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ABC Rewind

ABC Australia

The History Listen is now ABC Rewind, the home of gripping narrative history series. Dive into true stories told by the people who lived through them.

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  • 21 episodes
  • weekly
  • Avg 27 min
  • English
Counted on this page — what you have heard stays on this device, so it is not something the list can be paged by.
  • Today · 26 min

    04 | Saga Land | The story of Egil

    Broadcaster Richard Fidler and writer Kari Gislason continue their travels across Iceland to tell the ancient Viking sagas; tales of love, war and humanity. In this episode they follow the steps of Egil. He was a killer, a ruthless opportunist but also one of the greatest court poets of the Middle Ages.  He travelled far and wide through the Viking world in pursuit of fame and wealth. And yet it was back at his family farm Borg á Mýrum, in Iceland’s mid-west, that he faced his ultimate test, an

  • August 22 · 28 min

    03 | Saga Land | The story of Gisli

    In the remote north-west of Iceland, Kári Gislason and Richard Fidler follow in the doomed footsteps of Gísli, the most uncompromising of the saga heroes – this is a tale about the complexity of family life, and the difficult choices which can come with it. Back in Reykjavik, Kári begins to unravel the knotty threads of his own Icelandic heritage and is suddenly faced with a choice.   Credits: Writers - Richard Fidler and Kari Gislason Producer -  Richard Fidler Sound Engineer - Steve Field

  • August 15 · 28 min

    02 | Saga Land | The story of Gudrun

    Richard Fidler and Kari Gislason continue their travels across Iceland to tell the ancient Viking sagas; tales of love, war and humanity. This episode tells the story of Gudrun, the most beautiful woman in Iceland and the two men who loved her. Kari and Richard also continue to try and piece together the mysterious and tantalising threads of Kari’s Icelandic family history.    Credits: Writers - Richard Fidler and Kari Gislason Producer -  Richard Fidler Sound Engineer - Steve Fieldhouse M

  • August 8 · 28 min

    01 | Saga Land | The story of Gunnar

    Broadcaster and author Richard Fidler, with this friend the writer Kari Gislasen, travel across Iceland to discover the Sagas – the ancient tales of Viking love, war and humanity.  This episode tells the story a famous Viking warrior, Gunnar, and his destructive love affair with the most beautiful and dangerous woman in Iceland, Hallgerd. And Richard and Kari have another mission during their time in Iceland: to try and find out if Kari is related the one of the country’s greatest saga writers.

  • August 6 · length unknown

    08| Remember Me | The middle of the air

    If a friend sent you a farewell text, saying she was planning to end her life, what would you do? Jennie’s response was to go and sing with Nia and promise to tell her story. Nia has scleroderma, her skin and lungs have hardened over the last 20 years, the pain and discomfort has now become unbearable. But thanks to the Voluntary Assisted Dying laws that Nia helped establish she will have the death she hopes for.  

  • August 1 · length unknown

    07 | Remember Me | The Sceptic

    Sunil Badami's mother loved telling him stories of his colourful uncle, India's best-known sceptic, who devoted his life to disproving fraudulent gurus' "miracles" by eating fire, bending forks and floating mid-air. But at the heart of the Sceptic's magic was a disappearing act.

  • July 25 · length unknown

    06 | Remember Me | Good Spooks bad spooks

    When Nell and Caitlin moved into a century-old shop in the historic suburb of Stockton in Newcastle unexplainable things started happening; a lady with a bouffant hairdo appeared in their loungeroom, books, clothes and electronic gadgets were disappearing, there was the acrid smell of unwashed old men in the kitchen. This paranormal activity went on for years, until they called in a ghostbuster. Our expert panel - sceptic Adam Spencer, psychic Kerrie Irwin and agnostic producer Greg Appel put t

  • July 18 · length unknown

    05 | Remember Me | Mt Bowen

    It was supposed to be a hiking adventure, but it ended in an unforeseeable accident that would change Warren and Geert's futures forever.   When he was sitting around a campfire on a remote island in Far North Queensland, Warren Macdonald made a life-changing decision. He’d sparked up a conversation with a Dutch hiker named Geert van Keulen, and he decided to follow Geert up a mountain the following morning. It was supposed to be a hiking adventure, but it ended in an unforeseeable accident t

  • July 11 · length unknown

    04 | Remember Me | Half Caste Legends

    Paulina always knew she had half- siblings around the world. They all shared the same Tongan father. Finding them was the best thing she ever did.

