Witness History
Episodes
The small Irish town known as ‘Little Brazil’
15 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Gort in the west of Ireland is known by the nickname ‘Little Brazil’ because it’s home to so many Brazilians.They first came to Ireland in the l...
The Juliet letters
14 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Juliet Club is in Verona, Italy, a place known throughout the world as being the city of love. The club has been replying to mail addressed to Sha...
Patty Hearst: Rebel heiress
13 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When wealthy newspaper heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped by far-left militants in February 1974, America saw her as a victim.But two months later, sh...
The WW2 escape line that fooled the Nazis
12 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1940 a daring rescue operation began to help Allied servicemen escape from Nazi-occupied France.French resistance fighter Roland Lepers was among t...
The Battle of Versailles: Catwalk clash of American and French fashion
09 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1973, a fashion show was held in France which became known as the Battle of Versailles, a duel between designs from modern America and the capital ...
How Rosa Parks took a stand against racism
08 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Rosa Parks was brought up in Alabama during the Jim Crow era, when state laws enforced segregation in practically all aspects of daily life.Public sch...
Lucha Reyes: Peruvian music star
07 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Lucha Reyes was one of Peru’s greatest singers. She was born into poverty in 1936 and fought terrible health problems and racism throughout her life...
A young mother saved from death by stoning
06 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In March 2002, a young Nigerian Muslim woman was sentenced to death by stoning for adultery and conceiving a child out of wedlock. Amina Lawal’s cas...
Queen of the 'fro
05 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In May 1986, 16-year-old Charlotte Mensah went to work in the UK’s first luxury Afro-Caribbean hair salon, Splinters.In London’s glamorous Mayfair...
First internet cafe
01 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The first commercial internet cafe opened in London on 1 September 1994. Eva Pascoe, from Poland, is one of the founders of Cyberia. She claims that K...
The Arctic’s doomsday seed vault
31 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In January 2008, seeds began arriving at the world's first global seed vault, buried deep in a mountain on an Arctic island, 1,000km north of the Norw...
Brazil's Landless Workers Movement
30 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1980, poor rural workers set up camp on land owned by the rich at Encruzilhada Natalino in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Brazil's government sent...
Silenced by the Vatican
29 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In September 1984, the Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff was summoned to Rome, facing accusations that his writing and teachings were "dangerous to t...
Jack Strong aka Ryszard Kukliński: Cold War traitor or hero?
26 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
During the 1970s, the US and Soviet Union were engaged in the Cold War. The US, along with other Western countries, was a member of Nato, while the S...
The Hungarian footballer executed for love
25 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Magnificent Magyars were Hungary’s golden football team of the 1950s.But behind their shine lay a dark secret.In 1951, defender Sándor Szűcs w...
Wang Jingwei: China’s traitor or protector?
24 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1937, Japan invaded China committing atrocities including the Nanjing Massacre. Wang Jingwei was a Chinese national hero and second-in-command of C...
Axis Sally: World War II traitor who broadcast for the Nazis
23 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1949, Mildred Gillars – otherwise known as Axis Sally – became the first woman in American history to be convicted of treason.The former Broadw...
Vidkun Quisling: Norway's traitor
22 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In December 1939, fascist Norwegian politician Vidkun Quisling travelled to Berlin from Oslo for a secret meeting with Adolf Hitler.Quisling suggested...
Jamuna Tudu: The real life 'Lady Tarzan'
19 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the early 2000s, a woman called Jamuna Tudu set out on a mission to protect her home state of Jharkhand's forests from India's so-called timber maf...
Ibadan Zoo
18 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
British zoologist Bob Golding turned the University of Ibadan's zoo into one of Nigeria's biggest tourist attractions in the 1970s.The zoo was famous ...
Tortured in Iran's Evin Prison
17 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In June 2009, millions of Iranians took to the streets to protest against what they considered a rigged presidential election.The hardline incumbent M...
The Green March: Moroccans take over the Sahara
16 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On 6 November 1975, tens of thousands of Moroccans poured into Spanish Sahara in a bid to claim it for their own.They danced, waved flags and played m...
The hunger-striking Bolivian president
15 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In Bolivia, on 25 October 1984, President Hernán Siles Zuazo announced he was going on hunger strike. He was trying to stop the booming cocaine indus...
Gürtel scandal: Spain's Watergate
12 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For two years, José Luis Peñas risked his life making secret recordings that revealed one of Spain's biggest corruption scandals.It forced the rulin...
