Witness History

Kassandra: The peacekeeping telenovela in Bosnia

27 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the early 1990s, the soap opera or telenovela craze was sweeping the world. One of the most popular was Kassandra made in Venezuela, about a girl s...

Concorde's first flight

26 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On 26 September 1973, Concorde, the supersonic passenger aircraft, made her first non-stop flight across the Atlantic. The droopy-nosed plane took to ...

Vietnam War: Stopping nuclear disaster

25 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1975, during the final days of the Vietnam War, most of the world was unaware that the North Vietnamese were advancing a new breed of nuclear react...

The year of the vuvuzela

22 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The vuvuzela was notorious during the 2010 football World Cup.It became the subject of debate when it was labelled as 'the world's most annoying instr...

Kenya: Nairobi shopping mall attack

21 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 2013, gunmen from a Somali Islamist group known as Al-Shabab attacked a shopping centre in Kenya’s capital Nairobi. They took hundreds of people ...

The first person inside the 'Gates of Hell'

20 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In November 2013 George Kourounis arrived in the Turkmenistan desert.He was determined to become the first person to enter the Darvaza Crater.The cra...

Fighting for legal abortion in Italy

19 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1978, campaigners won their long fight to legalise abortion in Italy. Emma Bonino and other members of the Radical Party went on hunger strike and ...

Nazi eugenics

18 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In July 1933, the new German Chancellor, Adolf Hitler, passed 'The Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases'.It required the steri...

The Ramallah concert

15 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In August 2005, an unusual orchestra performed an extraordinary concert in the city of Ramallah.The West-Eastern Divan orchestra was founded in 1999 b...

The siege at the Church of the Nativity

14 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is on the site believed by Christians to be the birthplace of Jesus Christ.But in 2002, it was at the centre o...

Ariel Sharon visits al-Aqsa

13 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Rioting broke out in 2000 after the Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon made a controversial visit to the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s ...

Camp David Summit: How Middle East peace talks failed

12 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 2000, President Bill Clinton led a major effort to end the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The two sides were brought together at the leafy presidenti...

Oslo Peace Accords: The secret talks behind Middle East deal

11 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In September 1993, a peace agreement was signed between Israel and the Palestinians after months of secret negotiations.The historic handshake between...

Victor Jara: killed in Chile's coup

08 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On 11 September 1973, General Augusto Pinochet deposed Chile's President Salvador Allende in a military coup.Thousands of people were tortured and kil...

Organising Chile's 1973 military coup

07 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On 11 September 1973, General Augusto Pinochet deposed Chile's democratically elected president, Salvador Allende, in a violent military coup.Hermóge...

Murder of Swedish politician Anna Lindh

06 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 2003, Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh was stabbed to death in a department store in the middle of Stockholm. The 46-year-old member of the ruli...

Bi Kidude: Zanzibar's 'golden grandmother of music'

05 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1980s, Bi Kidude burst onto the international music scene, when she was in her 70s. She was one of the first women from Zanzibar to sing in pub...

Arctic 30: Russian arrest of Greenpeace campaigners

04 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On 14 September 2013, the Arctic Sunrise - a ship belonging to the environmental group Greenpeace - embarked on an Arctic expedition.Its aim was to di...

Leaving China to study after the Cultural Revolution

01 Sep 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Launched in 1966 by Communist leader Mao Zedong, the Cultural Revolution plunged China into a decade of chaos. The education of millions of young peop...

Saving Guadalupe from goats

31 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 2000, an expedition to the Mexican island of Guadalupe launched a fight to save its ecosystem from being eaten by goats.Russian whalers had introdu...

Egypt's Rabaa massacre

30 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On 14 August 2013, Egypt's army killed hundreds of protestors in Cairo's Rabaa al-Adawiya Square. They were protesting against a military coup that ha...

North and South Korean leaders meet for the first time in decades

29 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In June 2000, a historic meeting took place between South Korean president Kim Dae-jung and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Il.This was the first inter-...

The Bristol bus boycott

28 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Sixty years ago, there was a boycott of local bus services in the English city of Bristol. The bus company had specified that it did not want to emplo...

Women invade Dublin's male-only swimming spot

25 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Forty Foot is a famous sea swimming spot in Ireland’s capital city of Dublin. For hundreds of years, only men had the privilege of bathing in it...

Celtic Tiger: Ireland's 'ghost estates'

24 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 2006, Michele Burke and her fiancé William were looking forward to moving into their dream home in the picturesque town of Killaloe, in Ireland. B...

