No One Saw It Coming

From the mid-1800s, more than 62,000 Pacific Islanders were kidnapped, tricked or coerced into labour on Queensland's sugar and cotton plantations.
Ryan Butta (Author, Blackbirding) and Emelda Davis, whose grandfather was taken from Vanuatu as a boy, tell Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) how Australia avoided the word "slavery" by disguising the trade in euphemism.
 It was called 'blackbirding' and it came to an end thanks to what is arguably the most racist piece of Australian legislation.
Binge all the episodes of No One Saw It Coming now on ABC listen (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.
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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 led to a war that history barely remembers by its real name. 
This is the fourth and final episode in the special series This Stupid War. Listen to the full series in the No One Saw It Coming podcast feed on ABC listen (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Got a story for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at noonesawitcoming@abc.net.au

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 dangerously close to war... all over a pig.
This is the third episode in the special series This Stupid War. Listen to the full series in the No One Saw It Coming podcast feed 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 noonesawitcoming@abc.net.au

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 and what led up to that football game.
This is the second episode in the special series This Stupid War. Listen to the full series in the No One Saw It Coming podcast feed on ABC listen (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Got a story for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at noonesawitcoming@abc.net.au

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 series This Stupid War. Listen to the full series in the No One Saw It Coming podcast feed 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 noonesawitcoming@abc.net.au