Witness History
Episodes
Britain's World War Two 'Brown Babies'
11 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The US first began sending troops to the UK in 1942 to help in the war effort. It is estimated that at least two million American servicemen passed th...
The Bristol bus boycott
10 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 1963 a small group of British black activists started a pioneering protest against racism within the local bus company in Bristol. It had specified...
The Notting Hill riots
09 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In August 1958 Britain was shocked by nearly a week of race riots in the west London district of Notting Hill. The clashes between West Indian immigra...
The first black woman MP in Britain
08 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 1987 Diane Abbott became the first black woman elected to the British Parliament. The daughter of first generation immigrants she was one of only f...
Learie Constantine - fighting racism in the UK
07 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The great West Indian cricketer, lawyer and member of the House of Lords took a London hotel to court when it refused to let him and his family stay t...
China opens up to capitalism
04 Oct 2019
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...
The 1967 Hong Kong riots
03 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Throughout much of 1967 striking workers and students filled the streets of Hong Kong. They were inspired by the Cultural Revolution in China and dema...
Mao's Cultural Revolution
02 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 1966 Chairman Mao declared the start of the Cultural Revolution in Communist China, a radical and brutal attempt to reshape Chinese society. Saul Y...
My memories of Chairman Mao
01 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
American Sidney Rittenberg first met Mao Zedong in the 1940s during the final years of China's civil war and before Mao's victory over the Nationalist...
The birth of the People's Republic of China
30 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
On 1 October 1949 Chairman Mao declared China to be a communist state. Zhu Zhende was a young recruit in the People's Liberation Army who marched in t...
The death of a matador
27 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In September 1984, the famous Spanish matador, Francisco Rivera, also known as Paquirri, was gored to death by a bull during a fight in the small town...
The Large Hadron Collider
26 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In September 2008, the world's biggest science experiment, the Large Hadron Collider, was started up for the first time at the European Organisation F...
Fighting the Islamic State group online
25 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When the Islamic State group took over Mosul in Iraq in 2014 they flooded the internet with propaganda, claiming life under IS was fantastic. One his...
Being black in Nazi Germany
24 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Theodor Wonja Michael was a child when Hitler came to power in Germany. The son of a German mother and a Cameroonian father he faced discrimination an...
The Sound of Music on Broadway
23 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical was first performed on stage in New York in 1959, several years before it was made into a film. Vincent Dowd has b...
Sir Anthony Blunt - Soviet spy
20 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Sir Anthony Blunt, a distinguished British art historian and curator of the Queen's pictures was exposed as a former Soviet spy in the autumn of 1979....
CS Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia
19 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The first book in the Chronicles of Narnia series by the Northern Irish-born writer CS Lewis was published in autumn 1950. The Lion, the Witch and the...
Free breakfast with the Black Panthers
18 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The Black Panther Party hit the headlines in the late 1960s with their call for revolution. But they also ran a number of "survival programmes" to hel...
The repeal of 'Don't ask, don't tell'
17 Sep 2019
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...
An Ethiopian war hero
16 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the early 1950s the Ethiopian Emperor, Haile Selassie, sent thousands of Ethiopian troops to fight in the Korean war. They were called the Kagnew B...
Magellan and the first voyage around the world
13 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In September 1519, a fleet led by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan set off on what would be the first circumnavigation of the world. Magella...
Conflict timber in Liberia's civil war
12 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
How the timber industry fuelled a brutal civil war in West Africa. In the late 1990s, timber companies worked closely with Liberia's warlord-turned-pr...
India's affirmative action controversy
11 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 1990 the Indian government introduced an affirmative action plan that had been lying unimplemented for a decade. The Mandal Commission recommended...
The TV series Friends
10 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A new show called Friends hit American TV screens in September 1994. It was based on the lives of six young New Yorkers and became one of the most suc...
The coup, the president and the embassy
09 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In September 2009 the deposed president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, made a sudden return from exile, seeking refuge in the Brazilian embassy in the Ho...
The businessman who defied the Italian Mafia
06 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 1991, Palermo businessman Libero Grassi published an open letter in Sicily’s main newspaper denouncing the Mafia for constantly demanding extorti...
