Witness History

China opens up to capitalism

10 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In May 1980 China allowed capitalist activity for the first time since the Communist Revolution, in four designated cities known as the Special Econom...

Soviet nuclear missile alert

09 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1983, during a tense period of the Cold War, Soviet nuclear officials received a computer warning suggesting that the United States had fired five ...

Fighting for Uyghur rights in China

06 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1980s, the minority Uyghur community in China staged some of the first protests against the all-powerful Communist Party. The Uyghurs were dema...

The chemistry of cannabis

05 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Israel scientist Raphael Mechoulam has been researching what’s thought to be the world’s most popular drug since the 1960s. In 1964, he isolat...

Roe v Wade

04 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1973, a landmark decision was made in the US Supreme Court which made abortion legal. The late Sarah Weddington brought the case, even though she w...

Surviving the Falkands War

03 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1982 British soldier Simon Weston was severely burned when Argentine planes bombed his ship, the Sir Galahad, as it unloaded troops in the Falkland...

The sinking of the Belgrano

02 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Argentine ship, General Belgrano, was sunk by a British submarine during the Falklands War on 2nd of May 1982. 323 people died in the attack. Dari...

Algeria's rebel footballers

29 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

During Algeria's War of Independence, a group of Algerian players secretly left their clubs in France to form their own national team. Some had alread...

The Algerians who fought for France

28 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

More than 200,000 Algerians fought for France during the war of independence, becoming known as Harkis. After Algeria's independence in 1962, the Hark...

Algeria: The Massacre in Paris

27 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

During their country's War of Independence, Algerian fighters from the FLN also targeted the French mainland, killing police officers in Paris and oth...

The War in Algeria: A French soldier's experience

26 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the late 1950s a young Frenchman, who now goes by the name Ted Morgan, was conscripted to fight for France against Algeria's independence fighters....

Algeria’s Milk Bar Bomber

25 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Zohra Drif was 21 years old when she planted a bomb that exploded at a busy ice-cream parlour in Algiers. The Algerian student targeted the venue in 1...

The battle for Kinder Scout

22 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It's 90 years since hundreds of walkers organised a mass trespass on a mountain in the English Peak District called Kinder Scout. It was a major step ...

Iranian revolution: The Kurdish uprising

21 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The story of a boy caught up in the forgotten war for Kurdish autonomy in Iran in 1979. During the Iranian revolution, Kurdish groups had joined the s...

Britain's Soviet spy scandal

20 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1971 during the Cold War, the UK expelled 90 Soviet diplomats suspected of spying. They'd been allowed into Britain in an attempt to improve relati...

Women's rights in Basra

19 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2006 after the US-led invasion of Iraq, women in the southern city of Basra were persecuted by militant Islamists forcing them to cover up, stay at...

Erasmus: Europe's student exchange scheme

18 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Since 1987, million of students have been able to live and study in other countries in Europe thanks to the Erasmus student exchange programme. The sc...

The World Wide Web

15 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The World Wide Web was created in 1989 by a young British computer scientist called Tim Berners-Lee. It's been called one of the greatest inventions o...

How Tinder changed the dating game

14 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It’s 10 years since the dating app Tinder was set up. It sparked a revolution in online romance by offering singletons a swipe function and the poss...

Greece's Great Famine

13 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1941, Greece was occupied by Germany and its allies. The economy quickly collapsed and food shortages spread across urban areas with terrifying spe...

The largest war crimes trial in history

12 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2002 the former Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic, went on trial at the International Criminal Court in the Hague on war crimes charges relatin...

Nato intervenes in Kosovo

11 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When war broke out in Kosovo in 1998, Nato intervened with air strikes to prevent atrocities by Serbian forces. The late Madeleine Albright was then t...

The Great American Grain Robbery

08 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

With fears rising that the war in Ukraine might spark a big rise in global food prices, we're going back 50 years to the story of how a drought in the...

The handshake in Space

07 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1975, Russian cosmonauts and American astronauts met up in space and shook hands. Millions watched on TV as the two spacecraft docked together and ...

The Soviet Afghan War Begins

06 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In late December 1979, the world held its breath as thousands of Soviet troops were sent into Afghanistan. Moscow said the troops would be there six m...

