No One Saw It Coming

A pig trots over an invisible border, wandering into a potato farmer's garden. It's not the first time it's trespassed but it is the last. The farmer takes his gun off the wall and shoots it dead. But what the farmer...

It’s called The Football War and raged for just 100 hours. It’s a catchy name for a conflict supposedly sparked by a World Cup qualifier game. But behind the catchy title, and away from the football pitch lies a deeper...

In 1932 Australia sent soldiers with machine guns to stop 20,000 emus rampaging through wheat fields. What followed was a national embarrassment and earned the emus a reputation as the victors of one of history's...

Their faces are everywhere: on calendars, incense packets, and soap packaging. But how did the Hindu deities' faces go beyond temples and shrines? In nineteenth-century India, Ravi Varma dared to paint the gods in a way...

You think you know Pompeii. A city wiped out. People frozen in time. A disaster that stopped time. But how much of that story is actually true? Ancient historian and writer Dr Jess Venner (The Lost Voices of Pompeii)...

Marcus Garvey is known as a civil rights activist and leader of the Pan-Africanism movement. But there’s a part of his story you may not know about. Social historian Darrel Blake tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British...

Imagine driving from Beijing, through the Gobi Desert, Mongolia, and across Russia into Europe. The roads are terrible, you don't have petrol stations and you have pack animals carrying supplies. Oh, and it's a race so...

What do you get when you combine fashion, race and a world war? From the jazz clubs and dance halls of the 1940s to an infamous city riot in Los Angeles, the zoot suit was made to draw attention. But sometimes, that...

A well-placed lie can bring down a whole government. Hard to believe, but in Prague in 1989 that’s exactly what happened. In amongst a heaving student protest, a body was carried away. That body became a flashpoint for...

She stands tall with her head tilted towards you. She’s wearing an incredible gown made of the most beautiful fabric. This is a society woman living in Vienna at the turn of the 20th century. But she will see things...

In the late 1500s a man sails across the North Sea. He’s battered by wind and wave. The sea seems angry, almost furious at him. He thinks it must be more than just a bad storm. It must be supernatural. This man is James...

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...

<p>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.</p><p>Specifically a leaf from a tree that grows on the east coast of...

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...

<p>In a Dublin supermarket in 1984, a young woman makes a split-second decision. </p><p>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...