Rum, Rebels & Ratbags

Australia's Indigenous people dealt with the white ghosts from across the sea in different ways. Bennelong pursued a path of accommodation and was the first Indigenous man to visit England, whilst the warrior Pemulwuy, dressed in his Amazing Technicolor Dreamingcoat, fought a bloody 12-year guerrilla war.

New South Wales' first governor, Arthur Phillip, dreamed of an antipodean utopia. Instead he founded Sydney, a town full of drunk, starving and naked criminals.

Did you know the colony of Australia only came about because of tea, taxation, criminals ... and cannabis?! And, find out how a cockney hypochondriac whaler ended up as the first Governor of NSW.

More than 140 years before Captain Cook sighted the Australian coast, Dutch merchant Jeronimus Cornelisz murdered over 120 shipwreck survivors off the coast of WA in a killing spree that makes Lord of the Flies look like Mary Poppins.

Australians might know Banks as 'that plant guy’ but he was actually a wealthy playboy who inspired Star Trek and discovered surfing. Captain Cook just steered the ship for Banks and his groupies.