
Blue Murder On The Golden Mile — Part Three
After police swoop on their suspects, Evan 'Teddy' Clarke, Phil Treffene and William Coulter are charged with the murder. But one of these men will tu...
Blue Murder On The Golden Mile — Part Two
Re-released to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the crime that shocked a nation.
On 12 May 1926, south of Kalgoorlie, at an abandoned mine k...
Miniseries – Blue Murder on the Golden Mile – Part One
A special re-release to commemorate the 100th anniversary.
On 28 April 1926, Detective-Inspector John Walsh and Detective-Sergeant Alexander Pit...
The First Anzac Day – 13 October 1915
While history tells us Anzac Day started on 25 April 1916, the first such event took place six months earlier in South Australia. The name 'Anzac Day'...
Talking History – ‘Fighting Mac’: The Man Behind the Anzac Legend
In this interview episode, Dr Daniel Reynaud, author of The Man The Anzacs Revered, tells us about the colourful and incredibly brave AIF chaplain Wil...
Our First Olympic Hero – Part Two: The Lion of Athens
Having already won two events at Athens in 1896, young Aussie athlete Teddy Flack throws himself at a third victory by entering the Marathon – and he’...
Our First Olympic Hero – Part One: An Aussie’s Greek Odyssey
Teddy Flack becoming our first Olympic champion is the prototypical tale of the Aussie have-a-go sporting hero. But in 1896, when Teddy was undertakin...
Miniseries Finale – Death-Defying Destiny Deciders – Part Ten: Nature & Nurture
I'm adopted and – while I come from colourful characters who roamed from Ireland and England to Western Australia, Lord Howe Island and Sydney, via So...
Death-Defying Destiny Deciders – Part Nine: Rumtough to the Rescue!
After tragedy strikes, Emma Murtough begins the colourful third act of her life – as "Mrs Rumtough", fearless travelling housekeeper of the Western Au...
Death-Defying Destiny Deciders – Part Eight: The Land of Better Chance
Having made her unthinkable decision, my great-grandmother Emma Murtough takes her children for a new life in Australia. But getting to the Land of Be...
Short – The Mystery of Mr Eternity
Arthur Stace is an Australian legend. But for decades the identity of ‘Mr Eternity’ was a Sydney mystery. Who was this man? Why was he writing this me...
Short – Boots on the Ground
‘Boots on the ground’: it rolls off the tongue all too easily. But America – and Australia – learned that in Vietnam they didn’t have boots on the gro...
Death-Defying Destiny Deciders – Part Seven: All Disquiet After the Western Front
Beyond the propaganda about glory, duty and sacrifice, the aftermath of the Great War ushers in a grave new world for my great-grandmother Emma Murtou...
Death-Defying Destiny Deciders – Part Six: Somewhere in France
My great-grandfather Peter Murtough arrives on the Western Front in August 1915. He is soon plunged into some of the most horrific battles of the Grea...
Death-Defying Destiny Deciders – Part Five: It’s A Long Way to Tipperary
Celebrated high diver Peter Murtough takes the plunge when he marries Emma Hanbury – my colourful great-grandmother. But being a husband and father to...
Death-Defying Destiny Deciders – Part Four: Nightmare in South Africa
After the patriotic fervour that sends Peter Murtough to South Africa, he and hundreds of thousands of soldiers discover the reality of the Boer War i...
Death-Defying Destiny Deciders – Part Three: Diving & Dicing With Death
In July 1898, my great-grandfather Peter Murtough competes for the title of best diver in the world. But seeking more than the thrills of the life aqu...
Death-Defying Destiny Deciders – Part Two: From Waterloo to the Waters of Life
Having fought the French and beaten the odds, Bernard Murtough’s family goes on to prominence in peacetime, establishing themselves and their mineral...
New miniseries: Death-Defying Destiny Deciders – Part One: War, Peace & Plague
I recently discovered that my great-grandfather was a champion diver who was active in the very same London scene as the doomed stuntmen who featured...