The Falklands War - an Argentine account

05 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In our second programme on the Falklands War, Witness History hears from an Argentine soldier who fought in the conflict. Miguel Savage recalls the at...

Escaping a Maoist cult

01 Apr 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2013, three women escaped from a cult that had been based in an ordinary house in Brixton, South London, since the 1970s. The cult was led by Aravi...

Selling Van Gogh's Sunflowers

31 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Vincent Van Gogh's "Sunflowers" was sold at auction at Christie's in London in March 1987 for 39.9 million dollars - then a world record and more than...

Afghanistan's women's newspaper

30 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Aina-E-Zan, the first women's newspaper in Afghanistan, was launched in 2002. Edited by Shukria Barazkai, the newspaper covered women's rights issues ...

Banksy’s first street art mural

29 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

World-renowned street artist Banksy started spray-painting the walls of his home city of Bristol in the 1990s. It is widely believed that his first la...

The 'Snow Revolution' against Vladimir Putin

28 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Starting in late 2011, tens of thousands of protestors took to the streets to try to stop what they saw as a power grab by Russian leader Vladimir Put...

Soviet holidays in Crimea

25 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Artek, on the shores of the Black Sea in Crimea, was the Soviet Union's most popular holiday camp. Thousands of children visited every year. Maria Kim...

Ukraine's Babi Yar massacre

24 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

During World War Two, Ukraine was occupied by Nazi Germany and on 29th September 1941, the organised massacre of Ukrainian Jews began. In the capital ...

The Budapest Memorandum

22 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, Ukraine inherited the Soviet-era atomic weapons on its soil and became - for a few years - the world's t...

The Chernobyl nuclear disaster

21 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In April 1986 a reactor exploded at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, in the USSR, causing the worst nuclear accident ever. Sergii Mirnyi ...

The Shard

18 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Shard - one of the dominant features of the London skyline - opened to the public in February 2013. Designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, the...

Zaha Hadid's Cincinnati Arts Center

17 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati opened to the public in 2003 it wowed both the public and critics. With its undulating curves and gall...

Teheran's Freedom Tower

16 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A vast new monument was opened to the public in Tehran in early 1972. It was called Shahyad and was dedicated to centuries of Iranian royalty. After t...

Chandigarh: India's city of the future

15 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

After the trauma of Partition in 1947, India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru persuaded the maverick Swiss-French architect, Le Corbusier, to b...

The Frauenkirche - Dresden's symbol of war and reconstruction

14 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2005 Dresden’s Lutheran church, the Frauenkirche, opened its doors to the public for the first time in 60 years. The Frauenkirche in the East Ger...

The Wages for Housework campaign

11 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

They called it "The only work you never retire from, the only work you never get paid for" and in 1972 the Italian Marxist Feminist group Lotta Femini...

Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi

10 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2003, human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi became the first Iranian and the first Muslim woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Six years later, sh...

The Australian women who protested against the Vietnam war

09 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Five Australian women made front-page news when they were sent to Melbourne's Fairlea Prison for protesting against the Vietnam War in 1971. The wome...

Russia's war in Georgia in 2008

04 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In August 2008, Russia went to war with another former Soviet republic, Georgia. The conflict began after Georgia attempted to recapture the breakaway...

The takeover of NTV in Russia

03 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

NTV, the only nationwide independent TV channel in Russia, was taken over in April 2001. It lost its independence despite a vigorous protest campaign ...

Boris Yeltsin's surprise resignation

02 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On New Year's Eve 1999 the Russian President went on TV and announced he was leaving office. Tired and emotional, he apologised to the people for the ...

Putin's war in Chechnya

01 Mar 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When Vladimir Putin was appointed prime minister in August 1999, he was a political unknown. He quickly made his name by ordering Russian Federation f...

Economic 'shock therapy' in Russia

28 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

President Vladimir Putin came onto the Russian political scene in 1999 after a decade of chaos following the collapse of the Soviet Union. This includ...

The 2014 annexation of Crimea

25 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2014, Russia annexed the strategic Crimean peninsula from Ukraine. Although Crimea was also home to a large Russian naval base, the annexation was ...

The death of Trayvon Martin

24 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In February 2012, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot dead by a member of a Neighbourhood Watch group who claimed he was acting suspiciously. The unar...

