Australia On This Day

REPEAT: At 2am on this day in 1944, the Cowra Breakout began. This episode looks at the man who blew the bugle that gave the signal for the mass escape – and how he wound up behind...

REPEAT: On this day in 1912, William Chidley, radical sexologist and one of Australia’s most eccentric characters, was arrested for being a lunatic – the first use of this power ag...

REPEAT: On this day in 1986, one of Australia's strangest and funniest crimes was committed when Pablo Picasso's masterpiece The Weeping Woman — valued at $2m — was stolen from the...

REPEAT: On this day in 1905, Flos Greig became Australia’s first female lawyer — but before she could practice the law she had to change it via an act of parliament. Hosted o...

REPEAT: Australia suffered what is still our worst industrial disaster when an explosion ripped through the Mount Kembla mine on 31 July 1902. Strikingly, lead rescuer Henry MacCab...

REPEAT: Pioneering Australian pilots Charles Kingsford Smith, Charles Ulm and Bert Hinkler are household names for their aviation feats and tragic fates. Eric Hook is forgotten — n...

REPEAT: On the 24th of May 1917, famous Aussie boxier James Leslie “Les” Darcy died in America. Just over two months later in Western Australia, his namesake, jackaroo James Darcy,...

REPEAT: On this day in 1950 in Cairns, amateur herpetologist Kevin Budden caught a Taipan to start Australia’s anti-venom program for that deadly species. He died in the process. B...

REPEAT: On this day in 1909 the SS Waratah, voyaging from Australia to England via South Africa with more than 200 people aboard, vanished without a trace. This is a story that inc...

REPEAT: On this day in 1919, boxer George Mendies won the Australian Flyweight Title — and it was a crown he'd defend successfully again and again. Despite this being a period of r...

REPEAT: On this day 111 years ago, two scientific giants spent a couple of hours hanging out and talking shop in Sydney. One had invented the telephone. The other's inventions had ...

REPEAT: On this day in 1920, Raymond Longford's classic silent film On Our Selection had its Australian premiere in Brisbane. This was a bush saga that defied expectations thanks t...