The Holocaust denial trial
05 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The controversial historian, David Irving, tried to sue Penguin Books and professor Deborah Lipstadt for libel after she called him a Holocaust denier...
Inside lunar astronaut quarantine
04 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When the crew of Apollo 11 returned to earth after their historic mission to the Moon, they were immediately placed in quarantine for 3 weeks. It was ...
The first all-women peacekeeping unit
03 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The UN deployed its first all-female contingent of peacekeepers in Liberia in West Africa. The country was still recovering from its long civil war wh...
The outbreak of World War Two
02 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
On September 1st 1939 German forces invaded Poland. Douglas Slocombe, a British cameraman, was there at the time and filmed the build-up to the war. I...
The paedophile identified by his hands
30 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 2009 a paedophile was convicted with the help of a new form of identification - hand analysis. Dame Sue Black of Lancaster University explains how ...
Nina Simone moves to Liberia
29 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The great African-American jazz singer Nina Simone moved to the Liberian capital Monrovia in September 1974. Simone was famous for her vocal support f...
The Kindertransport children who fled the Nazis
28 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the months leading up to outbreak of World War Two in September 1939, some 10,000 unaccompanied children were sent by their parents out of Germany ...
Mexico's murdered women
27 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 1993 young women began disappearing in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez. Since then hundreds are reported to have been kidnapped and killed...
The murder of black teenager Emmett Till
26 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Emmett Till, a black teenager from Chicago, was brutally murdered in Mississippi, in the USA.His death was one of the key events that energized the Am...
The death of Brazil's Getulio Vargas
23 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In August 1954 the President of Brazil took his own life rather than quit his post. Getulio Vargas had been one of Brazil’s most influential leaders...
The return of the wolf
22 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park in 1995. It was the start of one of the most famous and controversial wildlife restoration pro...
I helped liberate Paris from the Nazis
21 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
On August 25 1944 General Charles De Gaulle, who had been in exile in London for the majority of World War 2, finally entered Paris at the head of the...
Finding El Salvador's missing children
20 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
At the end of El Salvador's civil war human rights investigators began the search for hundreds of children reportedly kidnapped by the army during ant...
The first human Cyborg
19 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 1998, a transponder or silicon chip was surgically implanted into the forearm of a British scientist. It sent identifying signals to a central comp...
Dr Seuss: the man who taught America to read
16 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The Dr Seuss books revolutionised the way American children learnt to read in the 1950s. Books like 'The Cat in the Hat' were designed to help young c...
Catching 'Carlos the Jackal'
15 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1980s Ilich Ramírez Sánchez known as 'Carlos the Jackal' was seen as the world's most-wanted terrorist. He had carried out bombings, killings...
The warnings before 9/11
14 Aug 2019
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...
The daily disposable contact lens
13 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The contact lens was once a precious and expensive piece of eyewear which had to be looked after and carefully cleaned every night. But that all chang...
The division of Kashmir
12 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In October 1947, an invasion of Kashmir by tribal fighters led to the division of the state between India and Pakistan. Andrew Whitehead speaks to vic...
The Yangtze Incident
09 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 1949 a British warship, HMS Amethyst, launched a daring escape after it was held captive for months by Chinese Communists on the Yangtze river. The...
British troops take to the streets of Northern Ireland
08 Aug 2019
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...
Criminals in the community
07 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1970s the UK tried to reduce its growing prison population. An experimental new punishment was introduced for convicted criminals. It was calle...
Under the North Pole
06 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 1958 the nuclear submarine USS Nautilus travelled under the North Pole. Julian Bedford spoke to retired vice Admiral Kenneth Carr in 2012 about the...
The mass exodus of Algeria's 'Pieds Noirs'
05 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Hundreds of thousands of French people who'd been living in Algeria for generations fled for safety to France in the summer of 1962. It was in the las...
The invasion of Kuwait
02 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Thousands of Iraqi troops and tanks began pouring into Kuwait on 2 August 1990. The tiny, oil-rich Gulf state was immediately taken over by Saddam Hus...
The Warsaw uprising
01 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
On 1 August 1944, resistance fighters in the Polish capital rose up against German occupying forces. The uprising lasted for 63 days and some 200,000 ...
The anti-nuclear protesters who won
31 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 1980 the Bavarian government announced plans to build a nuclear reprocessing plant in Wackersdorf in southern Germany. Eight years later constructi...
The treasures of Sutton Hoo
30 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
One of the most remarkable archaeological discoveries in British history was made in the summer of 1939, when a huge hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold was fou...
The death of David Kelly
29 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
How the death of a UK weapons inspector intensified arguments over Britain's involvement in the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Rebecca Kesby has been spea...
Humanity's earliest ancestor
26 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In July 2001 a team of palaeontologists led by Michel Brunet discovered a seven million year-old fossilised skull in the Djurab desert in Chad. Ahount...
When Tunisia led on women's rights
25 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When Tunisia achieved independence it brought in a new equality law that revolutionised women's lives. In August 1956 under the socialist President Ha...
The Chappaquiddick Incident
24 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In July 1969, United States Senator Edward Kennedy was involved in a car accident on Chappaquiddick Island in which a young woman named Mary Jo Kopech...
LGBT 'cooperative' marriages in China
23 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
LGBT people in China sometimes arrange fake marriages to hide their sexuality. In 2005 Lin Hai set up a website to allow lesbians and gay men to get i...
Mamma Mia!
22 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The hit musical Mamma Mia! opened in London's West End in 1999. Using the songs of the Swedish pop group ABBA, the stage show was followed in July 200...
The Beagle 2 mission to Mars
19 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
On Christmas Day 2003, a British spacecraft was due to land on Mars and begin searching for signs of life. The late Professor Colin Pillinger was the ...
Apollo 13
18 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The 1970 Moon mission that almost ended in tragedy after an explosion on board the spaceship. Fred Haise was one of the Apollo 13 astronauts. In 2010...
The Moon Landing
17 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In July 1969, the world watched in awe as NASA’s Apollo 11 mission landed on the Moon and Neil Armstrong took the first steps on the lunar surface. ...
Valentina Tereshkova, cosmonaut
16 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In June 1963 Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova was sent into orbit around the Earth, in a solo voyage which lasted for nearly three days. Lucy Ash...
Laika, the first dog in space
15 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The Russian stray was the first dog to orbit the Earth. She was sent into space in November 1957 in a flight which had been timed to mark the annivers...
Kenya's ivory inferno
12 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Twelve tonnes of ivory was set alight by President Daniel Arap Moi in Nairobi National Park in July 1989, to highlight the threat from poaching.The iv...
Cuba executes top military officers
11 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Four army officers were sentenced to death for drug trafficking by the Castro government in July 1989. Critics accused the communist authorities of ca...
The Common Cold Unit
10 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The Common Cold Unit was created after World War Two to find the cause of the illness. Its work depended on thousands of volunteers who came to the un...
China puts tampons on sale
09 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Tampons first went on sale in China in 1985. But many Chinese women, especially in rural areas still didn't have access to basic sanitary products. Ev...
The secret diaries of 'Gentleman Jack'
08 Jul 2019
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 ...
The indigenous fight to stop nuclear waste disposal
05 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 1995 a group of senior, indigenous Australian women started a campaign to halt the construction of a nuclear waste facility in a remote part of Sou...
The launch of the Walkman
04 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The portable cassette player that brought us music on the move was launched in July 1979. By the time production of the Walkman came to an end thirty ...
Surviving Cambodia's 'Killing Fields'
03 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Extremist communists, the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975 and began a social engineering project displacing millions to forced labour camps, and commit...
Germans kidnapped by Nicaragua's rebels
02 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1980s thousands of young activists from around the world flocked to Nicaragua to support the fledgling left-wing Sandinista revolution. They ca...
The US judge accused of sexual harassment
01 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In 1991 the US Supreme Court nominee Judge Clarence Thomas was publicly accused of sexual misconduct by a law professor, Anita Hill. She was called to...
