

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.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jul 26, 2025 • 37min
04 | Rainbow Warrior | The Land and the Soul
By 1985, nearly four decades after the US nuclear testing in the Pacific's Marshall Islands, advocate Jeton Anjain has had enough. He decides to act to save his people of Rongelap Atoll. And with the help of some well-connected friends, he pulls off one of the great humanitarian feats of the 20th century.

Jul 19, 2025 • 39min
03 | Rainbow Warrior | Project 4.1
In the days following the 1954 Castle Bravo nuclear detonation, the people of Rongelap, in the Marshall Islands, desperately need help. But when that help arrived, it came with something they didn’t expect and never agreed to.

Jul 12, 2025 • 29min
02 | Rainbow Warrior | The Day of the two suns
The Atomic age arrives in the Marshall Islands as the US turns the region into a nuclear testing ground. But after one massive detonation, nothing will ever be the same for the people of Rongelap Atoll.

Jul 5, 2025 • 29min
01 | Rainbow Warrior | The Other Cold War
The crew of the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior should have felt safe and welcome when they arrived in Auckland, New Zealand in July 1985. Instead they became the target of a violent attack, which led one person dead. But why – what is the twisted back-story to these events, which led to spies, secrets and bombs?

Jun 28, 2025 • 0sec
03 The Loveday Trilogy | Miyakatsu Koike
Miyakatsu Koike was a mild-mannered Japanese bank official who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was working in Surabaya in Indonesia when Japan attacked Pearl Harbour.Koike was arrested by the Dutch East Indies authorities and sent to Loveday detention camp in South Australia where he spent four long years behind the wire.

Jun 21, 2025 • 29min
02 The Loveday Trilogy | Francesco Fantin
Italian anarchist Francesco Fantin fled Mussolini's Italy for the freedom of the Queensland cane-fields, only to find himself locked up in a detention camp in wartime Australia, surrounded by his political enemies.

Jun 14, 2025 • 33min
01 The Loveday Trilogy | Oskar Speck
The extraordinary tale of one man's mind-bendingly long kayak journey that begins in Germany and ends up in an Australian Detention camp during World War 2.

Jun 7, 2025 • 34min
02 | Ray Denning | The stitch up
The story of one of Australia's most misunderstood criminals. With nothing to lose, Raymond Denning escapes Grafton prison in a rubbish bin. He has help from prisoner rights groups, and a desire to expose police corruption. The man-hunt for Denning turns farcical when he uses the media to make the police look foolish.

May 31, 2025 • 28min
01 | Ray Denning | Breaking out
The story of one of Australia's most misunderstood criminals. After a traumatic childhood, Raymond Denning jumps from 'juvie' to jail. When an escape attempt goes wrong, a prison warder is critically injured and the finger is pointed at Denning.

May 24, 2025 • 29min
03 | Dusted | The human cost of mining in Australia
Asbestos was once known as the wonder mineral. It's now banned in Australia. But before that happened, companies kept making asbestos products despite growing evidence of its deadly dust and a mounting death toll.


