Witness History

The Acid Survivors Foundation

24 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 1999 a charity was founded in Bangladesh that was dedicated to treating and rehabilitating the survivors of acid violence. The majority of the atta...

How environmental campaign group Greenpeace was formed

23 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The environmental campaign group, Greenpeace, was formed in 1971 in western Canada, after a group of activists met in a Vancouver kitchen and decided ...

Fighting Uganda's anti-gay laws

22 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 2009 Ugandan MPs tried to introduce new laws against homosexuality that would include life imprisonment and even the death penalty. Homophobia was ...

The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs

21 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

65 million years ago an asteroid hit the earth, causing the extinction of the dinosaurs along with three quarters of all species on earth at the time....

Walking the Great Wall of China

20 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

It took 508 days for three friends to complete the first trek along the entire length of the ancient structure, well over 8000 kms. They began in May ...

Hitler's stolen children

17 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

During the Second World War Nazi officials searched for blonde blue-eyed children in the countries they had occupied. The children were removed from t...

China's One Child policy

16 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The Chinese Communist Party started ruthlessly enforcing birth control in the early 1980s. People with more than one child faced fines, or lost their ...

The final days of Sri Lanka's civil war

15 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In May 2009 the Sri Lankan army finally crushed the Tamil Tiger rebels, ending 25 years of bloody civil war. In the final weeks of the conflict, thous...

Predicting the financial crash

14 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the early 2000s, a handful of experts warned that the world was sleep-walking towards a financial crisis. Among them were South-African born politi...

The Karakoram highway

13 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 1979 one of the great engineering feats of the 20th Century was completed and the Karakoram highway between Pakistan and China was finally opened. ...

Strictly Come Dancing

10 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

One of the most successful TV formats in the world started back in May 2004, bringing ballroom dancing to a new generation. Its format has been sold a...

The war on drugs

09 May 2019

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 Bauhaus

08 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The groundbreaking Bauhaus school of art and design was founded in Germany in 1919. It would go on to have a huge impact on architecture and design ar...

The siege of Dien Bien Phu

07 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On May 7th 1954, French forces surrendered after a bloody 56-day siege of their base at Dien Bien Phu in the north of Vietnam. Their defeat by the com...

Jack Ma: The founder of Alibaba

06 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The Chinese billionaire set up his online shopping site in 1999. When Alibaba first started, Jack Ma and his team were working out of a small flat in...

The Malayan Emergency

03 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 1948, British colonial authorities declared a State of Emergency in the territory of Malaya, now part of Malaysia. It was in response to the start ...

The sinking of the Belgrano

02 May 2019

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. Da...

The Arctic African

01 May 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Tété-Michel Kpomassie, grew up in West Africa but he was obsessed with the Arctic. When he was 16 years old he ran away from his village in Togo det...

Rupert Brooke

30 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In April 1915, Britain mourned when poet and national hero Rupert Brooke died on a troopship in the Dardanelles during World War One. Often compared t...

Ellen comes out

29 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Ellen DeGeneres came out as a lesbian publicly in April 1997 – and so did the fictional character she played in her self-titled sitcom. The Puppy Ep...

The al-Yamamah arms deals

26 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A record series of arms sales from the UK to Saudi Arabia was worth tens of billions of dollars. The first al-Yamamah deal was agreed between Prime Mi...

Sri Lanka: A journalist's editorial from the grave

25 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The assassination of newspaper editor, Lasantha Wickramatunga, shocked the world in 2009. Sri Lanka's civil war between the Sinhalese majority and the...

South Africa's first free elections

24 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

After Apartheid all South Africans, regardless of race, were finally able to vote for the first time in April 1994. Organising the elections was a hug...

Britain's first vegans

23 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The Vegan Society was established in 1944 by British 'non-dairy vegetarians'. They wanted to persuade other people not just to give up meat, but milk...

Nato bombs Serbian TV

22 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In April 1999 Nato bombed the Serbian state TV station in Belgrade, killing 16 people. It was part of a military campaign to force Serbia to withdraw ...

The Columbine massacre

19 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On April 20th 1999 a mass shooting in the USA shocked the world and started a devastating trend of violence in American schools. 13 people were killed...

How organic farming started

18 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the aftermath of World War Two pesticides and chemical fertilisers started to become more widespread in the UK. Worries about the effect this would...

