Matt Bevan on the history you think you know

The ABC journalist explains how competing, overlapping narratives and outright myths form our understanding of events of the past, featuring an impersonation of Winston Churchill talking about a lemon tree. Matt presents and writes the ABC TV show and podcast “If You’re listening”, where he says he explains the world’s most important stories while hiding in his basement from assassins and authoritarian regimes. He applies his Australian lens on major turning points in history; the villains, visionaries and vanquished and invites us to question what we think we know about the world. From the assassination of Julius Ceaser to the collapse of the Soviet Union, Matt has uncovered unknown, often bizarre and at times laughable tales swirling in the murky waters of history. Further information If You're Listening: Declassified is published by HarperCollins. You can watch and listen to Matt's program, If You're Listening. This episode was produced by Alice Moldovan. The Executive Producer is Eliza Kirsch. It covers world politics, Trump, Putin, Winston Churchill, Matthias Rust, Red Square, Iron Curtain, Soviet Union, Chernobyl, M Gessen, Yevgeny Prigozhin, Wagner Group, Cessna, Yalta Conference, Stalin, Alexander Downer, Papadopoulos, Hillary Clinton, hinge moments, the butterfly effect, To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.

You can listen to Matt Bevan on the history you think you know online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Matt Bevan on the history you think you know is an episode from Conversations by Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

This episode is 0:51:30 long.

This episode was published on Apr 29, 2026.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Conversations when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.