The first World Laughter Day
11 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On the 11 January 1998 in Mumbai, India, the first World Laughter Day took place.It was the idea of Dr Madan Kataria, a medical doctor who wanted to t...
Russian ballerina defects to the west
10 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1970, Natalia Makarova became the first female ballet star to defect to the West from Russia.The dancer claimed asylum during a UK tour, nine years...
The mystery of France's lost king
09 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The fate of Louis-Charles, son of the last king of France, was for years shrouded in rumour.The little boy was said to have died in prison in 1795. Bu...
The world’s first lesbian couple to get married
08 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On 1 April 2001, the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalise gay marriage.Four couples were chosen to take part in a collective ...
What the 1989 solar storm did to Quebec
05 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On 13 March 1989, the Canadian province of Quebec suffered a nine-hour electricity blackout. Much of the state's infrastructure was damaged, but the p...
The Hindenburg airship disaster
04 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1937, the Hindenburg airship burst into flames during its mooring in New Jersey, in the US, killing 35 of the 97 passengers and crew.
The invention of the wingsuit
03 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The wingsuit is the ultimate in extreme sports clothing. The aerodynamic outfit allows base jumpers and skydivers to free-fall for longer before openi...
Discovery of the hole in the earth’s ozone
02 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 1985, British scientists made what would turn out to be one of the most important environmental discoveries of the 20th century - finding a hole in...
Earth: A pale blue dot in the universe
01 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In February 1990, Nasa space probe Voyager took a famous photo of Earth as it left the Solar System.Seen from six billion kilometres away, our planet ...
Ken Hom's 'Chinese Cookery'
29 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1982, after a two-year global search, the BBC auditioned Ken Hom to be the star of a new Chinese cookery TV series.In the show, called Ken Hom's Ch...
The disputed history of pad Thai
28 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It’s one of the most popular dishes in South East Asian cooking and for many it’s seen as Thailand’s national dish. However, the origins of pad ...
Flavr Savr tomato: The world's first genetically-engineered food
27 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1994, biotech company Calgene brought the world's first genetically-modified food to supermarket shelves.The Flavr Savr tomato kept fresh for 30 da...
Kiwi: How New Zealand hijacked China's fruit
26 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The kiwi fruit is synonymous with New Zealand in the minds of most European and American shoppers.But the hairy fruit actually comes from China and wa...
Inventing Nutella
25 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1946, Italian confectioner Pietro Ferrero set out to bring chocolate to the masses. His recipe evolved over the years to become a world-famous prod...
'The bad boy of Welsh politics'
22 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1960s, the singer Dafydd Iwan started campaigning for the Welsh language to gain official status in Wales. For years, Dafydd received little su...
Al Jazeera Three: Imprisoned in Egypt
21 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 2014 three journalists were sentenced to seven years in jail in Egypt.Peter Greste, Mohammed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed became known as the Al Jazeera...
The mysterious death of Pablo Neruda
20 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In late 1973, Chile was in turmoil. General Augusto Pinochet had led a military coup deposing the socialist president Salvador Allende who was now dea...
The assassination of King Faisal
19 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On 25 March 1975, Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal was murdered, shot by his nephew as he bent to kiss him as a greeting.The king’s oil minister Ahmed Z...
Tsunami devastates Samoa
18 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On 29 September 2009, a devastating tsunami hit Samoa, killing 149 people and leaving a trail of destruction. For Lumepa Hald it was a terrifying d...
The funeral of Nelson Mandela
15 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On 15 December 2013, South Africa held the funeral of Nelson Mandela who led the struggle in defeating apartheid and became the country’s first blac...
Vatican citizen Emanuela Orlandi disappears
14 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1983, the disappearance of a teenage girl who was a citizen of Vatican City led to a scandal.When Pope John Paul II made a public appeal to the peo...
Anna Akhmatova: The poet who defied a regime
13 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The great Russian poet Anna Akhmatova lived through some of the darkest chapters of Soviet history, but never stopped writing even though the communis...
Yeltsin speaks at the reburial of the Romanovs
12 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1998, Russia’s President Boris Yeltsin shocked the nation with a last-minute decision to speak at the reburial of Tsar Nicholas II and his family...
Murder of the Romanovs
11 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As civil war raged in Russia, on 17 July 1918, the imprisoned royal family were told they were to be taken to a place of refuge.But the move was a tri...
The release of DOOM
08 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In December 1993, the release of a new video game captivated gamers around the world. It was called DOOM. Set on a Martian military base overrun by zo...
‘The disappeared’ of Argentina
07 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Between 1976 and 1983 in Argentina, the military ruled the country. Thousands of mainly young, left-wing Argentinians went missing. Known as 'the disa...
