Witness History

The Tangshan Earthquake

28 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On 28 July 1976, one of the deadliest earthquakes in modern history hit the city of Tangshan in north-eastern China - killing hundreds of thousands of...

Inventing nicotine patches

27 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

By the 1990s, nicotine patches became commercially available all over the world but their origins go back to the early 1980s, when Dr Daniel Rose sugg...

The Surkov leaks

26 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2016, Ukrainian hackers leaked thousands of emails belonging to Russian President Vladimir Putin's right hand man, Vladislav Surkov.They provided a...

Ukraine's Revolution on Granite

25 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1990, Ukrainian students went on a hunger strike that helped bring down the Soviet regime there. It took place in Kyiv’s central square and inspi...

Nigerian sitcom Papa Ajasco

22 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1996, sitcom Papa Ajasco first hit Nigerian TV screens. Following the ups and downs of the Ajasco family – it quickly became one of the most succ...

The Soviet James Bond

21 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The most successful TV spy series ever to be broadcast in the USSR, went on air in 1973. The central character was a Soviet secret agent in Nazi Germa...

Who shot JR?

20 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Dallas was already a hit American TV series in 1980. But when its leading man, JR, was shot, the reaction worldwide was extraordinary. Claire Bowes sp...

Madhur Jaffrey’s ‘Indian Cookery’

19 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A ground-breaking Indian cookery programme broadcast on the BBC, launched 40 years ago. It was presented by actor turned food writer, Madhur Jaffrey. ...

The school for telenovela stars

18 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1987, broadcaster Televisa set up a drama school in Mexico City to train actors for its hugely popular telenovelas, Mexican soap operas. The Centro...

Fighting for the pill in Japan

15 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The contraceptive pill first was approved for use in the US in 1960. But it wasn't until 1999, that women in Japan were allowed to take oral contracep...

The man who invented the Pill

14 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1951, in a lab in Mexico City, Austrian chemist Dr Carl Djerassi created a synthetic hormone from wild yams. It would go on to become the Pill's ac...

When Tunisia led on women's rights

13 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1956, Tunisia became the first country in the Muslim world to legalise civil divorce and abortion. President Bourguiba also gave women the vote and...

Poland's strict abortion law

12 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1993 Poland introduced some of the most stringent abortion laws in Europe. It followed the fall of Communism in 1989. Ewa Kowaleska was among those...

How abortion was legalised in Great Britain

11 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1960s, a young mother, Diane Munday became well-known in Britain for her work demanding abortion rights for women. She and others in the campai...

The US’s first gay election candidate

08 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1961 the first openly gay person ran for public office in the United States. He was called Jose Sarria and he was a drag queen. He was determined t...

How the smear test was invented

07 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1928 Dr George Papanicoloau, a Greek immigrant living in New York, discovered he could detect pre-cancerous cell changes in the cervix. This led to...

Escaping Nigeria’s Civil War

06 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The south-east region of Nigeria declared itself to be the independent state of Biafra. In response, Nigerian forces invaded the state on 6 July 1967,...

Japanese university student riots

05 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1968 and early 1969 university students across Japan fought pitched battles with riot police after they barricaded themselves into their lecture ha...

The Higgs Boson: A scientific discovery that explains how the universe works

04 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It is 10 years since scientists in Geneva said they believed they had found the Higgs boson - known by some as the God particle. In July 2012 after mo...

Hong Kong - Kowloon Walled City

30 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A unique way of life came to an end in Hong Kong in 1993 when Kowloon Walled City was demolished. When the rest of Hong Kong was a British colony, the...

Hong Kong: Abandoned children

30 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1950s and '60s hundreds of thousands of Chinese people fled to the British colony of Hong Kong to escape famine. Conditions for the arrivals we...

Hong Kong: The 5-19 football riot in China

29 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In May 1985 Hong Kong inflicted an unexpected footballing defeat on their neighbours and rivals China in a World Cup qualifying game in Beijing. The d...

Hong Kong: Democracy campaigner

28 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1997 Hong Kong was handed back to China after more than 150 years of British rule. There were ceremonies and fireworks to celebrate the end of colo...

Hong Kong: The handover

27 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1997 Hong Kong was a buzzing hub of capitalism surrounded by a communist state. It was also a colonial relic - still ruled largely from Britain. It...

The UK's first official gay Pride March

24 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The UK’s first official gay Pride march took place 50 years ago - 1st July 1972. Alex Collins talks to Ted Brown who took part in the London march. ...

Egypt's first democratic presidential election

23 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In June 2012, Egypt held its first ever free democratic presidential election. Mohamed Morsi, representing the Muslim Brotherhood, emerged victorious....

The killing of Vincent Chin

22 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In June 1982 a young Chinese-American engineer was murdered with a baseball bat by two white men in the US city of Detroit. The lenient sentences the ...

