Witness History
Episodes
Britain's World War Two 'Brown Babies'
05 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
During World War Two, tens of thousands of African-American US servicemen passed through the UK as part of the war effort. The black GIs stationed in ...
London's first black policeman
04 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Norwell Roberts joined the Metropolitan police in 1967. He was put forward as a symbol of progressive policing amid ongoing tensions between the polic...
The Tanker War
01 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In November 1987, the Romanian cargo ship, the Fundulea, was attacked by an Iranian gunboat in the Persian Gulf. It was just one of hundreds of mercha...
Petra Kelly and the German Greens
30 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the early 1980s in West Germany, a radical new political party was on the rise. Die Grünen - the Greens - championed protecting the environment, s...
'Mad cow disease' and CJD
29 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1996 the UK government said there was a link between BSE in cattle and Variant CJD in humans. It's believed that more than 100 people contracted t...
Photographing Brazil's Yanomami
28 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1971 photographer Claudia Andujar began documenting the lives of a remote indigenous tribe in the Brazilian Amazon jungle. Claudia went on to take ...
The rise of the Taliban
27 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Taliban first started to gather support in the south of Afghanistan in the early 1990s. By September 27th 1996 they had taken control of the count...
Kenya: Westgate Mall attack
24 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Gunmen from the Somali Islamist group Al-Shabab attacked a shopping centre in Nairobi taking hundreds hostage. The group claimed it was in retaliatio...
James Bond on screen
23 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As the 25th James Bond film hits cinema screens we look at the lasting appeal of the franchise. The original author, Ian Fleming, died in the 1960s bu...
The poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko
22 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Alexander Litvinenko was a former colonel in the Russian secret service and a critic of Vladimir Putin's government. He fled to London seeking politic...
Mexico's miracle water
21 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Thousands of people flocked to the village of Tlacote in central Mexico in 1991. They hoped to be cured by 'magical' water after rumours spread about ...
Jackie Kennedy and Aristotle Onassis
20 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the late 1960s, the widow of President Kennedy had a secret romance with Aristotle Onassis, who was then the richest man in the world. Simon Watts ...
The Peter Principle
17 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1969 a satirical book, The Peter Principle, suggested that promotion led to incompetence. Written by a Canadian Professor of Education, Dr Laurence...
Christiania: Copenhagen’s hippy commune
16 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1971 a group of squatters, artists and activists took over a disused military barracks on the edge of Copenhagen. They established a self-governing...
The earthquake that devastated Haiti
15 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 2010 the Haitian capital and surrounding areas were hit by a catastrophic earthquake. Much of Port Au Prince was flattened and more than a hundred ...
The lost king of France
14 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
King Louis XVI of France and his queen, Marie Antoinette, were killed during the French Revolution. Their son and heir was said to have died in prison...
The Attica prison rebellion
13 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In September 1971 prisoners in a high security jail in the USA turned on their guards taking 42 people hostage. After 4 days of negotiations, armed po...
9/11: The backlash against American Muslims
10 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the Aftermath of the Al Qaeda attacks against America on September 11th 2001, many Muslims living in the US had their allegiance to America questio...
America attacks Afghanistan
09 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In October 2001, just a month after the 9/11 attacks, the first airstrikes against Afghanistan began in what the US and its allies called Operation En...
With the president on 9/11
08 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The al-Qaeda attacks against America took place on the morning of September the 11th 2001. The news was broken to the US President, George W Bush by h...
The killing of Ahmed Shah Massoud
07 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On the 9th of September 2001 the Afghan fighter Ahmed Shah Massoud who led the opposition to Taliban rule, was killed by a suicide bomber. Just two d...
The warnings before 9/11
06 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Throughout 2001 the US authorities were being given warnings that a terror attack was imminent. A Congressional Commission, FBI officers and the CIA w...
North Korea's founding father
03 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When World War Two ended and the Korean peninsula was divided, Soviet soldiers occupied the North, and US soldiers occupied the South. So how did one ...
The businessman who defied the Mafia
02 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Palermo businessman Libero Grassi published an open letter in Sicily’s main newspaper denouncing the Mafia for constantly demanding extortion paymen...
Surviving the fall of Saigon
01 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When South Vietnam fell in 1975, most could not escape. In the last days, the US airlifted its remaining personnel and some high ranking Vietnamese of...
The first modern electric car
31 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This electric car revolution is finally on the horizon: many car manufacturers have promised to make only electric vehicles in the near future, in res...
Nigeria's 'War Against Indiscipline'
27 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Muhammadu Buhari's military government launched an unusual campaign to clean up Nigeria in August 1984. Under the policy, Nigerians were forced to que...
Syria's rebel poet
26 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani was one of the most influential and famous Arab cultural figures of the 20th century. His enduring legacy has become con...
Campaigning for Mexico's women with disabilities
25 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the mid 2000s disability campaigners in Mexico were stepping up their efforts to secure changes in laws and attitudes in their country. They faced ...
My father survived the sinking of the Titanic
24 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When the RMS Titanic sank in 1912, after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic, roughly 700 passengers survived by escaping in the ship's lifeboats...
John Maynard Keynes
23 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The economist John Maynard Keynes transformed 20th century economic policy. Considered one of the great minds of his age, his seminal work The General...
When The Queen met Ceaușescu
20 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Nicolae Ceaușescu was the first communist leader to be given a full state visit to the UK, but it was controversial from the outset. The Romanian pre...
Saddam Hussein's foreign hostages
19 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In August 1990 following the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein’s invasion of neighbouring Kuwait hundreds of foreign nationals were held hostage by the...
India's secret freedom radio
18 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When Indian independence leaders, including Gandhi, were jailed in 1942, activists set up a secret radio station to carry the message of rebellion aga...
US withdrawal: The fall of Saigon
17 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The last remaining US forces pulled out of Vietnam on April 30th 1975 as communist North Vietnamese troops took control of the country. There was a de...
The man who coined the term genocide
16 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Genocide has a long and grim history, but until the 1950s, the mass extermination of a people or a group was an atrocity without a name, a definition ...
Inside an East German jail
13 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Vera Lengsfeld was a prominent human rights activist in East Germany who was arrested and jailed for taking part in a peaceful protest. She was sent t...
East Germany's nudists
12 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For years Germans have been bathing nude at the beach. Many are members of a naturist movement called the FKK, which was banned under the Nazis and fa...
Exiled from East Germany: Wolf Biermann
11 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
East Germany's most famous singer-songwriter was exiled to the West in November 1976, causing an international outcry. Wolf Biermann was stripped of h...
Escaping from East Berlin
10 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How a young West German student helped East Berliners escape communism at the height of the Cold War. Volker Heinz told Robin Lustig how he worked wit...
The building of the Berlin Wall
09 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In August 1961, communist East Germany began building the Berlin Wall, which divided the city for nearly three decades and became a symbol of the Cold...
Gay activism in 1990s India
06 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the early 1990s, when homosexuality was still a criminal offense in India, a group of gay men and lesbian women set up the Counsel Club in the city...
Afghanistan's battle of the airwaves
05 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When the US led invasion of Afghanistan ousted the repressive Taliban regime in 2001, it was no longer illegal to listen to music or news on the radio...
Escaping Nigeria’s Civil War
04 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When the south-east region of Nigeria declared itself to be the independent state of Biafra, civil war broke out. More than a million people died befo...
Chipko: India’s tree-hugging women
03 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The 1970s were a time of rapid development in the Indian Himalayas. New roads had recently been built, allowing logging companies greater access to th...
Dorothy Butler Gilliam: American news pioneer
02 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1961, the Washington Post newspaper hired an African American woman as a reporter for the first time. Dorothy Butler Gilliam was only 24 when she g...
The Tsunami and Fukushima
30 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Remembering the earthquake and tsunami which devastated Japan and triggered a nuclear emergency in 2011. Max Pearson, who reported from Japan at the t...
Fighting for the pill in Japan
29 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
After decades of campaigning in Japan, the pill was finally legalised in 1999. In contrast, the male impotency drug Viagra was approved for use in jus...
The soldier who never surrendered
28 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In January 1972 a Japanese soldier was found hiding in the jungle on the Pacific island of Guam. He had been living in the wild there for almost 30 ye...
The birth of Karaoke
27 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Daisuke Inoue was playing keyboards in a band in Kobe, Japan, when he invented the Karaoke machine in 1971. He had a customer who wanted to impress bu...
Japan's Bullet Train
26 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On 1 October 1964, the fastest train the world had ever seen was launched in Japan. The first Shinkansen, or bullet train, ran between Tokyo and Osaka...
When war came to Darfur
22 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the early 2000s, rebels in Sudan's Darfur region took up arms against the government. In response, the Khartoum regime launched a scorched earth ca...
Surviving Norway's day of terror
21 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On 22 July 2011 Norway suffered its worst terror attacks in recent history. A far-right extremist, Anders Breivik, launched a bomb attack on governmen...
The Battle of Gondar
20 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1941, Italian colonial rule in East Africa ended when Mussolini’s soldiers made a dramatic final stand in the northern Ethiopian town of Gondar. ...
Domestic violence in Brazil
19 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Ground-breaking legislation came into effect in Brazil in 2006. For the first time the courts were ordered to recognise different forms of domestic v...
England's summer of riots
16 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the summer of 2001 race riots gripped towns in the north of England. They began in Oldham in late May 2001, spreading to Burnley in June, and Brad...
When the Taliban took Kabul
15 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Taliban fighters first took control of Afghanistan's capital city Kabul in late September 1996. They imposed their strict interpretation of Islam on A...
Jane Goodall and chimpanzees
14 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1960s a young Englishwoman made a discovery that changed our understanding of animal behaviour. Jane Goodall was living among wild chimpanzees ...
Prisoner of the Cultural Revolution
13 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As a schoolboy in communist China, Kim Gordon took part in huge rallies to praise Chairman Mao. But when Mao's so-called Cultural Revolution began to ...
The race for the jet engine
12 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Using eyewitness recordings from the BBC archive we hear from the pioneers of the jet engine, Sir Frank Whittle and Hans von Ohain, about the struggle...
The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior
09 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On 9 July 1985 the Greenpeace campaign ship was bombed by French secret agents in Auckland, New Zealand. One environmental campaigner was killed and t...
The first World Romani Congress
08 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Roma people from all over Europe met in England for a conference in 1971. The Roma, who migrated from India over a thousand years ago, often used to b...
The famine in North Korea
07 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Communist North Korea suffered a devastating famine in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union which had been one of the country's main suppo...
Britain's wartime gold
06 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When Britain went to war with Germany in 1939 it had to find somewhere to keep its money. Because of the risk of invasion, a decision was made to send...
Cuba's blindness epidemic
05 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As Cuba faced a devastating economic crisis in the early 1990s, leading to severe food shortages and malnutritiion, some 50,000 Cubans were inexplicab...
China's trailblazing foreign students
02 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
China has the largest number of overseas students in the world but when students first started venturing out of Communist China it was still a country...
The Chinese Communist Party
01 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A small group of revolutionaries formed the Chinese Communist Party in July 1921. Led by Chairman Mao, they fought their way to power in the world's m...
The Syrian playwright who challenged the regime
29 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
An experimental play staged in Damascus in 1971 undermined official Syrian propaganda. Simply by stating that the Arab nations had been defeated by Is...
Zimbabwe's mass UFO sightings
28 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It was one of the most reported UFO sightings in recent history. Local people in the quiet rural town of Ruwa in Zimbabwe reported a 'strange craft' ...
The repeal of 'Don't ask, don't tell'
25 Jun 2021
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...
China's LGBT 'cooperative marriages'
24 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
LGBT people in China sometimes arrange fake marriages to hide their sexuality. Homosexuality is not illegal in China but there is discrimination again...
The secret diaries of 'Gentleman Jack'
23 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The discovery of the diaries of 19th-century Englishwoman Anne Lister, who wrote in secret code about her love affairs with women and has been called ...
Woubis, yossis and travestis: LGBT activism in Côte d’Ivoire
22 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire has a buzzing LGBT scene and the country is regarded as one of the more tolerant nations in West Africa. In this Witness ...
The Stonewall Inn
21 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In June 1969, the gay community in New York responded to police brutality and harassment by rioting outside the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. Fo...
China's 'Economic Miracle'
18 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Since the 1980s China has witnessed massive economic growth. It’s become known as the 'world’s factory'. The driving force behind much of it has...
