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 鈥� Argentina鈥檚 Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous 鈥榯ear down this wall鈥� speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler鈥檚 List; and Jacques Derrida, France鈥檚 鈥榬ock star鈥� 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鈥檚 oldest languages.
Episodes to download
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The first Arab woman pilot
Tue 25 May 2021
Egyptian Lotfia Elnadi made history when she gained her pilot licence in 1933
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The strike that shocked India
Mon 24 May 2021
The Indian railway workers鈥� strike of 1974 prompted mass arrests and a state of emergency
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Fighting forced marriage in war
Fri 21 May 2021
Why a court in Sierra Leone ruled that forced marriage was a crime against humanity.
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Saving the world's wetlands
Thu 20 May 2021
Iran hosted the first convention to save the world's wetlands in1971.
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Striking in South Korea in 1980
Tue 18 May 2021
Strikes and protests against South Korea's military government came to a head in May 1980
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When Ariel Sharon visited the Al-Aqsa compound
Mon 17 May 2021
The Israeli politician visited the compound containing one of Islam's holiest sites
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China's Democracy Wall
Fri 14 May 2021
How a brick wall in Beijing became a beacon for those calling for change
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The trial of South Africa鈥檚 'Dr Death'
Thu 13 May 2021
The trial of a South African doctor accused of multiple murders under Apartheid.
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The Jewish exodus from Iraq
Wed 12 May 2021
How two thousand Jews fled persecution in the summer of 1971, helped by Iraqi Kurds
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Legalising contraception in Ireland
Tue 11 May 2021
Contraception wasn't easily accessible in traditionally Roman Catholic Ireland until 1985
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Why a British MP was filmed taking mescaline
Mon 10 May 2021
In 1955 Christopher Mayhew MP took the hallucinogenic drug mescaline for a TV experiment
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The Great Wine Fraud
Thu 6 May 2021
The story of wine fraudster Rudy Kurniawan, and the French winemaker who exposed him.
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Ursula Le Guin
Wed 5 May 2021
The pioneer of feminist science fiction and creator of the Earthsea fantasy series
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The IRA hunger strikes
Tue 4 May 2021
Republican prisoner Bobby Sands died in the Maze prison in Northern Ireland on May 5 1981
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How Amsterdam became the cannabis smoking capital of Europe
Mon 3 May 2021
How Amsterdam became the home of cannabis coffee shops.
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The killing of Osama Bin Laden
Fri 30 Apr 2021
The man behind the 9/11 attacks was killed by US special forces on 2 May 2011
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The battle of Tora Bora
Thu 29 Apr 2021
How US special forces lost bin Laden in the mountains of Afghanistan in December 2001
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The Nairobi US Embassy bombing
Wed 28 Apr 2021
A survivor's account of the al-Qaeda attacks in East Africa in 1998 which killed hundreds
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Meeting Osama bin Laden
Tue 27 Apr 2021
One man's story of his journey to talk to the Al-Qaeda leader in 1996
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The siege of Mecca
Mon 26 Apr 2021
In 1979 Islamist militants took over the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the holiest site in Islam
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The first space shuttle mission
Fri 23 Apr 2021
How the space shuttle Columbia revolutionised manned space exploration
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How the NRA became a US political lobbying giant
Thu 22 Apr 2021
How the National Rifle Association turned into a US political lobbying colossus.
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The Raymond Davis Incident
Wed 21 Apr 2021
How a shooting in the streets of Lahore brought US-Pakistani relations to the brink
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The return of Blue Lake
Tue 20 Apr 2021
How an ancient Native American sacred lake was finally returned to the Taos Pueblo people
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The Eichmann trial
Mon 19 Apr 2021
In April 1961 the Nazi official who ran holocaust death camps was put on trial in Israel
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China's 'Kingdom of women'
Fri 16 Apr 2021
An ancient matrilineal society which doesn't believe in marriage and where the women rule
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The vultures saved from extinction
Thu 15 Apr 2021
South Asian vultures started dying in huge numbers in the 1990s but no one knew why.
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Fighting for Castro at the Bay of Pigs
Wed 14 Apr 2021
Hear from a Cuban who fought against the US-backed exiles that invaded Cuba in April 1961
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How a worm helped explain human development
Tue 13 Apr 2021
The nematode worm c. elegans has enabled all sorts of discoveries about human biology
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The US Supreme Court's first woman justice
Mon 12 Apr 2021
In 1981 Sandra Day O'Connor became the first woman judge at America's top court
