History Lab

Who was the Caribbean-Australian cabaret star who could bring down the house — and come back at racism with a joke? 

"Come sit by me, we don’t eat people anymore."

Nellie Small was born in Sydney in 1900, just before the White Australia policy was introduced.  

She became one of the country’s most beloved performers, famous for wearing men’s suits on stage and off, and for her sharp comebacks.  

In show business cir...

What does boxing have to do with anticolonial politics?

How did the sport become a space where Black and Indigenous fighters in Australia pushed back against racism and empire?

From Peter Jackson to Jack Johnson, Marcus Garvey to Les “Ranji” Moody, this episode explores how Black and Indigenous fighters turned the ring into a stage for resistance and anticolonialism.

Worimi historian Professor John Maynard talks about the links betwe...

Did you know that the most famous Australian in the world in 1890 was from the Caribbean?

Peter Jackson was born in St Croix in the Caribbean in the years after slavery was abolished. He arrived in Sydney as a teenager and got noticed when he single-handedly fought off seven in a brawl at Wynyard Square.

He soon stepped into Sydney’s boxing rings and, by 1890, he was Australia’s heavyweight champion and chasing the world title in the...

History Lab is back—refreshed and reimagined.

From now on, you’ll hear us in regular seasonal runs, dropping new episodes once or twice a fortnight over six to eight weeks.

Each run will showcase a mix of formats:

• History Lab Originals – our signature investigative storytelling that digs into the gaps between us and the past.
• History Lab Studio – interviews and discussions with historians.
• History Lab Live – recordings of public h...

What is the work of truth-telling? How is evidence collected? What happens next?

What role should schools play in teaching Australia’s full history?

Australia has completed its first, formal truth-telling process — the Yoorrook Justice Commission of Victoria.

We joined Commissioner Travis Lovett on his 500-kilometre Walk for Truth from Portland on Gunditjmara Country, to Parliament House on Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung Country in Melbourn...

This special episode from our archives speaks to this year’s NAIDOC Week themes of strength, vision and legacy.

Fishing for Answers explores the sophistication of the fishing practices of Eora women in Sydney Harbour, and asks, How can we hear from the women themselves and find out what their world sounded like? 

Content warning: If you are an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person this episode may contain the nam...

Colonial portraits have long dictated how Indigenous people were seen. But Indigenous artists continue to challenge that power. Through satire, reinterpretation, and resistance, they’re using art to question history—and reshape the future.  

In this episode, historians Kate Fullagar and Mike McDonnell speak with contemporary Indigenous artists who are confronting the legacy of empire. Michel Tuffery, a New Zealand-based artist ...

In this episode, historians Kate Fullagar and Mike McDonnell revisit Bennelong’s portraits to examine how colonial art encountered Indigenous identity. Indigenous scholar Jo Rey, a Dharug woman, challenges these depictions, questioning their accuracy and impact.  

The conversation then expands to the Pacific, where Māori scholar Alice Te Punga Somerville discusses the story of Tupaia, a Polynesian navigator and artist who trave...

Bennelong, a Wangal man of the Eora nation, was among the first Aboriginal people to travel to Europe and return. As a crucial interlocutor between his people and the British colonists, he navigated two worlds but the way he was depicted in colonial portraits raises complex questions. In one, he appears in traditional body paint. In another, years later, he is dressed in European clothing, his identity seemingly reshaped for a colo...

Can colonial depictions of Indigenous people tell us anything useful about the past?   

How do Indigenous people today feel about these enduring images?    

Unsettling Portraits is a three-part series exploring the history of portraiture and colonialism, alongside contemporary First Nations responses. 

Indigenous artists and historians in Australia, the Pacific and North America discuss the practice of col...

If you're an old friend, hello and thank you for hitting play. If you're a new listener, welcome.

History Lab, as many of you will know, was Australia’s first investigative history podcast. 

We've made five seasons so far, and our tagline is exploring the gaps between us and the past.

And while you notice that from season to season our storytelling style changes, we're still always asking questions that provoke curiosity...

A special History Lab episode with a soundwork that explores the history of Sydney's South Head, followed by an interview with the maker Sinead Roarty and Director of the Australian Centre for Public History at UTS, Tamson Pietsch.

About the soundwork: On the Edge

The Gap at South Head in Sydney's eastern suburbs is a place of extreme beauty. It is also famous for being Australia's most well-known suicide destination.

On the Edge ...

We've got a new history podcast for you and the kids in your life, called Hey History! 

With immersive, sound rich storytelling and Australia's top historians and experts, dive into key events in our history.

Find out...

• How did First Nations people learn on Country? How does learning happen today?
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• What really when Captain Cook and First Nations people met at Kamay Botany Bay?
• What was life like as a convict kid? How ...

In 1887 there were no less than 22 hotels in Darlinghurst. Over the next century and a half, the character, culture and clientele of Darlinghurst pubs evolved. This story explores the impact on Darlinghurst of two episodes of liquor licensing restrictions in NSW: six o’clock closing and the Sydney lockout laws. 

Image: Royal Sovereign Hotel, corner Darlinghurst Rd and Liverpool St, 1921 (City of Sydney Archives) 

&nbs...

Terraces, flats, squats, bedsits, mansions, towers, camps and hostels: in Darlinghurst, housing is a mixed bag. This audio story explores the range of lifestyles afforded by Darlinghurst’s dense diversity of dwellings. 

Image: Pad with a View, Kings Cross 1970-71 (Photographer: Rennie Ellis © Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive) 

Credits 

This audio story is a production of the Australian...

At St Vincent's Hospital, the Sisters of Charity have been delivering care to the people of Darlinghurst since 1857. This audio story visits St Vincent’s during three historic public health emergencies: the Spanish Flu, the HIV/AIDS crisis and COVID-19. 

Image: Sister and nurse with home visitation car, St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney (Courtesy of the Congregational Archives of the Sisters of Charity of Australia) 

...

In the rapidly gentrifying Darlinghurst of the 1980s, a turf war raged over one of its earliest trades. In this story, we visit the street corners and safe houses where sex workers competed for customers, looked out for each other and stood their ground. Along the way, veterans of the street-based trade describe a changing industry, sharing stories from the frontline of the fight for law reform and workers’ rights. 

If yo...

Darlinghurst has always been a magnet and a haven for exiles and misfits. With writer and Darlo-phile Sunil Badami as guide, this audio story celebrates a handful of local characters and eccentrics, reflecting on the material conditions that enable unconventional people to thrive.   

Image: Hare Krishna, Kings Cross 1970-71 (Photographer: Rennie Ellis © Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive)  

Credits 

...

If you listen after rain, you can still hear the rush of water that used to flow from the sandstone ridge at the apex of Darlinghurst down to the harbour. This audio story goes in search of the creeks and cascades that sustained life and industry for Gadigal people, colonists and Chinese market gardeners, before being covered over by the concrete and tarmac of the modern city. 

Image: Rushcutters Creek, 1870-75 (Mitchell ...