The fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989 is one of the most famous events of modern history. And with it came a wave of momentous events - the reunification of East and West Germany, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the end of the Cold War. 

But the way it came about is stranger than fiction. The images of people swarming the wall and chipping away at it all came down to a small slip at a routine press conference.

Dr Katrin Schreiter is a Senior Lecturer in German and History at Kings College London and she has a deeply personal connection to this story. She tells Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole) that while powerful men have been credited with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the true heroes were everyday men and women. 

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This episode was first published in May 2025.

It’s arguably the most famous painting in the world. But back in 1911, the Mona Lisa wasn’t an international icon. So what made the painting so famous it would attract millions of visitors to The Louvre every year? 

This is the unbelievable true story of an art heist - one of the 20th century's most audacious art thefts that would turn a masterpiece into a legend.

Art historian Mary McGillivray tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) about one of art history’s most sensational crimes and its patriotic perpetrator.

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Got a story for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected] This episode was first published in April 2025. 

It was meant to be Scotland’s saving grace - a bold plan to build a colony and dominate global trade. 

But disease, starvation, and frankly just bad planning was their undoing... and the failed outpost paved the way for a union with their biggest rival.

Archaeologist Mark Horton tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) about the story of the Darien Scheme and how the failed venture bankrupted Scotland, deepened economic despair, and indirectly paved the way for the 1707 Act of Union with England, arguably changing the course of British history.

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She was called the most beautiful woman in the world and was seen as an exotic Hollywood star in the 1930s. But Hedy Lamarr was more than that. She was also an inventor. 

During WWII she patented a technology to sink German U-boats. It was ignored and shelved, only to be picked up decades later to and be used every day on our phones and computers.

Ruth Barton, Emeritus Professor of Film from Trinity College Dublin, tells Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole) about how Hedy Lamarr invented the foundations of wi-fi and why it took decades for it to be a part of her legacy.

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When you combine Russian ballet, French aristocracy, and a little bit of Walt Disney you get a recipe for a riot and one of the most important musical moments in history.

Host of Radio National’s The Music Show, Andrew Ford, sits down at the piano and tells Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole) about why Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring was so confronting that it caused a riot in 1913 and how it went on to change music forever.

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As the Second World War raged in the Pacific, there was a team of codebreakers in Australia working around the clock intercepting and deciphering Japanese messages. 

It was Australia’s own Bletchley Park, but the team were young, female and worked in a shed. And they called themselves The Garage Girls.

Author Alli Sinclair tells Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole) the story of these codebreakers and how they secured the Allies’ victory in the Pacific, only to be lost in history... until now. 

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From moons to mind bending maths and revolutions, the story of how we got the modern calendar is messy. 

Matthew Champion, Associate Professor in History at the University of Melbourne, takes Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole) through time to understand the many iterations of calendars and why the one we use today can still be improved.

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You see it on Christmas cards, in shop windows and at your local church. The nativity scene is everywhere at this time of year. 

But the scene you know of Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus in the manger, with some animals around is actually thanks to some mistranslations and a popular saint in the Middle Ages who wanted to imprint the story of the birth of Christ into people’s memory. 

Art historian Mary McGillivray tells Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole) about the first nativity play and why its tableau has lasted over 800 years.

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There’s one man you can thank - or curse - for your hand cramp after writing all your Christmas cards. Sir Henry Cole was a ‘dumpy’ Englishman who had too many jobs and not enough time to write back to his friends and family so he created the first Christmas card in 1843. It caused quite the stir, and not exactly in the way he expected. 

Author and all-things-Christmas expert Ace Collins tells Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole) how the Christmas holiday evolved in Victorian England and why the first Christmas card took the country - and the world - by storm.

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It started as a deadly toxin and became a billion-dollar beauty secret. So how exactly did a poison become the world’s most popular cosmetic fix? 

It’s all to do with one man who took a plunge and used it to treat eye spasms, and another who saw its potential in the pursuit of perfection. 

Author and former ophthalmologist Dr Eugene Helveston tells Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole) the story of Botox, tracing it back to deadly sausages in the 18th century to being injected into faces 300 years later. 

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