Defending a British serial murderer
28 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
**Warning: Some listeners might find parts of this programme disturbing**In June 1994 Fred and Rosemary West were charged with a series of gruesome mu...
The Stonewall Riot
27 Jun 2019
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. Th...
The Anfal genocide
27 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In June 2007, an Iraqi court ruled that a 1980s campaign by Saddam Hussein against the Kurds was genocide. More than 100,000 Kurds were killed in chem...
Catch-22
25 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Joseph Heller's funny, tragic satirical anti-war novel was published in 1961 and sold millions. For many it epitomised the growing anti-establishment ...
The fat acceptance movement
24 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The National Association to Aid Fat Americans, NAAFA, held its first meeting in June 1969. Its first president was Bill Fabrey, a thin man married to...
The yoga teacher and the violinist
21 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
To mark world yoga day, how a chance encounter between the great violinist Yehudi Menuhin and the yoga teacher, BKS Iyengar in 1952 led to a life-long...
Sister Lotus - early Chinese online star
20 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Sister Lotus was an early online celebrity in China. She first became famous in 2004 after posting pictures of herself on China's early social media ...
The assassinaton of Medgar Evers
19 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In June 1963 the murder of a prominent black civil rights activist and war hero in Mississippi shook the civil rights movement. Medgar Evers was worki...
Carl Gustav Jung
18 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
One of the most influential figures in modern psychoanalysis, the Swiss thinker and writer, Carl Gustav Jung, died in June 1961. Although he had work...
The death of Neda Soltan
17 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In June 2009 after the presidential elections in Iran, millions took to the streets to dispute Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's victory. A young woman, Neda Agha...
The first gay marriage in the USA
14 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Long before same-sex marriage became legal in the USA in 2015, one gay couple in Minneapolis got married in 1971. Their names were Jack Baker and Mik...
How America 'lost' China
13 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
After the end of WW2 the US feared its wartime ally, China, would become communist. In 1946 after the end of Japanese occupation China returned to a c...
Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrap the Reichstag
12 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In June 1995 artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrapped the Reichstag in Berlin in fabric. The former German parliament building sat on the border betw...
The first anti-psychotic drug
11 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the first half of the 20th century, most mentally ill patients were locked away in psychiatric hospitals and asylums. Those suffering from severe m...
The end of the war in Kosovo
10 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Hundreds of thousands of Kosovan Albanians were forced to leave their homes when NATO started bombing Serb targets in the former Yugoslavia in 1999. B...
The Gurkha soldiers fight for equality
07 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
For over 200 years soldiers from Nepal have fought in a special regiment in the British army called the Gurkhas. In 2009 all retired Gurkhas won the ...
Broadcasting D-Day
06 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Hear how the BBC reported the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France on June 6th 1944. The operation was a crucial step in the liberation of western ...
The Little Prince
05 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In July 1944, a plane piloted by the author of the world famous children's story The Little Prince, disappeared over the south of France. Antoine de S...
D-Day
04 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Eyewitness accounts of the Allied landings on the coast of Normandy during World War Two on 6 June 1944. The massive operation was a crucial step in t...
Vikings in York
03 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
When archaeologists uncovered perfectly preserved evidence of domestic life in Viking York in the 1970s, it changed the way the Vikings were viewed. ...
Six Degrees - the first online social network
31 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Six Degrees was the first online social network, allowing users to connect with their real-world contacts by creating a profile within a database.It w...
Behind the scenes on Sesame Street
30 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
A TV show for young children, Sesame Street aimed to educate and promote tolerance at the same time. It was first broadcast in 1969 and went on to be...
Tiananmen Square escape
29 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
On the evening of June the 3rd 1989, the Chinese People’s Army opened fire on thousands of students who had been campaigning for democracy in the mi...
Bokassa's massacre of the children
28 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Protests about expensive school uniforms in the Central African Republic eventually led to Jean-Bédel Bokassa's fall from power in 1979. The demonstr...
The death of Jawaharlal Nehru
27 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The man who led India to independence and its first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, died on May 27th 1964. His niece Nayantara Sahgal spoke to Louis...