The Trabant
17 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The iconic East German car dominated the roads of communist Central Europe for decades. The Trabant was made out of resin and cotton waste, had a two-...
The police rape interview that shocked Britain
16 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When the BBC broadcast a documentary called 'A Complaint of Rape' in 1982 the public was shocked. It was part of a fly-on-the-wall series about the ...
Mindfulness for the masses
14 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1979 scientist Jon Kabat-Zinn opened the Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, pioneering a ...
The Confederate flag and America’s battle over race
14 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In June 2015 an American anti-racist activist climbed a flagpole on the South Carolina state house grounds to take down the Confederate flag. The prot...
The Fall of Madrid
11 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 1939, the Spanish capital, Madrid, finally fell to the fascist forces of General Franco – spelling the end of a brutal Civil War in which hundred...
The elections that Hamas won
10 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem voted in legislative elections in 2006. The Islamist Hamas movement stood against the Fatah p...
Benjamin Britten's War Requiem
09 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Regarded as one of the most important pieces in 20th Century English music, Benjamin Britten's War Requiem was first played in the newly-built Coventr...
Tunisia’s legal brothels
08 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
For decades, Tunisia has had a system of legal, state-regulated brothels. But in the last ten years they have been under attack and many have been for...
When Israel destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor
07 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On 7 June 1981 Israeli fighter jets launched a surprise attack on the Osirak nuclear reactor located outside Baghdad, killing 11 people. The French-bu...
How Switzerland defeated its heroin epidemic
04 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1990s, Switzerland decided to tackle one of Europe's worst drugs epidemics by trying radical new policy ideas including providing safe-injectio...
Afghanistan's poppy problem
03 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Laila Haidari set up Kabul's first independent drug rehabilitation centre in 2010. Having helped her own brother to quit his heroin addiction she want...
When Peru mistook missionaries for drug traffickers
02 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In April 2001 the Peruvian Air Force mistakenly shot down a small passenger plane as it flew over the Amazon jungle. The Peruvians believed the aircra...
The killing of Pablo Escobar
01 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Colombian drug trafficker, once one of the richest men in the world, was shot dead by police in December 1993. He had been on the run from the aut...
The war on drugs
31 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The first 'war on drugs' was launched by US President Richard Nixon in 1971. He described drug abuse as a 'national emergency' and asked Congress for ...
The Tulsa Race Massacre
28 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Greenwood was a flourishing and prosperous black neighbourhood of Tulsa, often referred to as Black Wall Street. But in May 1921, a white mob descend...
Rock concert for Chernobyl
27 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On May 31st 1986 a small group of musicians staged the first charity rock concert ever held in the USSR. It was organised in less than two weeks to ra...
Amilcar Cabral: An African liberation legend
26 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1960s and 70s, Amilcar Cabral led the armed struggle to end Portuguese colonial rule in Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde in West Africa. Cabral was...
The first Arab woman pilot
25 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Despite opposition from her father, Lotfia Elnadi was determined to realise her dream to fly. With her mother's consent, she secretly took flying less...
The strike that shocked India
24 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When one and a half million Indian railway workers went on strike for 20 days in 1974 it brought the country to a halt. Essential food, goods and work...
Fighting forced marriage in war
21 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In 2009 a war crimes trial in Sierra Leone ruled that forced marriage was a crime against humanity. It was the first time a court had recognised that ...
Saving the world's wetlands
20 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Iran hosted a meeting to save the world's wetlands in 1971. The Ramsar Convention - named after the village on the Caspian Sea where it was originally...
Striking in South Korea in 1980
18 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
There were strikes and student protests across South Korea in May 1980. The military government responded with a brutal crackdown in the city of Gwang...
When Ariel Sharon visited the Al-Aqsa compound
17 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The controversial Israeli opposition leader visited the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jersualem's old city in 2000. His appearance was followed by an ups...
China's Democracy Wall
14 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
How a brick wall in Beijing became a beacon for those calling for change. But when Wei Jingsheng posted an essay demanding democracy in 1978, he was a...
The trial of South Africa’s 'Dr Death'
13 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The trial of a South African doctor accused of multiple murders under the Apartheid regime. Wouter Basson, nicknamed 'Dr Death' by the country’s med...