As 1940 starts and the “Phoney War” ends, Australian RAF Bomber Command pilot Jim Brough flies ever-more dangerous missions against the Nazis and faces death again and again — wondering how long it’ll be before his number is up and whether a fortune teller’s prediction will come true. For more information, visit www.forgottenaustralia.com and www.facebook.com/forgottenoz

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Eighty years ago this week, World War II began when England declared war on Germany in response to the Nazi invasion of Poland. Within 48 minutes of the war starting, RAF Bomber Command launched its first mission. For Australians in the RAF, the fight was on — and James Brough from Tasmania would be among the first to take on the Luftwaffe. This forgotten hero's story is told for the first time in this episode. For more information: www.forgottenaustralia.com and www.facebook.com/forgottenoz

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From making pioneering bushranger films and launching the careers of Australia’s most famous early stars to a bitter business betrayal and a bloody murder in the remote wilderness, the conclusion to movie mogul Cosens Spencer’s story is like something from the silver screen. But it’s all true. For more information visit: www.forgottenaustralia.com and www.facebook.com/forgottenoz

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In the early 20th century, Spencer Cosens was Australia’s greatest showman. With his wife, projectionist Senora Spencer, he pioneered motion picture exhibition, establishing the first permanent cinema, introducing sound and colour films and championing local feature production. But a business betrayal would ruin Spencer’s career, permanently sabotage the Australian film industry and result in a bloody tragedy that sounded like something out of the movies. For more information and to see Spencer's films, visit www.forgottenaustralia.com and visit us at www.facebook.com/forgottenoz

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On a Saturday night in June 1928 a masked gunman shot and killed sisters Esther Vaughan and Sarah Falvey in the lolly shop that had made them favourites in the inner Sydney suburb of Dulwich Hill. Who killed the woman and why? For the first time, the murder, the mystery and the main suspect are re-examined. For more information: www.forgottenaustralia.com and www.facebook.com/forgottenoz

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In 1937 Jean Burns was widely reported as Australia’s first woman parachutist — but the newspapers were out by nearly half a century. For six months in 1890, Valerie and Gladys Van Tassel — under the management of American aeronaut “Professor” Park Van Tassel, their supposed brother — caused a sensation with their dazzling parachute jumps from trapezes suspended beneath crude hot air balloons thousands of feet in the air. But along with the spectacle came scandal and tragedy whose mysteries endure to this day. For more information: www.forgottenaustralia.com and www.facebook.com/forgottenoz

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At the age of 17, Robert Brand did work experience at the Overseas Telecommunications Commission’s station in Paddington, Sydney, where he played a small part in ensuring the television images of Neil Armstrong taking his first steps on the moon were seen around the world. On the 50th anniversary of that historic event, Robert talks about how this experience inspired him to spend the next half century working in the space sector. The conversation ranges across what The Dish got wrong, what it was like to hear Apollo 13's crew fight for their lives, how he saved the space mission to Halley’s Comet and his plans to revolutionise communications using stratospheric drones. For more information: www.forgottenaustralia.com and www.facebook.com/forgottenoz

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Just hours before Apollo 11 landed on the moon on 20 July 1969, young Australian pop star Cathy Wayne was shot dead on stage while performing for American Marines in Vietnam. Yet Cathy hadn’t been killed by the enemy — she’d been gunned down by one of the very soldiers who she’d travelled half way around the world to entertain. But who shot Cathy and why?

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There was no doubt Audrey Jacob had shot Cyril Gidley dead in front of hundreds of people during a charity dance at Perth’s Government House. But why had she killed him and was she guilty of murder? The final instalment of this episode takes us inside one of Australia’s most extraordinary trials—and beyond to a second murder, the tragic downfall of a business titan and across the world to the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam War and Carter White House. For more information: www.forgottenaustralia.com and www.facebook.com/forgottenoz

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In 1925 beautiful young Audrey Campbell Jacob shot a young man dead in front of hundreds of revellers during a charity dance in the ballroom of Government House in Perth — and the court case that followed the crime was every bit as shocking. For more information, including photos and articles, go to www.forgottenaustralia.com and www.facebook.com/forgottenoz

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