The Navajo Code Talkers in World War 2

23 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In World War 2, US Marines fighting in the Pacific needed to be able to communicate securely on the battlefield. Early in the war, the Japanese had be...

Nixon in China

22 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It is 50 years since US President Richard Nixon's historic visit to China in February 1972. The visit - which included a meeting with Chairman Mao - n...

The first sex worker strike

21 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1975 hundreds of French sex workers took refuge in churches across France to protest against police harassment, in their first ever collective acti...

The world's first civil union

18 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1989, Denmark became the first country to celebrate same-sex civil unions. In 2014, Farhana Haider spoke to Ivan Larsen and Ove Carlsen, who were o...

Bollywood's pioneering lesbian drama

17 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Bollywood film "Fire" was the first in Indian history to depict a lesbian relationship. Released in 1998, the movie sparked a row over censorship ...

The Berlin Patient

16 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1990s, doctors in Berlin began a cutting-edge treatment programme that led to a patient being cured of HIV/AIDS. The so-called "Berlin patient"...

"Don't ask, don't tell" in the US Armed Forces

15 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

LGBT servicemen and women in the US armed forces had to keep their sexuality secret until the 'Don't ask, don't tell' policy was repealed in 2011. Lie...

The first LGBT film in war-torn Yugoslavia

14 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How the ground-breaking film "Marble Ass" was made amid the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. Petra Zivic talks to acclaimed Serbian director Zelimir...

The 1972 mass killings in Burundi

11 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In late April 1972, Hutu rebels launched an insurgency in the south of Burundi with the aim of overthrowing the Tutsi led government. They brutally mu...

Ukraine's 'Maidan Revolution'

10 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Throughout the winter of 2013/14 protesters built barricades and camped out in the centre of Kyiv demanding change. The focus was the Maidan, Kyiv's ...

Shoe designer Manolo Blahnik

09 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How a young designer from the Canary Islands became one of the most famous shoe-makers in the world. Manolo Blahnik was studying art and set design in...

The invention of Google Maps

08 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2005, a revolutionary online mapping service called Google Maps went live for the first time. It introduced searchable, scrollable, interactive map...

The demise of the Soviet Union

07 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In December 1991 the leaders of three Soviet Republics - Russia, Ukraine and Belarus - signed a treaty dissolving the USSR. They did so without asking...

The first Emirati female teacher

03 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1960s, it was extremely rare for women in what is now the United Arab Emirates to go to school. At the time the future country was a collection...

The day the world looked up

02 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In June 2012 one of the solar system’s rarest of astronomical events took place, when it was possible to see the planet Venus fly past the face of t...

The murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl

01 Feb 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In February 2002 a videotape was released by extremists in Pakistan showing the murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter. Daniel Pearl had been inve...

The Good Friday Agreement

28 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1998, the political parties in Northern Ireland reached a peace agreement that ended decades of war. But the Good Friday Agreement, as it became kn...

IRA gun-running in America

27 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How an undercover FBI agent bust an IRA gun-running plot in New York in 1981. We hear from retired FBI agent, John WInslow, who posed as a gun dealer ...

Bloody Sunday

25 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On 30 January 1972 British troops opened fire on a civil rights march in Northern Ireland. Thirteen people were killed that day, which became known as...

British troops in Northern Ireland

24 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In August 1969 the British Army was first deployed in Northern Ireland. Their job was to keep the peace on the streets of Londonderry where sectarian ...

A Cold War love affair

21 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The East German authorities built the Berlin Wall in 1961 to keep their people in. Thousands had been streaming westwards. But a few people went the o...

The first bicycle-sharing scheme

20 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the mid-1960s a Dutch engineer called Luud Schimmelpennink came up with a scheme to share bikes, and cut pollution. He collected about ten old bicy...

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

20 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This week Americans have been observing the Martin Luther King Jr Day national holiday, which marks the birthday of the late civil rights leader. The ...

The rise of Boko Haram

17 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

How a small Nigerian Islamist group launched one of the deadliest insurgencies in Africa. In 2002, a new radical sect emerged in Maiduguri in north ea...

The first silicone breast implants

14 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

30-year-old Texan Timmie Jean Lindsey was the first woman in the world to have silicone breast implants. In 1962, she was offered the operation free o...

Costa Concordia

13 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Costa Concordia hit submerged rocks off the Italian island of Giglio in January 2012, leaving a fifty-metre-long gash in the hull. More than four thou...

