It is helping us understand everything from how to cope with new COVID-19 hardships to how the council almost shanked its chance to start one of the city's most successful industries (tomatoes ... yes, really!).

So if you think our ancestors have nothing to do with you, here are just a few of the ways they have shaped your life and the city you call home.

Here is the improbable story of how Bendigo became the state's tomato epicentre and why the industry came crashing down.

Respected Bendigo historian James Lerk has delved into this strange but true story about pioneering families that transformed crippled mining land into farms famed for their produce.

He has also uncovered the way Bendigo's council failed to back the dreamer who made the industry possible ("TYPICAL!", I hear you all cry, but to be fair, it was a pretty far out idea in the 19^th century).

Mr Lerk's book is called Bendigo's Once Flourishing Tomato Industry.

More news: Storm warning for parts of central Victoria

World War Two finally ground to a halt 75 years ago last August.

Bendigo "went mad with joy" in one of those rare moments that remain etched in people's minds for the rest of their lives, like the assassination of JFK, the moon landing or September 11.

The centre of town shut down as workers abandoned their offices and as children descended onto the roads to celebrate.

Police struggled to stop children surfing atop cars and buses (it was a different time, so don't get any ideas for the day the COVID-19 vaccine comes to Bendigo, kids).

Even so, soldiers on the front line were quietly getting on with their job.

"I just hoped the Japs knew about it, we weren't very far away from them," says Pierce Grenfell.

He was one of 30,000 soldiers fighting to reclaim a small volcanic island off of what is now Papua New Guinea's mainland.

Those pointed criticisms of the federal government for its response to last summer's bushfires seem so long ago now, don't they?

They are not the only disastrous blazes that have sent shock waves through Victoria.

Here's the now largely forgotten story of how Bendigo was almost wiped out by a monstrous fire that bore down on the city in the dark days of 1944.

Largely forgotten today, John Henry Rooney stopped countless Bendiog children vanishing down mines by capping thousands of shafts.

Tragically, His life was cut short when he plummeted into Bendigo's depths in the 1930s.

Here, we remember this hero's critically important achievements.

Just over 140 years after William Abednego Thompson died many Bendigonians would not be able to tell you he was the man their town is named after.

But he was a household nickname for most of the 19th century.

Don't be THAT person who knows nothing about our city's namesake. Learn more about him here in this Bendigo Weekly (a Bendigo Advertiser publication) article.

More from our look back at 2020: