Witness History

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 ...

The V2 rocket

07 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Using eyewitness accounts from the BBC archives, we hear how the Nazis developed the world's first modern ballistic missile that killed thousands duri...

Fighting 'virginity tests' in the Indonesian police

06 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the early 2000s, Sri Rumiati, a brigadier-general in the Indonesian police, began campaigning against intrusive examinations of female recruits to ...

Derek Jarman

03 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

One of the first high-profile artists to speak openly about having Aids was the British experimental film-maker, Derek Jarman. Jarman had made his nam...

South Africa and Aids drugs

02 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

At the end of the 1990s, hundreds of thousands of people in South Africa were still dying from HIV/Aids because effective drug treatments were prohibi...

AZT: The breakthrough treatment for Aids

01 Dec 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 1987 the first successful drug treatment was developed for Aids. AZT went from initial test to approval in just over two years - at the time it was...

The early days of HIV/Aids

30 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The HIV virus was first identified by medical experts in a journal article in 1981. In the early days of the epidemic, carriers of the virus were stig...

The Aids 'patient zero' myth

29 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the early days of Aids, a misunderstanding made one man the face of the epidemic. Canadian air steward Gaetan Dugas developed the symptoms of HIV/A...

The assassination of the Mirabal sisters

26 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The three Mirabal sisters were leading figures in the Dominican Republic's opposition movement against the dictator, General Rafael Trujillo. Patria,...

Estonia’s internet ‘Tiger Leap’

25 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Estonia started connecting all its schools to the internet very early. In 1996 less than two percent of the world’s population had access to the web...

The doctor who helped her mother to die

24 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 2001, the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalise voluntary euthanasia: although the new law was ground-breaking, it was base...

Europe's last smallpox epidemic

23 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Eighteen million people were vaccinated against smallpox in the former communist Yugoslavia in only a month and a half in 1972. The mass vaccination c...

The Woman in Gold by Gustav Klimt

22 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

'The Woman in Gold' was one of Gustav Klimt's most famous paintings. It was a portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, but it was taken from her family by the N...

Sudan's October Revolution

18 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A first-hand account of how Sudanese civilian protesters first brought down a military regime in 1964. The protests began after a student was shot and...

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

17 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

How a particular form of psychotherapy, cognitive behavioural therapy, became a common treatment for anxiety and depression. CBT was first developed b...

The capture of war criminal Radovan Karadzic

16 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 2008, one of Europe’s most wanted fugitives, the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, was arrested in Belgrade for war crimes. Karadzic h...

Kuwaiti oil fires of 1991

15 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

After the end of the Gulf War in 1991, retreating Iraqi forces set light to oil wells in the desert. Specialist firefighters were drafted in by the Ku...

Shoot: A milestone in performance art

15 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In November 1971 a young American artist decided to get a friend to take a shot at him - in the name of art. His name was Chris Burden and the shootin...

The South African football star murdered for being a lesbian

11 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Eudy Simelane was a star of the South African women's national football team and a gay rights activist. In 2008, she was pursued by a group of men aft...

Spying in Berlin

10 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

At the height of the Cold War the German city of Berlin was known as the spy capital of the world. Spies were operating on both sides of the Berlin Wa...

Chanel No. 5

09 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 1921, one of the most famous perfumes in the world was launched in France. Chanel No. 5 was created for Coco Chanel, the fashion designer and good-...

Britain's Black Schools

08 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 1960s mainstream schooling in Britain was failing many black immigrant children. A disproportionate number were being sent to schools for those wi...

When Eritrea silenced its critics

05 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 2001, the Eritrean government suddenly arrested prominent critics and journalists, and shut down the country's independent press. None of those det...

The end of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising

04 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

On November 4th 1956 Soviet tanks rolled into the Hungarian capital Budapest, crushing the country's short-lived popular uprising against Soviet rule....

The enduring legend of Fu Manchu

03 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The evil criminal mastermind Fu Manchu was a recurring character in Hollywood films for decades. He epitomised racist stereotypes about China and the ...

Judgement at Nuremberg

02 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

It's 75 years since verdicts were delivered on leading German Nazis at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg for their instrumental role in...

The miracle of walking

01 Nov 2021

Contributed by Lukas

An American doctor, Ignacio Ponseti, revolutionised the treatment of children born with 'club foot' - where their feet are turned in and under, and wh...

Kilimanjaro: Africa’s disappearing glaciers

29 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The mountains of East Africa are losing their glaciers. At 5,895 metres, Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain on the continent, but it has lost about 9...

The child climate activist of the 1990s

28 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Long before Greta Thunberg, there was 12-year-old Severn Cullis-Suzuki, the girl who stood in front of world leaders and implored them to take action ...

How the world woke up to climate change

27 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Professor James Hansen finally got US politicians to listen to his warnings about climate change in June 1988 after years of trying. He and fellow NAS...

The world's first environment conference

26 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The first international conference on the problems of the environment took place in Stockholm in 1972. It didn't concentrate on climate change but on ...

Proving climate change: the 'Keeling Curve'

25 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

A young American scientist began the work that would show how our climate is changing in 1958. His name was Charles Keeling and he started meticulousl...

Britain’s lesbian families ‘scandal’

22 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In January 1978 a London newspaper revealed how several British lesbians had conceived babies using donor sperm with the help of a respected gynaecolo...

The Greenham Common women's peace camp

21 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

The anti-nuclear weapons protest was the biggest women-led movement in the UK since the Suffragettes. It began in 1981 when Ann Pettitt from Wales org...

Polish refugees in Africa

20 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

During World War Two, close to 20,000 Polish people found refuge in Africa. They arrived after surviving imprisonment in Soviet labour camps and a har...

The mysterious death of Samora Machel

19 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

When the socialist leader of Mozambique and some of his senior advisers were killed in a plane crash on the border with South Africa, many were suspic...

The first transgender minister in the Church of England

18 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Sarah Jones is the first person who had undergone a gender change to be ordained in the Church of England. She has been talking to Phil Marzouk about ...

The doctor killed by an anti-abortion extremist

15 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In America, there are few issues as controversial as abortion. It’s a major fault line that runs through society, dividing families and even influen...

The Pakistani law that jailed rape survivors

14 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Under legislation known as the Hudood Ordinances introduced in 1979, a nearly blind teenage girl who'd been raped by two men and then became pregnant,...

The story of 'Baby Jessica'

13 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Eighteen-month-old Jessica McClure fell down a well-shaft while playing with other children in Texas in October 1987. It took almost three days to fre...

Colin Jordan and the British Nazi rally

12 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 1960s Britain extreme right-wing groups were on the rise. A schoolteacher called Colin Jordan led a Nazi rally in Trafalgar Square in central Londo...

Winning the Arabic Booker prize

11 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Saudi author Raja Alem was a voracious reader from an early age and thanks to her liberal-minded father, grew up immersed in books. She was in her ear...

Clyde Best - A black footballing pioneer

08 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

Bermuda-born Clyde Best came to England as a teenager in 1968 and went on to play for West Ham United alongside the likes of Bobby Moore and Geoff Hur...

The unlawful death of Christopher Alder

07 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In 1998, Christopher Alder, a black former soldier, choked to death in handcuffs on the floor of a British police station. CCTV footage showed the 37-...

A Somali sailor in 1920s Britain

06 Oct 2021

Contributed by Lukas

In the early 20th century, many Somali seafarers made their way to Britain on merchant ships, establishing communities in cities such as Cardiff. One ...