What does a volcano in Iceland have to do with the religious and political struggles going on across the world today? Well it turns out, a LOT… 

Back in 536AD, the skies turned dark and the world cooled. It was all thanks to a massive volcanic eruption in Iceland, that no one even knew had happened. It led to a mysterious plague, which swept through the Roman and Persian Empires. In the great Byzantine city of Constantinople, it was said that 10,000 people were dying every day. 

Between plague and war, the world’s two ‘superpowers’ were too distracted to notice that something major was happening on the Arabian peninsula. The Prophet Mohammed had united the tribes and, when he died, his followers started pushing north. Instead of encountering resistance, they were able to take huge swathes of the Roman Empire and completely destroy the Persian Empire.

Richard Fidler, host of ABC Conversations and the author of The Book of Roads and Kingdoms, tells Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole, Mastermind) the incredible true story of how the language of Arabic and religion of Islam spread across the world, thanks (in part) to a natural disaster and climate change.

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What if the reason being on a treadmill feels like such a punishment is actually by design!?

Back in the 1800’s the British Empire started installing ‘tread-mills’ in prisons as a way to both punish criminals and make them more productive. In fact, it was so soul-crushing that the poet Oscar Wilde wrote about its horrors from prison and is thought to have died as a result of the hours he spent on it.

Writer Dan Koeppel, known also for running across Australia’s Nullarbor Plain and writing an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, tells host Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole, Mastermind) the strange saga of how the treadmill went from a Victorian torture device to a piece of fitness equipment found in gyms and homes across the world. Really, it’s a story about capitalism - the rise in the need for equipment to offset our unhealthy lifestyles, marketed as an aspirational wellness tool.

Binge all the episodes of No One Saw It Coming now on the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. And check out Dan’s great article for The New York Times’ Wirecutter HERE. 

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You can probably picture that iconic moment, when Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon. But what if his ‘one small step for man’ was actually thanks to a group of unlikely women? 

In the 1960’s when President JFK accelerated the space race, NASA needed someone to design a spacesuit capable of putting man on the moon. When the big defense contractors failed to meet the challenge, NASA had no choice but to work with the only company up to the job: Playtex - manufacturers of women’s girdles and bras. 

The UK’s best selling historian under 40 Kassia St Clair tells host Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole, Mastermind) the incredible true story of the unsung heroes of the space race: the seamstresses who painstakingly sewed the Apollo 11 spacesuits. 

Binge all the episodes of No One Saw It Coming now on the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.

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What if Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo weren’t really the best artists of the Renaissance, they were just the subject of some really good PR? 

In this episode of No One Saw it Coming, TikToker and Art Historian Mary McGillivray tells host Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole, Mastermind) the story of a salty Italian gossip writer called Giorgio Vasari, whose writing still influences the way we think about art, and she asks us to question everything we think we know about what makes historic art and artists 'good'. 

This episode will make you question if the Renaissance, a period when art, literature and philosophy flourished, and the so-called cultural and intellectual rebirth in Europe, was just the product of some really good marketing. 

Binge all the episodes of No One Saw It Coming now on the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Try to stop famine, or save your own life? This was the impossible choice facing the Russian scientists behind the world's first seed bank during World War 2, when the Soviet city of Leningrad came under siege by the Nazis. Food was so scarce at the time that throughout the city people were forced to eat wallpaper, boiled leather, even their own pets, to stay alive. 

But this set of Russian botanists, with their vaults full of seeds and hidden garden of plants, refused to eat them even as they starved to death. Their sacrifice ultimately saved species of plants and crops that plant breeders have since relied on to feed the world.

In this episode of No One Saw it Coming, podcast host Marc Fennell speaks to award-winning writer and games critic Simon Parkin about the decision that botanist Nikolai Vavilov and his team made, that would go on to change millions of lives and the food we eat today.

If you’ve binged all the episodes of No One Saw It Coming, listen to Marc’s other award-winning history podcast Stuff The British Stole, on the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.

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You probably know the names of famous freestyle swimmers - whether it’s Michael Phelps, Katie Ledecky, Ian Thorpe or Dawn Fraser. But do you know where the ‘freestyle’ swimming stroke actually comes from? It turns out it all started at a swimming carnival at Sydney’s Bronte Beach back in 1901…

In this episode of No One Saw It Coming, Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole, Mastermind) goes on a journey to discover the incredible story of Alick Wickham, a young Solomon Islander who had no idea of the impact he would make on the swimming world. Along the way he meets sports historian Gary Osmond and a relative of Alick Wickham, journalist Dorothy Wickham.

This is a story of success against the odds, during the era of Australia’s racist White Australia policy, and of the importance of remembering and acknowledging the true Pacific roots of the world’s most popular swimming style. 

You can learn more about the Roviana Lagoon Festival HERE. 

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Bob Hawke, Bill Clinton, Malcolm Turnbull – all were recipients of the Rhodes Scholarship, one of the oldest and most prestigious academic scholarships in the world. It was started posthumously by a man named Cecil Rhodes; a man whose legacy has recently been the subject of heated debates and a protest movement to decolonise education known as #RhodesMustFall. 

The reckoning with Cecil Rhodes has largely focused on his actions as an imperialist and colonialist; a man who claimed large swathes of Africa in the name of the British Empire. But it turns out he had deeper and darker designs to ensure global white supremacy.  

Dr Jonny Steinberg, Senior Lecturer in Political Science at Yale University grew up in South Africa and witnessed the legacy of Cecil Rhodes first-hand. He explains to Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole, Mastermind) that Rhodes’ initial plans for the Rhodes Scholarship involved a secret society, and a plan for world domination. 

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Before selfies, before CT scans, before social media filters and front-facing cameras… there was the X-Ray. Discovered by accident in a 19th-century lab, it went on to become a craze. Displayed as a sideshow attraction, people would x-ray their hands, their bags, their feet, even cuddling their loved one! 

Suzie Sheehy is an Accelerator Physicist by day and on the side, she writes books like The Matter of Everything: Twelve Experiments that Changed our World. She explains to Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole, Mastermind) how the invention of the x-ray revolutionised medicine, changed the way we think about ourselves and remains a powerful example of what can happen when knowledge is shared freely. 

Binge all the episodes of No One Saw It Coming now on the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Have you ever tried absinthe - that fluorescent green spirit that people used to set on fire in the 90’s?  It’s had a pretty bad reputation over the years. In fact, it was illegal in a lot of countries for almost a century! 

But back in France during the period known as the Belle Époque, it was the drink associated with great artists and writers like Oscar Wilde, Pablo Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh and Edgar Degas. Happy Hour was even known as ‘the Green Hour’. 

So what happened? Well according to food and beverage writer Evan Rail, everything changed because of a murder. A murder that absinthe was blamed for…

Join podcast host Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole, Mastermind) as he unearths the odd facts surrounding this intriguing true crime mystery.

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These days chemotherapy or ‘chemo’ is a common treatment for cancer. But did you know that part of the reason it exists today is because of a terrible accident that happened in Italy during World War 2?

The Bari bombing was known as the ‘Little Pearl Harbour’ and it saw hundreds of American and British soldiers killed by mustard gas that was being secretly transported to Europe inside an American ship. Despite Winston Churchill’s attempts to cover up what happened, one doctor was determined to find the truth.

Journalist Jennet Conant dives deep into the historical records, including records on her own family, and tells host Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole, Mastermind) how one doctor’s shocking discovery contributed to the development of one of the world’s leading cancer drugs. 

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