No One Saw It Coming

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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Over a hundred years ago, some divers jumped into the Mediterranean to look for sponges. Instead, they found ancient treasures. Artefacts, statues, jewellery. And a corroded piece of bronze. Little did they know that lump of metal would be the most valuable of the lot. 

Ancient Greek cultural historian Dr Tatiana Bur from the Australian National University tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) the story of the Antikythera mechanism. From how it was salvaged from the ocean floor, to being called the world’s first computer and how it’s transformed our understanding of ancient civilisations and technology. 

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She entered the royal palace as a concubine and became the first and only female emperor of China. She was power hungry, a total operator and if you asked her enemies, a blood thirsty murderer. And her secret weapon to legitimise her rule wasn't just an unwavering belief in herself, but in Buddha. 

Historian and author William Dalrymple (Empire, The Golden Road) tells Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole) the extraordinary story of Wu Zetian, how she rose to power and paved the way for China having the world's largest Buddhist population. 

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It was a colour once reserved for emperors and the elite. But a lab mishap soon changed purple forever. 

Cultural historian and author of the book The Secret Lives of Colour, Kassia St Clair tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) the story of how a London teenager’s failed experiment transformed how fabric dyes were made, how we dressed and how power was perceived.

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Got a story for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected] If you'd like to hear more from Kassia St Clair, listen to her tell the story of The Lingerie Makers who put Neil Armstrong on the Moon.

There’s that phrase a picture says a thousand words... but what does a picture of child labour say? 

Curator, educator, and photo-historian Beth Saunders (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) sits down with Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) to tell the story of photographer Lewis Hine and his photographs of children working in places like factories, coal mines and cotton mills in the early 1900s. His powerful photos had a lasting legacy but not in the way he expected. 

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It’s small enough to fit in your pocket and it’s saved countless lives.

The asthma puffer has had a long journey, stretching back thousands of years to various treatments including asthma cigarettes. 

But the asthma puffer as we know it today is all thanks to a young girl’s throwaway comment over breakfast in the 1950s. 

Dr Daniel Duke from Monash University tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) about how the asthma puffer came into existence and how he fits into its long history as well. 

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London, 1854. A mysterious and deadly illness is sweeping through Soho, and people are dropping like flies. The leading theory? “Bad air.” But one doctor isn’t convinced. John Snow begins to trace the outbreak — not through symptoms, but through streets. 

Journalist and author Sandra Hempel tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) the story of how a hand-drawn map, a pub, and a pump sparked the birth of epidemiology — and changed the way we fight disease forever.

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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Got a story for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]