Auto-destructive art

17 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 1959 the German artist Gustav Metzger came up with a new and subversive form of art. He called it auto-destructive art. It was art as a political w...

The first play on Broadway written by a black woman

16 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

'A Raisin in the Sun' opened on Broadway in 1959. It had an almost exclusively black cast and a black director too. The playwright, Lorraine Hansberry...

Dennis Tito - the first space tourist

15 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In April 2001 an American multi-millionaire paid Russia's space agency millions of dollars to blast him into space. He spent time on the Internationa...

Chinese restaurant syndrome

12 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Diners at Chinese restaurants in America in the 1960's began to report unusual symptoms, including headaches, flushing, numbness at the back of the ne...

The rise of Hindu nationalism

11 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 1990 the president of Bharatiya Janata Party or BJP, LK Advani, embarked on a political and religious rally called the Rath Yatra or chariot march....

The man who invented wingsuits

09 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The wingsuit is the ultimate in extreme sports clothing. An aerodynamic outfit for BASE jumpers and skydivers it allows them to free-fall for longer b...

The Amritsar Massacre of 1919

09 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On 13 April 1919, British Indian troops fired on an unarmed crowd at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar in the Punjab. Hundreds were killed. The massacre ca...

The man who made Marilyn Monroe dance

08 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Choreographer Jack Cole had a huge influence on musical theatre and Hollywood films - most memorably with Marilyn Monroe in the film Gentlemen Prefer ...

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

05 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Maya Angelou's iconic first memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, was published in spring 1969. The book was an instant best-seller, and was one of...

Abolishing the army

04 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

After a brief civil war in March-April 1948, the new president of Costa Rica, Jose Figueres, took the audacious step of dissolving the Armed Forces. S...

The warship lost for more than 300 years

03 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 1628, at the height of Sweden’s military expansion, the Swedish Navy built a new flagship, the Vasa. At the time it was the most heavily armed sh...

EMDR: the eye-movement therapy

01 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

EMDR is a form of psychotherapy which works for many sufferers of post-traumatic stress disorder. The 'eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing' ...

Patty Hearst the rebel heiress

01 Apr 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Patty Hearst was kidnapped by an extreme left-wing group called the Symbionese Liberation Army in 1974. She had been held hostage for two months when...

Mindfulness for the masses

29 Mar 2019

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 secret Nazi past of Kurt Waldheim

28 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Witness History talks to the American lawyer who led the investigation into the secret Nazi past of former United Nations Secretary-General, Kurt Wald...

Around the world in 20 days

27 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In March 1999 Brian Jones and Bertrand Piccard made the first non-stop flight around the world in a balloon. Beginning in Switzerland and finishing ov...

Drama in the British parliament

26 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In March 1979, the British Prime Minister James Callaghan was struggling desperately to govern with a parliamentary majority of just three. When the C...

The first home pregnancy test

25 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A female designer working for an American pharmaceutical company came up with the idea in the 1960s, but her bosses didn't like it at first. Margaret ...

The rise of Viktor Orban

22 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Viktor Orban, now the populist Hungarian Prime Minister, was an anti-communist youth leader in 1988. Over the years his party has become increasingly ...

Autism and the MMR vaccine

21 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A British doctor published an article in the leading medical journal The Lancet in 1998 that led to a global panic over the triple vaccine protecting ...

The discovery of the Aztec Moon Goddess

20 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Electricity workers in Mexico City accidentally uncovered a massive stone sculpture in 1978. It turned out to be the Aztec Goddess of the Moon, Coyol...

The first democratic elections in the USSR

19 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On March 26th 1989, Soviet citizens were given their first chance to vote for non-communists in parliamentary elections. Democrats led by Boris Yeltsi...

The millionaire Nazi war criminal

18 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The story of how one of the wealthiest men in the Netherlands was exposed as a Nazi war criminal. In the 1970s, Pieter Menten was a respected art deal...

How Little America was built in Afghanistan

15 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1950s, US engineers were sent to Afghanistan to build a huge dam.The aim was to irrigate the deserts of Helmand.The town of Lashkar Gah was bui...

Slaughterhouse-Five

14 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In March 1969, the cult American author, Kurt Vonnegut, published his famous anti-war novel, Slaughterhouse-Five. The novel is a mixture of science fi...