Robot Surgeon

21 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1985 the first robot-assisted medical surgery took place in Vancouver, Canada. It’s now become a standard feature of operating theatres worldwide...

India's surrogacy capital

20 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2003 Dr Nayana Patel, who ran her own fertility clinic in the state of Gujarat in India, carried out her first surrogacy procedure. It was a purely...

Cambodia war crimes

17 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2009, a UN-backed war crimes tribunal opened in Cambodia to try the senior Khmer Rouge commanders responsible for the genocide of an estimated two ...

James Joyce and Ulysses

16 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This year is the 100th anniversary of Ulysses by James Joyce, a landmark modernist novel and one of the most influential works of the 20th century. Ul...

New York's LGBT High School

15 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1985, a unique High School opened in New York to provide a safe environment for LGBT students needing specialised education. The publicly-funded Ha...

Vietnam's 'Napalm Girl'

14 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It’s 50 years since Kim Phuc's village in Vietnam was bombed with napalm. The photograph of her, running burned and crying away from the attack, bec...

Holy Cross school dispute

13 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A violent sectarian dispute took place outside Holy Cross primary school in Belfast in 2001. Loyalist protesters tried to block Catholic pupils and th...

The Gulabi Gang

10 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the early 2000s, Sampat Pal Devi, a villager from a remote part of India's Uttar Pradesh state, started a women's rights group which now has thousa...

How Sri Lanka's president survived a suicide bombing

09 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2006, Sri Lanka’s current president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, came within metres of death when he was targeted in a suicide bomb attack in Colombo. Th...

Saving Gabon's rainforest

08 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2002 Omar Bongo, the president of Gabon, set up a network of national parks to protect the country's forests from logging and help save its populat...

The Diary of Anne Frank

07 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In June 1947, one of the most powerful accounts of the Holocaust - the Diary of Anne Frank - was published for the first time. In her diary, the teena...

The assassination of Bobby Kennedy

06 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In June 1968, US presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy was assassinated shortly after addressing his supporters at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angel...

The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II

03 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

As the Queen celebrates her Platinum Jubilee weekend, Claire Bowes takes us back to her Coronation in London's Westminster Abbey in June 1953. In 201...

Sarin attack in Syria

02 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2013, more than a thousand people are thought to have died in a chemical weapons attack on a suburb of the Syrian capital Damascus called Ghouta. ...

Life in the biggest Syrian refugee camp in the world

01 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It's 10 years since Za’atari refugee camp was set up in Jordan to take in the thousands of people fleeing Syria because of the civil war. It's now t...

Civil Rights activist Ida B Wells

31 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In March 2022 a law was passed in the United States making lynching a federal crime - nearly 120 years after the first attempts to introduce legislati...

The attack on Lod Airport

30 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In May 1972, Japanese gunmen attacked Lod airport in Tel Aviv, Israel. They were left-wing militants working for a Palestinian organisation. Twenty-si...

Georgia O'Keeffe

27 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Georgia O'Keeffe was one of the world's most influential female artists - in 2014, her painting "Jimson Weed" sold for the highest price ever paid for...

The World Festival of Black Arts

26 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

in April 1966 thousands of artists and performers from all over Africa descended on the Senegalese capital, Dakar, for the first World Festival of Bla...

The museum of banned Russian art

25 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1966, a Russian painter and archaeologist, Igor Savitsky, created a museum in the remote desert of Uzbekistan, where he stored tens of thousands of...

The last days of Frida Kahlo

24 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The great Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo, died in 1954, at the age of 47. The art critic, Raquel Tibol, lived in Frida's house during the last year of th...

Meeting Picasso

23 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the summer of 1951 a young art historian called John Richardson met one of the greatest painters of the modern era. Richardson was part of Picasso...

The murder of Kelso Cochrane

20 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In May 1959, Kelso Cochrane, a carpenter who'd emigrated to Britain from Antigua, was knifed to death by a gang of white youths in West London. The un...

Chasing the Marcos millions

20 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The former president of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos Senior is thought to have plundered a huge amount of public money during military rule in the...

Shanghai at War

19 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1937, Japanese forces entered Shanghai - spelling the end of a period when the Chinese city had been a thriving commercial centre governed by inter...

The first McDonald's in Moscow

18 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Following the closure of McDonald’s in Russia, we’re going back to January 1990 when the global fast food giant opened its first restaurant in Mos...

People Power in the Philippines

16 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1986, four days of huge public protests brought down President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines. Kate McGowan, in Manila, talks to the leading F...

The war in Transnistria

13 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

With speculation mounting that President Putin might mount an attack on Moldova, we're going back to the early 1990s and a war between the Moldovans a...

Eyjafjallajökull: The volcano that stopped Europe

11 May 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 2010, a previously little-known Icelandic volcano erupted twice, sending a huge plume of volcanic ash all over Europe. The ash cloud grounded fligh...

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...