Rum, Rebels & Ratbags
Activity Overview
Episode publication activity over the past year
Episodes
Mothers of a nation
24 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Women in the convict colony initially had a hard life, but for many New South Wales presented undreamed of opportunities. They had a greater say in r...
Let's call it Macquarie
23 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Lachlan Macquarie was a hard drinking, penny pinching Scottish army officer with syphilis and an impressive history of financial fraud. Yet he became...
The Bounty bastard
22 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
William Bligh was an incredible navigator, breadfruit fancier, coconut hoarder, reforming governor and utter bastard. The mutiny prone swear-bear was...
The man who bought Australia
21 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
John Macarthur, a.k.a. Bodice Jack, had two favourite things: alcohol and money, both of which came in brown paper bags. Macarthur and the New South ...
Bass Straight?
20 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
There are more statues of Matthew Flinders in Australia than of any other man. And there are more statues of his cat, Trim, than of any other cat. Fl...
The Eora ambassador and the rainbow warrior
19 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Australia's Indigenous people dealt with the white ghosts from across the sea in different ways. Bennelong pursued a path of accommodation and was th...
Naked and starving
18 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
New South Wales' first governor, Arthur Phillip, dreamed of an antipodean utopia. Instead he founded Sydney, a town full of drunk, starving and naked...
Tea, taxation, criminals and cannabis
17 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Did you know the colony of Australia only came about because of tea, taxation, criminals ... and cannabis?! And, find out how a cockney hypochondriac...
Australia's worst serial killer
16 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
More than 140 years before Captain Cook sighted the Australian coast, Dutch merchant Jeronimus Cornelisz murdered over 120 shipwreck survivors off th...
Sir Joseph Banks, the playboy botanist
15 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Australians might know Banks as 'that plant guy’ but he was actually a wealthy playboy who inspired Star Trek and discovered surfing. Captain Cook ...