Witness History

Hunting the Unabomber

20 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

During a 17-year bombing campaign, an elusive terrorist known as the Unabomber killed three and injured 23 Americans.In 1995, he contacted The New Yor...

Drum: Africa’s revolutionary magazine

17 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Drum was considered to be the first African lifestyle magazine with a readership of 40,000 in its 1950s heyday. It was first printed in South Africa i...

'I wrote Schindler's List'

16 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 1980, Australian author Thomas Keneally stumbled across the story of Oskar Schindler while buying a briefcase in Beverly Hills, in the USA.The owne...

Kobe earthquake

15 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On 17 January 1995, an earthquake devastated the port city of Kobe, in west Japan.More than 6,000 people died and around 300,000 people were left home...

Confronting Betty Ford’s addiction

14 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 1978, former first lady of the United States, Betty Ford, announced that she had an addiction to alcohol and prescription medication, and would be ...

Franklin D Roosevelt’s New Deal

13 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 1933, newly-elected US President Franklin D Roosevelt attempted to drag the United States out of the depression with the New Deal.One of the bigges...

The Bosphorus boat spotter tracking Russian military trucks

10 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Yörük Işık is a ship spotter who logs all the boats that pass through the narrow Bosphorus Strait near his home in Istanbul, Turkey. In October 20...

The mystery of Raoul Wallenberg

09 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat, saved thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Nazis during World War Two.Once Soviet troops reached Budapest, Walle...

The invention of the hotel key card

08 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1970s, Norwegian Tor Sornes invented the hotel key card. He wanted to improve security in hotels after he heard the news that one of his favour...

Charlie Hebdo attack

07 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

On 7 January 2015, 12 people were shot dead at the offices of a satirical magazine in Paris, the capital of France.The two gunmen had targeted Charlie...

Marie Kondo

06 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In 2011, Japanese tidying expert Marie Kondo’s first book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up was published. Overnight she went from tidying other...

Creating Alexa

03 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The smart speaker Alexa is used by hundreds of millions of people around the world every day, but did you know its voice was created by two people in ...

Klaus Fuchs: Oppenheimer’s atomic spy

02 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

German-born physicist Klaus Fuchs played a key role in the development of the first atomic bomb during World War Two.The project, known as the Manhatt...

Robert Ripley and the ‘Believe It or Not’ empire

01 Jan 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In December 1918, sports writer and cartoonist Robert Ripley was struggling to find some content for his column in the New York Globe.So he compiled a...

Indian Ocean tsunami - Aceh

31 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

An earthquake off the coast of Indonesia on 26 December 2004, triggered a tsunami which cost the lives of an estimated 230,000 people around the India...

Indian Ocean tsunami - Tamil Nadu

30 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On 26 December 2004, an earthquake struck off the coast of Indonesia sparking a tsunami which swept away entire communities around the Indian Ocean. I...

Dinner for One: How an English comedy became a German tradition

27 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Every New Year’s Eve, millions of Germans turn on their TVs to rewatch an old favourite – the comedy Dinner for One.The black and white sketch is ...

'Kimchi war'

26 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the run-up to the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, in the United States, a row broke out between Japan and South Korea over who would supply the athl...

Chef to five presidents

25 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Cristeta Comerford has cooked for some of the most powerful people in the world. She spent almost three decades as a chef in the White House, serving ...

When instant noodles came to India

24 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The arrival of instant noodles in India was a turning point in culinary history. In 1983, before Maggi 2-Minute Noodles launched, the country’s food...

'I created MasterChef'

23 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1990, a cookery programme launched on BBC TV that would become a global phenomenon. Today, MasterChef airs in 70 countries around the world and has...

Australian republic referendum

20 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On 6 November 1999, voters in Australia were asked if they wanted to break ties with the British monarchy and become a republic.The No campaign won wi...

Poland's bleak Christmas

19 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1981, the communist government of Poland declared martial law in an attempt to suppress rising protests and strikes.The civil unrest had been spark...

Ceefax: the start of interactive television

18 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1974, the BBC launched the world's first teletext service.It provided information, like news and weather, through our TV screens, whenever users wa...

Surviving Andes plane crash

17 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

When a plane carrying a team of young rugby players crashed into the Andes mountains in 1972, search teams soon gave up hope. But two months later, 16...

Peshawar school massacre

16 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Ten years ago, the Taliban killed more than 140 people at Peshawar Army School on 16 December 2014.It’s one of the worst terror attacks in Pakistan’...

