No One Saw It Coming

Long before steam trains, before factories, before the Industrial Revolution, someone figured out how to turn steam into motion. And he did it almost two thousand years ago in Ancient Alexandria, and the device he built wasn’t meant to power anything. It was a toy. A party trick.
Dr Tatiana Bur, Lecturer in Classics at the Australian National University, tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) the story of how one man’s spinning little gadget went on to power the modern world.
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It was one of the deadliest diseases known to humankind. And just 50 years ago it was officially eradicated. But there’s someone missing from the story of smallpox.
A woman whose work was mocked. Who was branded a bad mother. And who helped bring inoculation to the West.
Author Jo Willett tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) about how an 18th-century noblewoman ignited a moral panic, split the scientific establishment and helped spark a medical revolution.
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If you looked at it, you wouldn’t bat an eyelid, but this red wine had something in it that today could land you in jail.
It was drunk and endorsed by presidents, royalty and even popes and made its maker a millionaire. 
Dr Tim Madge tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) the story of Vin Mariani, the cocaine-infused wine that was endorsed by royalty, presidents and popes and how it became the precursor to a product that millions of people around the world - including children - drink every day. 
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Before cinema, before Hollywood, before we even understood how to make pictures move, there was a man constantly reinventing himself. He was a bookseller, a photographer, an alleged fraud and eventually, a killer.
But in between scandals and aliases, he conducted a strange experiment that would change the way we see the world. 
Marta Braun is a renowned expert in 19th century stop-motion photography, and she tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) the story of Eadweard Muybridge and how his photographs of a horse race stopped time, helped the world understand motion, and created the moving image. 
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As the Irish Revolution raged year after year, there was a space that the British didn’t expect to become places of revolution - prisons.
Jailed rebels became martyrs and Britain’s grip on Ireland began to weaken, pushing a revolution to boiling point. 
Dr William Murphy, Professor in Modern Irish History at Dublin City University, tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) the story of Irish independence and how food, pride and prison would reshape the future of Ireland and the British Empire.
Binge all the episodes of No One Saw It Coming now on ABC listen (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.
Get in touch:
Got a story for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]