Witness History: Witness Archive 2015
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Witness History: Witness Archive 2015
History as told by the people who were there. All the programmes from 2015.
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253 Episoden
The Millennium Bug
There was a frenzy of celebrations on New Year's Eve 1999. But amid the partying, there was also some anxiety over the effects of a potential global c...
The Poster Boy for the Communist System
In 1935, Alexei Stakhanov, a coal miner, became a Soviet celebrity. He invented a more efficient coal production method and started a movement to enco...
Rasputin
In December 1916, the infamous mystic, Grigori Rasputin, was murdered by Russian aristocrats. Rasputin, a Siberian peasant and wandering holy man, had...
The Donner Party
In 1846, a group of pioneers were trying to reach California by wagon train when they were trapped by snow over the winter - and some were forced to e...
The Beagle 2 Mission to Mars
On Christmas Day 2003, an unmanned British space craft called Beagle 2 was due to touch down on Mars and begin searching for evidence of life. The mas...
It's a Wonderful Life
In December 1946, the classic Christmas film "It's a Wonderful Life" had its premiere in Hollywood. Starring Jimmy Stewart, the movie's message of hop...
Michael Jackson's Thriller
In 1982 the world's best selling album was released. Thriller included hits such as Beat It, Billie Jean and Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' as well as th...
Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita
One of the 20th century's most scandalous books was published in 1955. Lolita, by Russian émigré Vladimir Nabokov, tells the story of the relationship...
The Death of General Patton
In December 1945, one of America's most famous miltary commanders, General George S Patton, died from injuries sustained in a car crash, just months a...
India Disability Rights
In December 1995, the first disability rights legislation was passed by India's parliament. An estimated 60 million people, almost six percent of Ind...
Star Wars: C3PO's Story
In the mid-1970s, English classical actor Anthony Daniels was asked to audition for a role as a droid in a new science fiction film by a little-known...
The Rubik's Cube
In 1974, a Hungarian architect, Ernő Rubik invented his best selling puzzle. Over the next forty years, more than 350 million Rubik's Cubes were sold...
A Pakistani View of the Bangladesh War of Independence
When Bangladesh fought for independence from Pakistan, thousands of Pakistani troops were sent to fight in what was then called East Pakistan. Shujaat...
The 1960 Coup Against Haile Selassie
In December 1960, while the Ethiopian emperor, Haile Selassie, was out of the country, his Imperial Bodyguard took over the capital Addis Ababa and pr...
The Velvet Underground
On December 11th 1965, seminal alternative rock band the Velvet Underground played their first gig at a high school in New Jersey. Rob Norris was ther...
The KKK and the Killing of Viola Liuzzo
In December 1965, three members of the Ku Klux Klan were found guilty over the murder of white civil rights activist, Viola Liuzzo, in one of the firs...
The Battle of Tora Bora
After the Taliban fell from power in Afghanistan in the winter of 2001, the hunt for Osama bin Laden began in earnest. One American in particular led...
WW1: The Siege of Kut, Iraq
In 1915, an Anglo-Indian attempt to capture Baghdad from the Ottoman empire ended in disaster. Thousands of British and Indian troops spent five month...
Cuban Fighters in Angola
In the 1980s Angola was a front line in the Cold War between communism and the West. In 1987 tens of thousands of Cuban soldiers were sent to the So...
The First Heart Transplant
On 3 December 1967, two brothers carried out the world's first heart transplant operation. Christiaan and Marius Barnard were both working as surgeons...
Surviving Pearl Harbor
On 7 December 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbour, Hawaii. Thousands of American servicemen died in a raid wh...
The Bari Raid 1943
How a devastating air raid on the Italian port of Bari during World War Two led to the deadly release of mustard gas. Winston Churchill ordered the in...
Nigeria's "War Against Indiscipline"
In 1984 General Muhammadu Buhari's military regime launched an unusual campaign to clean up Nigeria. Under the policy, Nigerians were forced to queue,...
Surviving Ravensbruck
In November 1938, the SS commander Heinrich Himmler ordered the construction in Nazi Germany of the only concentration camp built specifically for wom...
Britain's Palestine Patrols
In the 1940s the Royal Navy intercepted dozens of Jewish refugee ships trying to reach British-controlled Palestine. It was part of British government...
Cuba's 'Special Period'
In the 1990s the Cuban economy came close to collapse after the fall of the Soviet Union. The end of the millions of dollars in Soviet aid meant power...
The DB Cooper Mystery
In November 1971, a man calling himself Dan Cooper hijacked a plane flying from the US city of Portland to nearby Seattle. He demanded $200,000 in cas...
Attack on the US Embassy in Islamabad
In late November 1979, a mob inspired by Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini set fire to the US Embassy in Islamabad. Those inside fled to the steel lined safe...
The CIA's Cultural War: how the CIA secretly funded the magazine Encounter
In autumn 1953, a new literary magazine was launched in London that would become the magazine of choice of the English-speaking liberal intelligentsia...
Fear of Flying: The Best Selling Book About Sex, Creativity And Love
In 1973, Erica Jong, a young feminist author from New York, wrote a groundbreaking novel about female sexuality, called Fear of Flying. Photo courtesy...
Fire: Bollywood Explores Lesbian Love
Indian film star Shabana Azmi remembers playing a lesbian in the controversial Bollywood film, Fire, in 1998.
(Photo: Shabana Azmi. Credit: AFP)
Kenya’s Torture Chambers
In 1986, dozens of Kenyans were detained and accused of belonging to an underground opposition movement called Mwakenya. They were taken to Nyayo Hous...
The Fall of the Taliban
On 13 November 2001, the Taliban administration collapsed in Afghanistan. Northern Alliance fighters, aided by American air strikes, had driven the I...
East Timor Massacre
On 12 November 1991, Indonesian troops opened fire on independence activists in East Timor's capital, Dili. British cameraman Max Stahl filmed the att...
Romany: Pioneer Wildlife Broadcaster
Romany of the BBC was a pioneer naturalist broadcaster of Roma Gypsy origin. His programmes were popular in the UK in the 1930s and 40s. Dina Newman e...
India Anti-Sikh Riots
Following the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984, India was gripped by anti-Sikh riots. Thousands of people...
The Amman Bombings
On 9 November 2005, three hotels in Jordan's capital were targeted by suicide bombers. Nearly 60 people were killed in the country's worst terror att...
The Green March
In November 1975, a huge crowd of Moroccans marched into the desert colony of Spanish Sahara to claim it from Madrid. About 350,000 people took part i...
The Russian Revolution: Alexander Kerensky
On 7 November 1917 Lenin and his Bolshevik party overthrew the Provisional Government led by Alexander Kerensky. Dina Newman presents Kerensky's comme...
The Battle of El Alamein
In October and November 1942, the Allies fought a famous battle against German and Italian troops close to the small Egyptian village of El Alamein.