Getting a letter these days is pretty special, especially when it’s from an 11-year-old listener. Ellie wrote us a letter asking about the nursery rhyme Ring a Ring o' Roses, wondering if it really is about the plague. 

Amelia Huw Morgan, Senior lecturer in illustration in Cardiff School of Art and Design, sits down with Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) to explain the deeper story behind the nursery rhyme, how it came to be connected to the plague and the woman who made the nursery rhyme popular with children and families for generations. 

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D-Day was the biggest land and water invasion in history and would go on to be a huge turning point in WWII. And it all depended on a plant.

Specifically a leaf from a tree that grows on the east coast of Australia, that would treat seasick soldiers and allow them to fight.

Dr Chris Kavelin joins Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) to tell the incredible, and little known, story of how Indigenous Australian knowledge would shape WWII and make sure D-Day actually happened. 

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In a Dublin supermarket in 1984, a young woman makes a split-second decision. 

She refuses to sell two grapefruits. Her job is on the line, and there’s a recession raging across the country. But she’s doing it for the human rights of people thousands of kilometres away, that she’s never even met. 

Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) is joined by Mary Manning to hear the story of how a union strike took her on a wild and unforgettable adventure, where she ended up meeting world icons and changing the law. 

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*CONTENT WARNING* This episode explores mature themes such as sex and masturbation.

When the wooden object was unearthed, the archaeologists were stumped. What was this thing? It looked like a club and was found among bits of cloth so they thought it was a darning tool.

But it was another kind of tool. One that would raise eyebrows and cause some people to blush.

Sex historian Dr Kate Lister (Flick: The Story of Female Pleasure) charts the history of female pleasure with Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole), unearthing sex toys from archaeological digs to nunneries.

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On the face of it, it’s just a box. It has wooden slats, a peaked roof and glass panels. But inside this box is something that will breathe, grow, and impact lives around the world, for better or worse. 

Dr Luke Keogh (author, The Wardian Case: How a Simple Box Moved Plants and Changed the World) tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) the story of how a box designed to grow plants became a tool for imperial horticulture and rewrote the future of the British Empire. 

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If you were asked where the plague came from you’d probably say rats. Or fleas. And you’d say it swept across Europe killing up to half of the population.

But where exactly did it start and how did it get to Europe in the first place?

Medieval historian Dr Eleanor Janega sits down with Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) and debunks the biggest myths about the black death and tells the real story behind one of the worst pandemics the world has ever seen.

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It started with two turntables and a microphone and became a worldwide movement. Today, Hip hop is one of the biggest music genres in the world - and it all started at a teenager’s back to school party in the Bronx.

Jeff Chang (hip hop journalist and author) tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) the story of how one girl’s party to raise money for new clothes led to a musical and cultural revolution.

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In the week before Christmas 1894, a man in the South Australian parliament rolls the dice.

He makes a gamble that he thinks will pay off. It’s incredibly risky because if his gamble goes wrong, he gives half the population something he really doesn’t want to give them.

Professor Clare Wright OAM (Historian and author of the best-selling Democracy Trilogy) tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) the remarkable story of how a double bluff by a conservative politician ended up empowering South Australian women and making world history. 

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After the Second World War, relations between America, Britain and the Soviets were frosty and as the Cold War rivalry intensified, they were watching each other with intense side-eye. And it turns out, listening as well.

Matt Bevan (If You’re Listening) tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) the story of how a gift from the Soviets to the Americans was used as a trojan horse to listen in on conversations, and it was made by a man whose name is now famous but for a very different reason.

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The Met Gala’s 2026 theme is Costume Art. But rewind almost 100 years ago, and the fight was to get costumes to be called art at all. 

And if a handful of very determined women hadn’t pushed to change that, the Met Gala probably doesn’t exist.

Dr. Elizabeth Lundén is a Kluge Research Fellow at the Library of Congress and she sits down with host Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) to unpack the sliding doors story behind the biggest night in fashion.

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