ABC Rewind

The story behind the 1980 Australian film Manganinne, set during the infamous Black Line violence of colonial Tasmania, and the extraordinary Yolngu actor, Mawuyul Yanthalawuy. who plays the film's central character.

Were you at the Wanda gig in 1982? It's forty years since Triple J hosted a free outdoor concert on Sydney's Wanda Beach, when a massive crowd turned up to see the bands whose music defined an era, and who changed the sound of Australian rock forever

It was the Great Depression in Australia. People dreamt of a paradise, an escape from Nowheresville. And they found it, gathering on the beaches of coastal cities and crowding halls in country towns - to play Hawaiian steel guitar.  Historian Robyn Annear discovers what drove thousands of Australians to learn this unlikely instrument?

We travel to the west coast of Tasmania, to meet the mining communities who carry on a rich cultural tradition of storytelling in poetry and song.

The Australian instrument that shaped the sound of the 1980s and forever changed how popular music was made. This documentary won the 2023 Prix Italia in the Radio & Podcast Music category.

In 1899 two thousand people attended the funeral of an African-American banjo player in Sydney.  Who was he? How did he come to be in Australia and why was he so loved? Stéphanie Kabanyana Kanyandekwe tells the story of Hosea Easton, along with the history of minstrel music and the banjo, in Australia and the United States.

The story of one of history’s most mysterious flags - the Jolly Roger. It’s the pirate flag that defined one of the world’s greatest criminal enterprises and it helps us to understand how the high seas transformed from lawlessness to order

The story of the  diamond so infused with underhand deeds and deadly acts that it was thought to curse any male ruler who wore it..

The Carbolic Smoke Ball was touted as a miracle cure for all kinds of illnesses that were rife in the 1890s. It never actually cured anything, but what it did do was change the law forever.

The humble potato is not just a lump of carbohydrate: it tells the story of how food, so essential to life, is also central to politics. This is the story of how the potato became a weapon.