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No One Saw It Coming

The bit players, the unexpected twists, the turning point you missed. Join Walkley award-winner Marc Fennell as he uncovers the incredible moments that changed the course of history.New episodes out Tuesday.

Podcast · By ABC Australia · English · Official site

Indexed episodes, last 90 days
13
Latest publication
Sep 27, 2026
Audience
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Earliest in this view
Jul 5, 2026

Latest episodes

  1. Episode · Sep 27, 2026

    The Pastry War: Half-baked diplomacy (opens the original)

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    A ransacked bakery. A wildly inflated bill. A demand so absurd it should have been laughed out of the room. Instead it triggered warships. In 1838, France used a pastry chef's grievance to justify a blockade, a siege, and an assault on Mexico. But was the baker's claim ever really the reason? Or just the excuse the French government had been waiting for? Food historian and author Seren Charrington-Hollins tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) about how a bakery grievance and unpaid debts

  2. Episode · Sep 20, 2026

    The Pig War: Hogging the border (opens the original)

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    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 he doesn't realise was that by pulling that trigger, he set off one of the tensest military stand-offs in history. Mike Vouri (former Historian for San Juan Island National Historic Park) takes Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) to San Juan Island where the US and Great Britain came danger

  3. Episode · Sep 13, 2026

    The mythical football war (opens the original)

    Episode notes · Neutral tone

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    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, darker history about politics, poverty, power and a war that claimed thousands of lives. Fionntan O’Hara from the London School of Economics tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) the story of how the battle on the pitch became a real war between El Salvador and Honduras an

  4. Episode · Sep 6, 2026

    Birds 1 - Humans 0 (opens the original)

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    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 strangest wars. Dr Ruth Morgan tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) the wild story of the Emu War: what happens when a country goes to war with a flightless bird but realises the true enemy is something much larger and more formidable... This is the first episode in the special

  5. Episode · Aug 30, 2026

    The man who gave the gods new faces (opens the original)

    Episode notes · Positive tone

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    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 no one had before. What followed was a cultural revolution that carried his vision into homes across India and around the world. Tarun Nagesh, Curatorial Manager of Asian and Pacific Art at the Queensland Art Gallery, tells Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) the story of how

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