China's breakthrough malaria cure

13 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Chinese scientists used ancient traditional medicine to find a cure for malaria in the 1970s. Artemisinin was discovered by exploring a herbal remedy ...

Lenin and the deadly mushrooms

12 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

As communism was crumbling in the early 1990s a spoof made for Soviet TV, persuaded some Russians that Vladimir Lenin's personality had been seriously...

The fall of Singapore

11 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 1942, during the Second World War, the British colony of Singapore fell to Japanese forces. Its capture marked the start of Japan's three-and-a-hal...

Britain's first female black headteacher

08 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Yvonne Conolly was appointed head of Ringcross Primary school in North London in 1969. She had moved to the UK from Jamaica just a few years earlier a...

The woman who asked Britain to return the Parthenon marbles

07 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Melina Mercouri, famous actress turned politician, visited Britain in 1983 as Greek Minister of Culture and made the first official request for the re...

Speaking out against my abuser: Daniel Ortega

06 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In March 1998 Zoilamérica Narváez publicly accused her step-father, Nicaragua's revolutionary leader, Daniel Ortega of having sexually abused her si...

The creation of the Barbie doll

05 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The first Barbie doll was sold in 1959. Ruth Handler, one of the founders of the Mattel toy company who created Barbie, describes how it took years to...

Britain's first Muslim woman in government

04 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Sayeeda Warsi made history when she was appointed to the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government's Cabinet in May 2010, and was also ma...

Happy Beer Day!

01 Mar 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On March 1st 1989 Icelanders were allowed to buy full-strength beer for the first time in decades. Beer had been outlawed in the country since 1915. ...

Asama Sanso: Japanese hostage crisis

28 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Armed left-wing extremists held off Japanese police for 10 days during a hostage crisis in the mountains in February 1972. Young members of the so-ca...

Sucked out of a plane

27 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Nine passengers were sucked out of a plane when a cargo door opened mid-flight over the Pacific.United Airlines Flight 811 was flying from Hawaii to N...

Swine flu shuts down Mexico City

26 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Mexico City, the world's third largest metropolis, was effectively shut down when a new and deadly virus, swine flu appeared. Soon the virus started t...

Venezuela's oil bonanza

25 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Rocketing oil prices in the mid 1970s fuelled massive consumer and government spending in Venezuela, earning the South American country the nickname "...

How science ended the search for Josef Mengele

22 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

An international panel of experts gathered in Brazil in 1985 to identify the remains of a man thought to have been the infamous doctor from Auschwitz....

The men who tried to warn us about smoking

21 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

British doctors produced an alarming report in 1962 warning that 1 in 3 smokers would die before the age of 65. The doctors suggested restrictions on ...

The curse of Agent Orange

20 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Millions suffered from exposure to toxic chemicals sprayed by US forces during the Vietnam war. The chemicals were defoliants and herbicides designed ...

The Columbia space shuttle disaster

19 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The US space shuttle Columbia broke up on its way back to Earth on February 1, 2003. It had been in use since 1981. Iain Mackness has spoken to Admi...

The true story of Roma

18 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Alfonso Cuarón's critically acclaimed film Roma portrays a student massacre that took place in México City in 1971. The Corpus Christi massacre, kno...

Maastricht: The birth of the European Union

15 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In February 1992, European ministers from 12 countries signed a treaty that would lead towards greater economic and political unity. The European Uni...

Confessions of a Soviet alcoholic

14 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 1969, homeless Russian alcoholic Venedikt Yerofeev wrote a hugely popular book which was passed illegally from person to person. The book gave voic...

British Cameroons' historic referendum

13 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 1961, the British run territories of Northern and Southern Cameroons in West Africa were given a vote to decide their future. They could choose eit...

Women Airline Pilots

12 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Airlines in America finally allowed women to pilot passenger planes in the 1970's. But women like Bonnie Tiburzi and Lynn Rippelmeyer had been fighti...

Iceland Jails Its Bankers

11 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The 2008 global economic crisis hit hard in Iceland. Its three major banks and stockmarket collapsed and it was forced to seek an emergency bail-out f...

The Bombardment of Baghdad

08 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

When the US and its allies began their invasion of Iraq in 2003 the population of Baghdad faced three weeks of bombing and fear. Hear what life was li...