The first Rose of Tralee

23 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1959, Tralee, in Ireland, hosted a festival to promote the town and build Irish connections around the world. It became known as the Rose of Tralee...

How electricity came to rural Ireland

22 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In May 1948, Canon John Hayes flicked a switch and brought electricity to the parish of Bansha, in Ireland. The village was the first in County Tipper...

Easter Rising in Ireland

21 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

At Easter 1916, a small army of Irish rebels attempted to start a revolution against British rule.They held out for more than a week against a massive...

The Wizard of Oz: The stolen ruby slippers

18 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The ruby slippers from the 1939 movie 'The Wizard of Oz' are some of the most treasured film memorabilia of all time. There are thought to be four pai...

Judy Garland: The final shows

17 Aug 2023

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...

Returning Benin Bronzes

16 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 2004, a chance encounter in Nigeria led to the return of two of the country’s ancient artworks, the looted Benin Bronzes.The treasures were among...

Iran: How the prime minister was overthrown in 1953

15 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The coup of 1953 changed the course of Iranian history. The USA - with British help - overthrew a nationalist prime minister and installed the Shah in...

The boy who discovered a new species of human ancestor

14 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On 15 August 2008, nine-year-old Matt Berger tripped over a fossil that would lead to one of the most important discoveries in the history of human ev...

Jean-Michel Basquiat bursts onto the New York art scene

11 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the early 1980s, the young black graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat took the New York art world by storm. Soon, his paintings were selling for hu...

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's diamonds scandal

10 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1979, French journalist Claude Angeli and his colleagues discovered Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the French President, received gifts of diamonds wor...

Sarajevo’s haven of peace

09 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

After the collapse of former Yugoslavia, Bosnian Serb forces laid siege to the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, in 1992. More than a quarter of a million pe...

The Great Train Robbery

08 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On 8 August 1963, a gang of thieves held up a British Royal Mail train on its journey from Glasgow to London. They stole more than £2 million. It was...

Brownie Wise: The creator of Tupperware parties

07 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1950s, self-made businesswoman Brownie Wise transformed the fortunes of Tupperware by inspiring thousands of housewives to sell it at parties.H...

Dinosaur in court

04 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 2012 a dinosaur skeleton became the subject of both a restraining order and a court case.Mongolian palaeontologist, Dr Bolortsetseg Minjin helped s...

Treehouse on the Berlin Wall

03 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1980s, a Turkish worker in Germany, Osman Kahlin, provoked controversy when he turned a patch of disputed land against the Berlin Wall into a m...

Birth of a new language

02 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the early 1980s deaf children in Nicaragua invented a completely new sign language of their own.It was a remarkable achievement, which allowed expe...

First dinosaur eggs identified in India

01 Aug 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1982, nests of dinosaur eggs were identified for the first time in India. They were found in Jabalpur, on a historic fossil site and former British...

José Mujica: Prison break to president

31 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the 1960s and '70s, José Mujica was a leading member of a notorious left-wing militant group in Uruguay called the Tupamaros. He survived multiple...

Mr Bigg's: The birth of Nigeria's iconic takeaway

28 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It’s been 50 years since a popular Nigerian fast food chain which later became known as Mr Bigg's was first launched. The restaurants began as coffe...

The 1960 coup against Haile Selassie

27 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In December 1960, there was an attempt to dethrone the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie and replace him with his son. While the emperor was out of the...

The Pope’s controversial Nicaragua visit

26 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1983 Pope John Paul II visited Nicaragua as part of an eight-day tour of Central America. His trip came at a time of heightened tensions between th...

Brain: The first personal computer virus

25 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

'Welcome to the dungeon' was the message that flashed up on computer screens in 1986.This was thought to be the first virus for personal computers and...

Escaping the Nazis in Greece

24 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Greek city of Thessaloniki, or Salonica, was once known as the Jerusalem of the Balkans.It was previously home to a large and thriving Sephardi Je...

The US singer who became the Soviet Union’s Red Elvis

21 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1966, at the height of the Cold War, American singer Dean Reed became the first western rock and roll star to tour the Soviet Union. His visit was ...

The birth of Barbie

20 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The first Barbie doll was sold in 1959. It took Ruth Handler, who created it, years to convince her male colleagues that it would sell.The plastic cre...

