No One Saw It Coming

She was called the most beautiful woman in the world and was seen as an exotic Hollywood star in the 1930s. But Hedy Lamarr was more than that. She was also an inventor. 
During WWII she patented a technology to sink German U-boats. It was ignored and shelved, only to be picked up decades later to and be used every day on our phones and computers.
Ruth Barton, Emeritus Professor of Film from Trinity College Dublin, tells Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole) about how Hedy Lamarr invented the foundations of wi-fi and why it took decades for it to be a part of her legacy.
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When you combine Russian ballet, French aristocracy, and a little bit of Walt Disney you get a recipe for a riot and one of the most important musical moments in history.
Host of Radio National’s The Music Show, Andrew Ford, sits down at the piano and tells Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole) about why Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring was so confronting that it caused a riot in 1913 and how it went on to change music forever.
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As the Second World War raged in the Pacific, there was a team of codebreakers in Australia working around the clock intercepting and deciphering Japanese messages. 
It was Australia’s own Bletchley Park, but the team were young, female and worked in a shed. And they called themselves The Garage Girls.
Author Alli Sinclair tells Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole) the story of these codebreakers and how they secured the Allies’ victory in the Pacific, only to be lost in history... until now. 
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From moons to mind bending maths and revolutions, the story of how we got the modern calendar is messy. 
Matthew Champion, Associate Professor in History at the University of Melbourne, takes Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole) through time to understand the many iterations of calendars and why the one we use today can still be improved.
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You see it on Christmas cards, in shop windows and at your local church. The nativity scene is everywhere at this time of year. 
But the scene you know of Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus in the manger, with some animals around is actually thanks to some mistranslations and a popular saint in the Middle Ages who wanted to imprint the story of the birth of Christ into people’s memory. 
Art historian Mary McGillivray tells Marc Fennell (Stuff the British Stole) about the first nativity play and why its tableau has lasted over 800 years.
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Got a story for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]