Witness History Podcast
History told by the people who were there. For nine minutes every weekday, Witness History takes you back to moments which have shaped our world.
Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there.
For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.
Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue.
We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina’s Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall’ speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler’s List; and Jacques Derrida, France’s ‘rock star’ philosopher.
You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest; the disastrous D-Day rehearsal ; and the death of one of the world’s oldest languages.
Episodes to download
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Saddam Hussein's foreign hostages
Thu 19 Aug 2021
A British Muslim family was among hundreds of foreign nationals held hostage in Iraq
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India's secret freedom radio
Wed 18 Aug 2021
When Gandhi was jailed in 1942 activists launched a secret radio station for independence
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US withdrawal: The fall of Saigon
Tue 17 Aug 2021
The desperate scramble to evacuate US personnel and locals at the end of the Vietnam war
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The man who coined the term genocide
Mon 16 Aug 2021
The Holocaust survivor who coined the term genocide and spent his life trying to stop it
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Inside an East German jail
Fri 13 Aug 2021
Vera Lengsfeld was imprisoned by the communist authorities in East Germany in 1988
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East Germany's nudists
Thu 12 Aug 2021
The communist regime restricted many things in the GDR but not the freedom to go naked
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Exiled from East Germany: Wolf Biermann
Wed 11 Aug 2021
East Germany's most famous singer-songwriter was exiled to the West in 1976
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Escaping from East Berlin
Tue 10 Aug 2021
East Germans used all sorts of methods to escape from communism across the Berlin Wall
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The building of the Berlin Wall
Mon 9 Aug 2021
In August 1961, East Germany began building the wall that symbolised Cold War Europe
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Gay activism in 1990s India
Fri 6 Aug 2021
Pawan Dhall helped form the Counsel Club, one of India's first gay support groups
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Afghanistan's battle of the airwaves
Thu 5 Aug 2021
When the Taliban fell in 2001 Afghans could listen to music and news again
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Escaping Nigeria’s Civil War
Wed 4 Aug 2021
Patti Boulaye recalls frightening times as a 13-year-old girl in the Biafran War in 1967.
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Chipko: India’s tree-hugging women
Tue 3 Aug 2021
How a grassroots environmental movement won its fight against deforestation in India
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Dorothy Butler Gilliam: American news pioneer
Mon 2 Aug 2021
The first African American woman to be hired as a reporter by the Washington Post
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The Tsunami and Fukushima
Fri 30 Jul 2021
How an earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan and triggered a nuclear emergency in 2011
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Fighting for the pill in Japan
Thu 29 Jul 2021
Why did it take so long for the oral contraceptive pill to be legalised in Japan?
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The soldier who never surrendered
Wed 28 Jul 2021
A Japanese soldier hid in the jungle in Guam for nearly 30 years after World War Two
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The birth of Karaoke
Tue 27 Jul 2021
The man who invented the Karaoke machine speaks to Witness History
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Japan's Bullet Train
Mon 26 Jul 2021
Japanese railways launched the fastest train the world had ever seen in October 1964
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When war came to Darfur
Thu 22 Jul 2021
How a 13-year-old boy's life was changed by the war in Darfur in Sudan
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Surviving Norway's day of terror
Wed 21 Jul 2021
Lisa Husby recalls running for her life from far-right extremist Anders Breivik
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The Battle of Gondar
Tue 20 Jul 2021
In 1941, Italian colonial rule in Africa ended after a last stand by Mussolini's soldiers
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Domestic violence in Brazil
Mon 19 Jul 2021
In 2006 Brazil passed the ground-breaking 'Maria da Penha law' to tackle domestic abuse
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England's summer of riots
Fri 16 Jul 2021
How six weeks of race riots gripped towns in northern England in 2001
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When the Taliban took Kabul
Thu 15 Jul 2021
Taliban fighters first took control of Afghanistan's capital city Kabul in 1996
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Jane Goodall and chimpanzees
Wed 14 Jul 2021
How a young Englishwoman followed her dream to study chimpanzees in Africa
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Prisoner of the Cultural Revolution
Tue 13 Jul 2021
Kim Gordon and his parents were locked up for two years in a hotel in China in the 1960s
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The race for the jet engine
Mon 12 Jul 2021
Inspiration, rejection and war - a personal account of the invention of the jet engine
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The bombing of the Rainbow Warrior
Fri 9 Jul 2021
In July 1985 the Greenpeace boat was bombed in New Zealand by French secret agents
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The first World Romani Congress
Thu 8 Jul 2021
Roma people from all around Europe met up in England in 1971