Japan surrenders in China

19 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the autumn of 1945, World War II surrender ceremonies took place across the Japanese Empire. The one in China was held at the Forbidden City in Bei...

The ‘Barricades’ of Latvia

18 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In January 1991, more than half a million people protested in Riga, the capital city of Latvia. They wanted to stop Soviet troops taking over importan...

Tamoxifen: Breast cancer ‘wonder drug’

17 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The story of how tamoxifen went from a failed contraceptive pill, to being used to prevent and treat breast cancer around the world. It was the first ...

Creating the first emoji

14 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1999, Japanese software developer Shigetaka Kurita created the first emoji. The umbrella was one of 176 original images, featuring weather, transpo...

When disposable nappies were invented

13 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1947, after the birth of her third child, Valerie Hunter Gordon, from Surrey decided she was sick of the drudgery of cloth nappies. She came up wit...

Inventing Rubik’s Cube

11 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1974, a Hungarian architect, Ernő Rubik invented his very popular puzzle. Nearly 50 years later, more than 450 million Rubik’s Cubes have been s...

Invention of the ballpoint pen

10 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1938, László Bíró, a Hungarian journalist, invented the ballpoint pen, because he was sick of smudging the ink from his fountain pen.Inspired b...

A right royal night out

07 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The tale of an extraordinary night at a legendary British gay pub.Princess Diana, disguised as a man, along with star broadcaster Kenny Everett and Qu...

When tourism came to the Maldives

06 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1972 the first tourists arrived in the Maldives.They stayed in humble lodgings in three houses, looked after by young Maldivians including Ahmed Na...

The National Health Service begins

05 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On 5 July 1948, the UK’s National Health Service began as part of a series of reforms with the aim of supporting and protecting Britain's citizens f...

Longest-serving democratically elected communist government

04 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1977 what was to become the world’s longest-serving democratically elected communist government came to power in eastern India.Poverty and absolu...

The trial of John Demjanjuk

03 Jul 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1986 a car factory worker from the United States was accused of being ‘Ivan the Terrible’, a notorious concentration camp guard at Treblinka du...

I made Lady Gaga's meat dress

30 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On 12 September 2010 Lady Gaga, won the MTV Video Music Award for Video of the Year. She accepted the award in a dress made entirely out of beef. 13 ...

The 'graveyard' for communist statues

29 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Hungarian city of Budapest's communist statue 'graveyard' opened on 29 June 1993. Statues representing communism were not destroyed, instead they ...

Sampoong department store disaster

28 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On 29 June 1995, the Sampoong Department Store in Seoul, South Korea, collapsed due to structural failures.The disaster killed 502 people and injured ...

First reports of Ebola

27 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1976 in a small Belgian missionary hospital in a village in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, then known as Zaire, people were dying from an un...

JFK’s Ich Bin Ein Berliner speech

26 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

United States President John F Kennedy gave a speech in Berlin at the height of the Cold War on 26 June 1963.It galvanised the world in support of Wes...

My dad played golf on the moon

23 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Alan Shepard played golf on the moon in 1971.He became the first and only person to enjoy the sport on the lunar surface.The astronaut golfer’s daug...

The Empire Windrush arrives

22 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury in England on 22 June 1948 with 802 people on board from the Caribbean.The former passenger liner's arrival on t...

Anti-gay police raid at Tasty nightclub

21 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the early hours of 7 August 1994, police raided Tasty, a gay nightclub in downtown Melbourne, Australia. On the hunt for drugs they strip-search...

The Somali pilot ordered to bomb his own country

20 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

At the end of May 1988, rebels from the Somali National Movement launched a series of lightning attacks on cities in northern Somalia - the area that ...

Uprising in East Germany

19 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

East German workers went on strike in protest at Soviet rule on 16 June 1953.Demonstrations spread throughout the country but were soon crushed by com...

Ming Smith makes history at MoMA

16 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1979, The Museum of Modern Art, (MoMA) purchased photographs from an African-American woman for the first time in its history. Ming Smith was famou...

Sir Don McCullin’s photo of a US marine

15 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1968, British photographer Sir Don McCullin travelled to Vietnam for his second ever war assignment. His graphic photographs of the fighting made h...

Malick Sidibé: Mali’s star photographer

14 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

The Malian photographer, Malick Sidibé, is one of Africa’s most celebrated artists. His most famous photographs show black and white scenes of youn...

A Great Day in Harlem: The story behind the iconic jazz photo

13 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

It's 65 years since aspiring photographer Art Kane persuaded 58 of the biggest names in jazz, including Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Mo...