The birth of reggaeton

13 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Singer and DJ, Leonardo Renato Aulder, got together with friends, including El General, to pioneer a movement in the 1980s which they called “reggae...

The handover of the Panama Canal

12 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Panama Canal is a short cut between the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean and plays a huge role in global shipping.The United States had rights to the la...

The Purple Heart Warriors

11 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

During World War Two, a Japanese American battalion became one of the most decorated army units in US military history.The 442nd Regimental Combat Uni...

Castro's Cuban revolution attempt

09 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1953, Fidel Castro attacked military barracks in the east of Cuba in a bid to revolutionise the country. He failed, but it marked the beginning of ...

India’s 1998 nuclear tests

06 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In May 1998, India conducted five nuclear tests, drawing international condemnation. It was the first time the country had tested nuclear weapons for ...

Julia Gillard speaks out on sexism

05 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In October 2012, Prime Minister Julia Gillard made an impromptu speech in the Australian parliament setting out the misogyny she endured for years as ...

The ‘Three Marias’

04 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In May 1974, people gathered in Lisbon, Portugal, to see whether three women would be sent to jail for writing a book. Maria Teresa Horta, Maria Velho...

The discovery that led to Covid vaccines

03 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Dr Katalin Karikó grew up in a small town in Hungary with no electricity or running water at home. She overcame great adversity to become a scientist...

Gloria Steinem: The start of Ms. Magazine

02 Dec 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1972, feminist campaigner Gloria Steinem co-founded the first magazine in the US which was owned, run and written by women.Called Ms. Magazine, it ...

The end of the US HIV travel ban

29 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For 22 years, a travel and immigration ban was in place which stopped people with HIV legally entering the US.In 2009, President Barack Obama announce...

The deepest man-made hole in the world

28 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1970s and 1980s, scientists in Russia managed to dig a hole more than 12,000 metres deep.It was called the Kola Superdeep Borehole.They wanted ...

Thich Quang Duc: Buddhist monk who set himself on fire

27 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In June 1963, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk died after setting himself on fire in protest against the Catholic South Vietnamese government.Malcolm Brown'...

The Iran-Contra Affair

26 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

The Iran-Contra affair was a scandal that went right to the heart of Ronald Reagan’s White House and it became known as one of the most controversia...

Strictly Come Dancing

25 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Television extravaganza Strictly Come Dancing debuted in May 2004 in the UK, bringing ballroom dancing to a whole new generation. Pairing celebrities ...

Creation of the UFC

22 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1993, a new combat sport was born. Its founders called it the Ultimate Fighting Championship – UFC.It pitted all forms of mixed martial arts agai...

Lord of the Flies

21 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It’s 70 years since William Golding’s acclaimed novel was published. Lord of the Flies is the story of a group of English schoolboys marooned on a...

Handover of Macau

20 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1999, the small territory of Macau was handed back to China after centuries of Portuguese rule.Lawyer and comedian Miguel Senna Fernandes was a mem...

The Siege of Yarmouk

19 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

During the early years of Syria’s brutal civil war, one neighbourhood close to the Syrian capital, Damascus, bore the brunt of the government’s vi...

Iran's secret Christian 'house churches'

18 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

After Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979, some Christians faced persecution. Between 2002 and 2005, Naghmeh Panahi and her husband, Saeed Abedini, set ...

German naturists

15 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Since the 19th Century, Germans have been bathing nude at the beach. The naturist movement, known as the FKK, was banned under the Nazis.People also f...

Luana Mansilla: Changing gender aged six

14 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 2013, a six-year-old from Argentina became one of the youngest people in the world to legally have their gender changed on official documents throu...

India's capsule coal mine rescue

13 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In November 1989, mining engineer Jaswant Singh Gill saved 65 miners from the Mahabir Coal Mine, in India.The miners, who had been trapped for three d...

How Greece got rid of their king

12 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1974, Greece held a referendum to decide the future of the country’s monarchy, and whether Constantine II would remain their king.Constantine had...

The Pakistan mountain massacre

11 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 2013, 11 people were shot dead in base camp of the Nanga Parbat mountain in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan. The gunmen were associated wit...

The invention of the ‘Baby’ computer

08 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In June 1948, the ‘Baby’ was invented. It was the first stored-program computer, meaning it was the first machine to work like the ones we have to...

The woman who saved 2,500 children from the Warsaw ghetto

07 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Irena Sendler was a Polish social worker who risked her life to save 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto during World War Two. Irena, a Catho...