A Greek coup: The day the colonels took power
06 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On 21 April 1967, a group of right-wing army officers seized power in Greece to prevent the election of a social democratic government led by veteran ...
Thousands of Danish brains in plastic buckets
05 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1945, two Danish scientists opened an institute to study mental illnesses. In the four decades until it closed, almost 10,000 brains were collecte...
La Haine: The film that shocked France
04 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1993, film director Mathieu Kassovitz started work on what would become a cult cinema classic, La Haine. La Haine would follow three friends from a...
World's first solar-heated home
01 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In December 1948, a family of Hungarian refugees moved into the world's first home to be heated entirely by solar power.What made the Dover Sun House,...
Tanzania adopts Swahili to unite the country
30 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
After Tanzania, then called Tanganyika, became independent from Britain in 1961, the country's leader, Julius Nyerere, made Swahili the national langu...
Cameroon’s mysterious lake deaths
29 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On 21 August 1986, hundreds of villagers in a remote part of Cameroon mysteriously died overnight, along with 3,500 livestock.In the weeks-long invest...
The bird that defied extinction
28 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1969, a Peruvian farmer called Gustavo Del Solar received an unusual assignment - finding a bird called the white-winged guan that had been regarde...
Cabbage Patch Kids
27 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1983, all hell broke loose when a new toy hit stores in the United States. Cabbage Patch Kids were so popular that people were getting injured when...
The Mumbai attacks
24 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On 26 November 2008, 10 gunmen from the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Tayyiba carried out coordinated attacks on Mumbai's busiest hotspots i...
The Paris heatwave
23 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In August 2003 Europe was hit by the hottest heatwave for hundreds of years. Tens of thousands of people died. Not built to withstand two weeks of e...
Kennedy’s nail-biter election victory
22 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On 22 November 1963, United States President John F Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.Lucy Williamson looks back to 8 November 1960, when Rich...
The invention of bubble tea
21 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1987, a tea shop in Taiwan named Chun Shui Tang began selling pearl milk tea, or bubble tea, as it’s often called. It would revolutionise the tea...
The independence of Zambia
20 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1964, Zambia became a republic. It was the ninth African state to leave British colonial rule.Simon Kapwepwe was one of the leaders in the fight fo...
Discovering the ancient city of Thonis-Heracleion
17 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 2000, the pioneering underwater archaeologist Franck Goddio made one of the greatest ever submerged discoveries.He found evidence that the remains ...
The Bolivian Water War
16 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Bolivian Water War was a series of protests that took place in the city of Cochabamba in 2000 against the privatisation of water. People objected ...
Rosalind Franklin: DNA pioneer
15 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1951, Rosalind Franklin began one of the key scientific investigations of the century. The young British scientist produced an X-ray photograph tha...
Eyjafjallajökull: The volcano that stopped a continent
14 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 2010, a previously little-known Icelandic volcano erupted twice, sending a huge plume of volcanic ash all over Europe. The ash cloud grounded fligh...
The invention of the EpiPen
13 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1970s, engineer Sheldon Kaplan and his colleagues were tasked with creating an auto-injector pen to be used by US soldiers needing a nerve agen...
The hippo and the tortoise
10 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Following the devastating tsunami of 2004, a baby hippo named Owen was rescued from the sea off the coast of Kenya.He was taken to Haller Park in Momb...
Destruction of Mostar Bridge
09 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On 9 November 1993, one of Bosnia's most famous landmarks, the historic bridge in Mostar, was destroyed by Croat guns during the Bosnian war. Built by...
The Pakistani teens who became disco superstars
08 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1980s, a brother and sister from Pakistan topped the charts in countries all over the world with their dancefloor filler, Disco Deewane.Nazia a...
Debbie McGee in Iran
07 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1978, British showbusiness star, Debbie McGee was a dancer with the Iranian National Ballet Company.Debbie was living in the capital, Tehran, at th...
Ycuá Bolaños supermarket fire
06 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In August 2004, more than 300 people died when a supermarket caught fire in Paraguay's capital, Asunción.It is seen as the country's worst peacetime ...
Freddie Mercury 'marries' Jane Seymour
03 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On 5 November, 1985 some of the world's top designers and music stars joined together in a special event at London’s Royal Albert Hall to raise mone...
Che Guevara’s daughter: A Cuban doctor in Angola
02 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1986 Dr Aleida Guevara, the daughter of revolutionary icon Che Guevara, went to Angola to work as a paediatrician.Dr Aleida was one of a number of ...