Lee Miller in Hitler's bath

12 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Vogue's war correspondent Lee Miller found herself in Adolf Hitler's Munich apartment when the news broke that he was dead.Earlier that day, she and f...

1955 Le Mans disaster

09 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On 11 June 1955, more than 80 people were killed and 100 injured at the Le Mans 24-hour race.A car driven by Pierre Levegh crashed into the crowd of a...

Last communist march before Hitler

08 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On 25 January 1933 the last legal communist march was held in Berlin.Just a few days later Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany.Soon the Communis...

Facial reconstruction: From mummy to murder

06 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1975, British forensic artist Richard Neave used a pile of modelling clay, two prosthetic eyes and a woman’s wig to reconstruct the face of an Eg...

Inuit children taken from families

05 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the early 1960s, the Canadian government launched an experimental programme to take academically promising Inuit children from their homes to be ed...

The first Indian woman to conquer Everest

02 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

As a child, Bachendri Pal never dreamt of conquering mountains but a chance meeting with a climber changed all that.She applied for a mountaineering c...

Tragedy on Everest

01 Jun 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Michael Groom is one of the survivors of a tragic climbing expedition to Mount Everest in Nepal. In 2010, Jonny Hogg spoke to Michael Groom about the ...

Mallory on Everest

31 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1999 the body of the legendary British mountaineer, George Mallory, was found on Mount Everest. Mallory disappeared on the mountain in 1924 after m...

Tenzing Norgay conquers Everest

30 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Sherpa Tenzing Norgay had tried to climb Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world, six times before his successful climb with Edmund Hillary i...

Edmund Hillary conquers Everest

29 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On 29 May 1953 Edmund Hillary, climbing with sherpa Tenzing Norgay, became the first people to reach the summit of Everest.The two men instantly becam...

The deadliest glacial avalanche in the world

26 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On 31 May 1970, the Huascarán avalanche, caused by the Ancash earthquake, destroyed the town of Yungay, in Peru.Only 400 people, out of a population ...

Trying to unite Africa

25 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On 25 May 1963, leaders of 32 newly-independent African nations came together for the first time in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.At stake was the...

Chasing the world’s biggest tornado

24 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On 31 May 2013, a huge tornado hit an area close to El Reno in the US state of Oklahoma.It was the widest tornado ever recorded and produced extreme w...

Fikret Alić

23 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In August 1992, a shocking photograph of a starving, emaciated man behind a barbed wire fence of a Bosnian concentration camp stunned the world. The ...

The sergeants' coup in Suriname

22 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1980, a group of 16 army sergeants, led by Dési Bouterse, seized power in the small South American country of Suriname, overthrowing the governmen...

Pippi Longstocking

19 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In Stockholm in 1941, Astrid Lindgren made up a story for her seven-year-old daughter, Karin, about a young girl who lived alone and had super-human s...

Creating New Zealand's national walking trail

18 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 2011 a 3,000 km long walking trail was opened in New Zealand. Geoff Chapple had spent years lobbying for the creation of Te Araroa. He’d written ...

The Dambusters

17 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In the early hours of 17 May 1943 a bold World War II attack destroyed two dams in the Ruhr Valley in Germany's industrial heartland, causing 1,600 ca...

German child evacuees of World War Two

16 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Beginning in 1940 thousands of German children were evacuated to camps in the countryside to avoid the bombs of World War Two.These camps were seen as...

Singapore executes Filipina maid

15 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1995, the execution of Flor Contemplacion caused protests, a government resignation and a diplomatic crisis between the Philippines and Singapore. ...

World War II victory in North Africa

12 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

Peter Royle, 103, endured a month of solid fighting in the hills outside of Tunis in 1943. Eventually the Allies prevailed and took more than 250,000 ...

Warsaw Ghetto uprising

11 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In May 1943, the uprising in the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw in Poland came to an end. The Germans had crushed the uprising and deported surviving ghetto ...

The last commercial flight out of Kai Tak

10 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

In 1998, one of Hong Kong’s best known landmarks, Kai Tak airport, closed after 73 years. Kai Tak, which was built between the mountains and the c...

The sinking of the SS Tilawa: the ‘Indian Titanic’

09 May 2023

Contributed by Lukas

On 23 November 1942, in the middle of the Second World War, a ship called the SS Tilawa was carrying more than 950 passengers and crew from India to E...