The Shah of Iran's party

06 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1971, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, celebrated 2,500 years of the Persian Empire by throwing a huge three-day party. Trees were planted,...

In exile from Iran

05 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On 16 January 1979, the Shah of Iran and his wife, Farah Pahlavi, left Iran for the last time. There had been increasingly violent protests against Mo...

Iran hostage crisis

04 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

One of the most dramatic moments from the Iranian revolution took place in November 1979. Young insurgents stormed the US embassy in the Iranian capit...

Siegfried and Roy tiger attack

01 Nov 2024

Contributed by Lukas

For nearly 40 years, the magicians Roy Horn and Siegfried Fischbacher wowed audiences in Las Vegas with their death-defying tricks involving white lio...

Brazil’s electronic voting

31 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1996, Brazil introduced a pioneering electronic voting system, revolutionising its election process. Carlos Velozo, an electoral lawyer and judge, ...

The Ken Burns Effect

30 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 2002, filmmaker Ken Burns received an intriguing proposition from Apple CEO, Steve Jobs. He wanted Burns’ signature filming style to be inserted ...

Jean Batten: New Zealand’s record breaking aviator

29 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

New Zealander Jean Batten was nicknamed the ‘Queen of the Skies’ for her record breaking flights of the 1930s. After abandoning a career in music,...

The creation of Greenwich Mean Time

28 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1676, Astronomer Royal John Flamsteed was looking to find a way to determine longitude at sea, so ships could know their position and hazards.Feuds...

My dad created Dungeons & Dragons

25 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1970, father of five Gary Gygax was fired from his job as an insurance underwriter in Chicago, in the United States of America. It may sound like a...

Bonga Kwenda: Music banned in Angola and Portugal

24 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Star athlete, Jose Adelino Barceló de Carvalho, abandoned his career in 1972 to follow his one true passion, music.After growing up under Portuguese ...

Ethiopia's 1984 famine

23 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1984, Ethiopia suffered one of its worst ever famines. A BBC news report from the area shocked the world - and led to a huge global fundraising cam...

I found the first dinosaur remains in Antarctica

22 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Argentinian geologist Eduardo Olivero became the first scientist to find the remains of a dinosaur in Antarctica in 1986. But digging in frozen ground...

The fight to stop skin lightening in India

21 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 2013, Emami, an Indian beauty and wellness company, put out an advert for their skin lightening product 'Fair and Handsome'.It features billionaire...

Eight years trapped on the Suez Canal in Egypt

18 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

After the Six Day War in June 1967, the Suez Canal in Egypt was closed.It meant 14 ships from eight different countries, including the United States, ...

Dyke and Dryden: Cosmetic kings

17 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1969, a new sound began to dominate the airwaves in the UK, reggae.This was terrible news for two Jamaican men, Len Dyke and Dudley Dryden who were...

Fleeing Afghanistan alone as a child

16 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1999, Waheed Arian left his family in Afghanistan to seek refuge in the UK. He was just 15.He was escaping violence, poverty and the threat of bein...

The Rose Revolution in Georgia

15 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In November 2003, the people of Georgia ousted veteran president Eduard Shevardnadze. Protestors stormed the parliament building in the capital Tbilis...

The Sunflower Movement

14 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Between 18 March and 10 April 2014, more than 500,000 people in Taipei, Taiwan, protested against a new trade deal with China.It was one of the larges...

'Robocops’ in the Democratic Republic of Congo

11 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

After the death of her brother, engineer Thérèse Izay Kirongozi got to work handmaking huge robots to direct traffic and save lives. In 2013 they we...

How the QR code was invented

10 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1994, bar codes were in widespread use in businesses around the world, but the Japanese car component company, Denso Wave, wanted something quicker...

The world's first general purpose electronic computer

09 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1946, one of the world’s first electronic computers was unveiled in Philadelphia, in the USA. It was called the Electronic Numerical Integrator a...

WABOT-1: The first humanoid robot

08 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Scientists at Waseda University in Japan built the world's first humanoid robot in 1973. They called it the 'WABOT', the Waseda robot. It could see, w...

Eliza: When chatbots started

07 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Eliza is the name of a 1966 invention by German born scientist, Joseph Weizenbaum, that is said to be the first chatbot.Eliza worked by someone typing...

The longest plane hijacking in Latin America

04 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1973, two men pretending to be Colombian guerrillas took a plane and flew across Latin America for 60 hours. It was the longest hijacking of an air...