Malick Sidibé: Mali's superstar photographer

12 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Malian photographer, Malick Sidibé, is one of Africa’s most celebrated artists. His most famous photographs show black and white scenes of youn...

Kazakhstan's nuclear legacy

11 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

After its independence, Kazakhstan had to deal with the legacy of being one of the centres of the Soviet Union's huge nuclear arsenal and nuclear weap...

India's freedom fighter: Subhas Chandra Bose

10 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2022, India is holding a series of events to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the birth of the independence campaigner, Subhas Chandra Bose. Unli...

Mozambique's Eduardo Mondlane: From professor to freedom fighter

06 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On February 3rd 1969, Eduardo Mondlane - the founder of FRELIMO, Mozambique’s Liberation Front against Portuguese colonial rule - was assassinated...

Marcel Proust

05 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2022, France is marking the centenary of the death of the novelist Marcel Proust, the author of the 20th century masterpiece Remembrance of Things ...

The end of Stalinist rule in Albania

04 Jan 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1990 Albania’s communist government agreed to allow independent political parties following a wave of protests. Lea Ypi was an 11 year old school...

The secret history of Monopoly

31 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 1904, a left-wing American feminist called Lizzy Magie patented a board game that evolved into what we now know as Monopoly. But 30 years later, wh...

Lego

30 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The Lego brick, one of the world's most popular toys, was invented in the small Danish town of Billund in 1958. Created by Godtfred Kirk Christiansen,...

Tetris

29 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 1984 Tetris, one of the most popular computer games ever, was invented in Moscow. Chloe Hadjimatheou speaks to its creator, Alexey Pajitnov, and to...

Grand Theft Auto: How the Scottish game outraged on release

29 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A new action-adventure computer game - designed in Scotland - became a surprise global hit in 1997. But Grand Theft Auto also courted controversy and ...

Pong and the birth of computer games

27 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 1973, a video game was invented which would change the way we play. An on screen version of table tennis, Pong was initially only played in arcades...

The home of Santa Claus

24 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Rovaniemi, a small town in Lapland, is home to dozens of Christmas tourist attractions and is widely considered the unofficial home of Santa Claus. Th...

Bahrain's 2011 protests

23 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 2011, thousands of protestors occupied Pearl Roundabout near the centre of Bahrain’s capital, Manama. Many of them were from the country's Shia r...

The right to drive in Saudi Arabia

22 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 2011, cybersecurity expert Manal Al-Sharif helped found the Women2Drive movement. It was designed to force the Saudi Arabian government to overturn...

Rudolf Nureyev defects

21 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 1961 the great ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev stunned the world by defecting from the Soviet Union. Nureyev escaped his KGB minders at an airport in ...

Tanzania's first elected albino MP

20 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

How opposition politician Salum Barwany overcame discrimination and fear to become the first albino elected to office in Tanzania in 2010. Albinism is...

Bangladesh wins independence

17 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In December 1971, Bangladesh won independence from Pakistan after nine months of war.Dr Kamal Hossain, a leading political figure, was jailed during t...

On the front line in Bangladesh

16 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When Bangladesh fought for independence from Pakistan, thousands of Pakistani troops were sent to fight in what was then called East Pakistan. In 1971...

Rape as a weapon in Bangladesh

15 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

During the war of independence in Bangladesh in 1971, Pakistani troops and their local collaborators used systematic rape as deliberate tactic. It's e...

The birth of Bangladesh

15 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In December 1970, Pakistan held its first democratic elections since the end of British colonial rule in 1947. The results would lead to war, the brea...

The Bengali language movement

13 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In February 1952 thousands of people marched in Dhaka in defence of the Bengali language. Eight of the protesters were shot dead by police. It became ...

The explosion heard by millions

10 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 2005 thousands of tonnes of petrol ignited at a fuel depot 40 kilometres North-West of London. The explosion was the largest in the UK since the en...

The Aldi kidnap

09 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The abduction of Theo Albrecht, who co-founded the discount supermarket chain ALDI with his brother Karl. The brothers shunned publicity and there wer...

Spies or plane-spotters?

08 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In November 2001 a group of British aircraft enthusiasts were arrested and put on trial in Greece. Unfamiliar with their hobby, the Greek authorities ...