Disney Goes to Europe

07 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 1992 Disney opened its first theme park in Europe. But it had taken years of delicate negotiations and diplomacy get it off the ground. In 2013 Reb...

The Soweto Uprising

06 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A former schoolgirl remembers the children's demonstration against having to study in Afrikaans that sparked the Soweto Uprising against South Africa'...

The Capture of Che Guevara

05 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In October 1967 the Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara was captured and killed in Bolivia. Mike Lanchin spoke to former CIA operative, Felix Rodriguez,...

The Death of Hitler

04 Feb 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A first-hand account of Hitler from our archives. Traudl Junge worked as a secretary for the German Nazi leader. She was in the bunker in Berlin when ...

Women and the Iranian Revolution

31 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Many women supported Iran's 1979 Revolution against the monarchy but some later became disillusioned. Islamic rules about how women dressed were just ...

Iran Hostage Rescue Mission

31 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In April 1980, the US launched Operation Eagle Claw - a daring but ultimately disastrous attempt to free dozens of hostages held captive in the US Emb...

Iran Hostage Crisis

30 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 1979 young revolutionaries stormed the US Embassy in Tehran. 52 Americans were taken captive and held hostage for 444 days. Barry Rosen was one of ...

Ayatollah Khomeini Returns From Exile

29 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In February 1979 an Islamic revolution began to unfold in Iran. The Islamic leader Ayatollah Khomeini, who had been in exile for 14 years, flew back t...

Musicians of the Iranian Revolution

28 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

During the heat of Iran's revolution the country's top musicians decided to join the popular uprising. After the massacre of demonstrators by the Shah...

The Publisher Who Tried to Change the World

25 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Virago Press opened as a feminist publisher in 1972 to promote women's writing. Its founder, Carmen Callil, says she wanted both men and women to bene...

Vatican II: Reforming the Catholic Church

23 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Pope John XXIII wanted to modernise the Catholic Church. In January 1959 he announced a council of all the world's Catholic bishops and cardinals in R...

The Carry On Films

22 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The comic film franchise which churned out movie after movie mocking British stereotypes and pomposity. The first Carry On film hit cinema screens in ...

India's First Call Centre

21 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Pramod Bhasin returned home to India in 1997 after working abroad for years. He spotted an opportunity to start a new industry that would revolutionis...

The Case of Dr Crippen

18 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

How one of the most notorious murderers in Edwardian London was captured as he fled to Canada. Listen to an astonishing BBC archive account of his arr...

The Thames Whale

17 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In January 2006, London was entranced by the appearance of a large bottlenose whale in the Thames – the first such sighting for more than a century....

Strikers In Saris

16 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 1976 South Asian women workers who had made Britain their home, led a strike against poor working conditions in a British factory. Lakshmi Patel wa...

Mexico's Miracle Water

15 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Thousands of people flocked to the village of Tlacote in central Mexico in 1991. They were hoping to be cured by 'magical' water after rumours spread...

Judy Garland's Final Shows

14 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Judy Garland ended her long and glitzy stage and screen career at a London theatre club in January 1969. She was booked for five weeks of nightly show...

'Fat is a Feminist Issue'

11 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Susie Orbach's best-selling book Fat is a Feminist Issue led many in the Women's Liberation Movement of the 1970s to rethink body-image from a feminis...

Diary of Life in a Favela

10 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A poor single mother of three, Carolina Maria de Jesus lived in a derelict shack and spent her days scavenging for food for her children, doing odd jo...

When Stalin Rounded Up Soviet Doctors

09 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the last year of his rule Stalin ordered the imprisonment and execution of hundreds of the best Soviet doctors accusing them of plotting to kill se...

Fidel Castro Takes Havana

08 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On January 8 1959 Fidel Castro and his left wing guerrilla forces marched triumphantly into the Cuban capital, ending decades of rule by the US-backed...

The Doomsday Seed Vault

07 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In January 2008, seeds began arriving at the world's first global seed vault, buried deep inside a mountain on an Arctic island a-thousand kilometres ...

Vikings in North America

04 Jan 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The discovery that proved Vikings had crossed the Atlantic 1000 years ago. In 1960, a Norwegian couple, Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad arrived in the re...