  • July 5 · length unknown

    03 | Remember Me | Jim Everett

    Jim Everett puralia meenamatta - born on Flinder's Island in 1942 - is a man of many selves – philosopher, fisherman, scholar, activist, poet, soldier, filmmaker. When he was sixteen years old, he discovered a hidden part of himself.

  • June 27 · length unknown

    02 | Remember Me | Return of the Songbird

    When her Parkinson's Disease medication stopped working musician and writer Linda Neil was in a very dark place. But a treatment called Deep Brain Stimulation has allowed her to return to playing the violin, singing, songwriting, living an independent life and riding her pink bicycle.

  • June 20 · length unknown

    01 | Remember Me | The Foster Files

    There’s a government file about my life. A file full of reports. The reports date from 1985 to 2003. That’s 18 years. File 105538. No, I’m not a terrorist or a spy. From two weeks old, to the day I turned 18, I was a foster child. I do not own the file about my life. It belongs to the state of Queensland.  But when I turned 18 I wanted answers.   What I found rocked me to my core. This is my story.

  • June 12 · length unknown

    Fairlight CMI - the sound you've never heard of

    The Australian instrument that shaped the sound of the 1980s and forever changed how popular music was made. At the start of the 1980s the Fairlight caught the eye of synthesiser pioneers likes Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock, Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel. By the end of the 1980s it had caught the ear of millions of people around the world, even if they didn't know it.

  • June 6 · length unknown

    Blood, prejudice and nursing

    It's the 1980s, and the first devastating decade of the AIDS pandemic. A young student nurse tests positive for the virus. and this information ends up on the front page of his local newspaper. A tale of fear and prejudice. but also of great courage, and love. 

  • May 29 · length unknown

    The story of Sam Poo - Chinese bushranger?

    It's 1865 in remote central west NSW. A police office is fatally shot by a man he believes is a Chinese bushranger. But all may not be as it seems. A bushranging tale with a twist

  • May 23 · length unknown

    Finding Fanny Finch

    What if the most remarkable of all your ancestors was the one left out of the family tree? Historian Kacey Sinclair and two of Fanny Finch’s direct descendants reconstruct the life and legacy of a  Victorian goldfields trailblazer, a woman of colour whose story was hidden for generations.

  • May 15 · length unknown

    The Roo Dog

    The Kangaroo dog is unique to Australia. It's a mystery dog with a big story. Born in the early Sydney colony, this deerhound-greyhound mongrel dog was bred to hunt and kill kangaroos. The kangaroo dog was there at key moments in Australia's colonial past - from hunting dog that fed the colony, to bushrangers best mate - to battle dog in the Frontier wars, and family member. The kangaroo dog has seen a lot. What happens when we see history through a dog's eyes?

  • May 10 · length unknown

    02 | A succulent chinese meal

    Where did Jack Karlson learn the lines he delivers in his famous viral video?  This episode unravels the story of a prison playwright and his muse which led Jack to utter those now infamous words “This is democracy manifest.”

  • May 3 · length unknown

    01 | A succulent chinese meal

    Who is the man behind Australia's most iconic internet meme, who famously said “What is the charge? Eating a meal, a succulent Chinese meal? Gentlemen, this is democracy manifest"?

  • April 30 · length unknown

    07| Boycott! | Rugby, Rebels and Reconciliation

    In this extra episode Sisonke Msimang tells stories of First Nations Australians, Rugby and the fight to end Apartheid. When Aboriginal Rugby player Lloyd McDermott refused to declare himself an honorary white for the Wallabies tour of South Africa in 1963 he began a tradition of First Nations Australians using the sport to get under the skin of the country’s regime. But when Glen Ella from the famous Aboriginal Rugby Union playing family joined a Rebel Rugby 7s tour of South Africa in 1985 he

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