Inventing the black box
01 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On 23 March 1962, a prototype of the first cockpit flight recorder, the black box, was tested in Australia. In the early 1950s, fuel scientist David ...
The discovery of the HIV virus
31 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1983, scientists at the Pasteur Institute in Paris became the first to identify the HIV virus. It was a vital step in fighting one of the worst epi...
The billion dollar bid to stop oil drilling in the Amazon
30 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 2010, a $3.6billion fund was launched to stop oil drilling in the most biodiverse place on the planet: the Yasuni national park in Ecuador.The Yasu...
Turkey: Gezi Park protests
27 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 2013, environmental protests in Gezi Park, Istanbul led to civil unrest across Turkey.For one protestor, a post he made on social media led to a dr...
'The streets of Harare were littered with money'
26 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In November 2008, Johns Hopkins University calculated Zimbabwe’s year-on-year inflation rate as 89,700,000,000,000,000,000,000% – one of the worst...
The 1993 MAD hijack
25 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On 25 October1993, a Nigerian Airways flight from Lagos to Abuja was hijacked by four teenagers calling themselves the Movement for the Advancement of...
The 1980 Turkey coup
24 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On 12 September 1980, the army took control in Turkey. It was not the first time they had done so. It was the third coup d'état in the history of the...
The first Bosphorus Bridge
23 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1973, the Bosphorus Bridge was completed connecting Europe and Asia.The suspension bridge was the first of three spanning the Bosphorus Strait in I...
Osmondmania
20 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On 21 October 1973, American heartthrobs The Osmonds were met by hysterical crowds when their plane landed at London's Heathrow Airport. A surge by so...
Launching Lagos Fashion Week
19 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 2011, models, stylists and fashionistas gathered for Lagos Fashion Week’s debut which would put Nigerian style on the global map. Omoyemi Akerele...
Mexico’s murdered women
18 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1993 young women began disappearing in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juárez. Hundreds were reported to have been kidnapped and killed. Some of...
Rana Plaza building collapse
17 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In April 2013, Rana Plaza, an eight-storey building on the outskirts of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, collapsed. More than 1,000 people died and m...
Cambodian peace walk
16 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1992, the first peace walk was held in Cambodia aimed at uniting a country torn apart by years of conflict. Buddhist monks, Cambodian refugees and ...
Surviving an acid attack and changing the law
13 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 2013, India's Supreme Court made a landmark ruling aimed at transforming the lives of acid attack survivors.It followed a campaign led by Laxmi Aga...
Kwame Nkrumah: Ousted from power
12 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In February 1966, Kwame Nkrumah, one of Africa's most famous leaders, was ousted from power in Ghana.While he was out of the country, the Ghanaian mil...
Theodosia Okoh: Designer of Ghana’s flag
11 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In March 1957, Ghana became the first country in sub-Saharan Africa to gain independence and a new flag was unveiled marking a fresh start for the for...
The 84-year-old primary school pupil
10 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 2004, Kimani Maruge became the oldest man to start primary school when he enrolled at the Kapkenduiywo Primary School in Kenya. The 84-year-old stu...
Yinka Shonibare: Nelson's Ship in a Bottle
09 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On 24 May 2010, artist Yinka Shonibare unveiled Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle, on the fourth plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square.The piece was the wor...
Protectors of the Amazon
06 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 2003, an oil company entered the indigenous Sarayaku community’s territory in the Ecuadorian Amazon in search of oil. Neither the government nor ...
The Amoco Cadiz oil spill
05 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1978, the Amoco Cadiz tanker ran aground off the coast of France.The supertanker split, releasing more than 220,000 tonnes of crude oil into the se...
Nigeria strikes oil
04 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In 1956 commercial quantities of oil were discovered in the Nigerian village Oloibiri.It marked the start of a huge oil industry for Nigeria but came ...
The oilfield that changed Kazakhstan
03 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the wake of the USSR breaking up, Kazakhstan was wrestling with the challenges of independence; hyperinflation, the economy collapsing and food sho...
The oil crisis of 1973
02 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In October 1973, Arab nations protested the American support of Israel in its war against Egypt and Syria by slashing oil production, causing prices t...
The first cat cafe
29 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The world's first cat cafe opened in Taipei, Taiwan, in 1998. It started with just five street cats.For the first few months they hardly had any visit...
The Lampedusa shipwreck tragedy
28 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On 3 October 2013, a fishing boat taking more than 500 migrants from Libya sank 800 metres off the coast of Lampedusa, Italy’s southernmost island.I...