The speech that inspired the Law of the Sea

03 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In November 1967, the Maltese diplomat, Arvid Pardo, addressed the United Nations with a remarkable speech that shaped the laws governing the sea.Pard...

South Africa’s nuclear weapons

02 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1989, South Africa became the first, and only country to make and then dismantle nuclear weapons.The project was conducted at Kentron Circle, a sec...

Cambodia war crimes

01 Oct 2024

Contributed by Lukas

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

Kristallnacht: The night of broken glass

30 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In November 1938, the Nazis organised a night of terror against Jews in Germany. Windows of homes, businesses and synagogues were broken. Kurt Salomon...

The Estonia ferry disaster

27 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1994, the MS Estonia ferry sank in the Baltic Sea with the loss of 852 lives. It was one of the deadliest shipping tragedies since the sinking of t...

South Africa’s first inter-racial marriage

26 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1949, inter-racial marriage and relationships were banned by South Africa’s apartheid government. In June 1985, the ban was lifted. Suzanne La Cl...

Arrested for 'immorality' in South Africa

25 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1969, a white man and an Indian woman were put on trial in South Africa for conspiring to have sex.Dr Zureena Desai and Professor John Blacking wer...

Why Tupac was fired from Menace II Society

24 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1993, a gritty and unflinching crime movie called Menace II Society was released to huge acclaim.The debut picture from the teenage directors, Alle...

India's Mars Orbiter Mission

23 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 2014, India’s Mars Orbiter Mission meant the country was the first in the world to successfully place a satellite into orbit around Mars on its i...

Designing the Google logo

20 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Millions of us see the Google logo every day. Ruth Kedar is the designer of the logo. The story of how she got the job starts in a martial arts class ...

The discovery of New Zealand’s first dinosaur

19 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On 2 December 1972, Joan Wiffen, her husband, son and daughter started a camping trip. But it was far from ordinary. They were obsessed fossil-hunters...

India’s plague outbreak

18 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1994, the pneumonic plague broke out in the city of Surat, causing mass panic. It saw the largest migration across India since independence was dec...

Camouflaging Leningrad

17 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

It’s 85 years since the start of World War Two. During the conflict, the Russian city of Leningrad came under siege in 1941. To camouflage the landm...

The invention of the CT scanner

16 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1971, the CT scanner was invented by South African physicist Allan Cormack and British engineer Sir Godfrey Hounsfield.It was a ground-breaking mom...

When Italy gave back Ethiopia’s stolen obelisk

13 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 2005, the pieces of an ancient monument were flown back to Ethiopia, having been stolen by Italy.The Obelisk of Axum, built around 1,700 years ago,...

Abebech Gobena: Africa's 'Mother Teresa'

12 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1980, Abebech Gobena was on a pilgrimage to Wollo in Ethiopia, when she witnessed the devastating effects of a severe famine and drought, one of th...

Ardi: The oldest skeleton of a human ancestor

11 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1994, a college student called Yohannes Haile Selassie unearthed a 4.4 million-year-old skeleton in Ethiopia. She was the first near-complete skele...

Emperor Haile Selassie in Bath

10 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1936, Haile Selassie came to Bath in the west of England to escape Mussolini and the fascists who had invaded Ethiopia.He bought a property – Fai...

Emperor Haile Selassie overthrown

09 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Haile Selassie was Emperor of Ethiopia. His dynasty ruled for centuries, supposedly descending from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. In 1974 he wa...

Giant Gonzalez: from NBA star to WWE wrestler

06 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1988, Jorge Gonzalez was a basketball star in Argentina and became the first athlete from this country drafted by an NBA team, the Atlanta Hawks. H...

Apollo 13

05 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On 13 April 1970, a Moon mission almost ended in tragedy, after an explosion on board the spaceship.Fred Haise was one of the Apollo 13 astronauts. In...

The end of the Irish marriage bar

04 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

Until 1973, married women in Ireland were banned from working in state jobs.It was one of the longest lasting marriage bars in the world.Rachel Naylor...

Ramesses II's 'mummy makeover'

03 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

In 1976, the 3,000-year-old mummy of Ramesses II was found to have a fungal infection.The embalmed body of the Egyptian pharaoh was flown from Cairo t...

I led the 'Umbrella' protests

02 Sep 2024

Contributed by Lukas

On the 26 September 2014 Nathan Law stood on a makeshift stage outside Hong Kong's central government complex and chanted ‘Democracy Now’ and ‘F...