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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.

Updated: daily
Episodes available: indefinitely

Episodes to download

  •

    Rodney King and the LA riots

    Thu 11 Jun 2020

    People rioted in Los Angeles after police who had assaulted a black man were acquitted

  • Black basketball pioneers - Texas Western

    Wed 10 Jun 2020

    How an all-black college team overturned racist assumptions about basketball in the USA

  • The 16th Street church bombing

    Tue 9 Jun 2020

    Four young black girls were killed in a racist attack on a church in Alabama in 1963

  • Brown v the Board of Education

    Mon 8 Jun 2020

    A landmark case about racial segregation in the USA.

  • The portable defibrillator

    Fri 5 Jun 2020

    How Northern Irish doctor Frank Pantridge revolutionised heart-attack treatment.

  • The origin of the WHO

    Thu 4 Jun 2020

    How the cold war helped shape the creation of the WHO and what role China played.

  • How Christo wrapped the Reichstag

    Wed 3 Jun 2020

    The artist who delighted post-Cold War Berlin by wrapping its greatest monument

  • The Zanzibar Revolution

    Tue 2 Jun 2020

    Just one month after gaining independence there was an uprising in Zanzibar in 1964.

  • The start of eco-tourism

    Mon 1 Jun 2020

    How Costa Rica's Monteverde cloud forest reserve became a major tourist site

  • Ann Lowe - African American fashion designer

    Fri 29 May 2020

    Ann Lowe designed Jackie Kennedy's wedding dress but for years few people knew her name

  • Winston Churchill's doctor

    Thu 28 May 2020

    Winston Churchill's personal doctor published his memories of the British leader in 1966

  • The Gwangju massacre

    Wed 27 May 2020

    The South Korean army crushed a popular uprising in the city of Gwangju on 27 May 1980

  • The book that changed the way we eat

    Mon 25 May 2020

    The book that highlighted the health and environmental benefits of a plant based diet

  • Britain's World War Two crime wave

    Fri 22 May 2020

    How criminals from looters to con artists thrived in London during the Blitz.

  • Explaining autism

    Thu 21 May 2020

    One scientist's ground-breaking work that revolutionised our understanding of autism

  • The first 3D printer

    Wed 20 May 2020

    The creator of the 3D printer had no idea how revolutionary this technology might become.

  • Kowloon Walled City

    Tue 19 May 2020

    How Hong Kong鈥檚 city within a city was torn down in 1993.

  • The Miami riots

    Mon 18 May 2020

    After four white policemen were acquitted of killing a black man - Miami rioted in 1980

  • Sweden's fishy submarine scare

    Fri 15 May 2020

    Could farting fish have triggered Sweden's Cold War submarine hunts?

  • Confessions of a Prince

    Thu 14 May 2020

    How Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands broke his silence to reveal a love child

  • Fighting for the pill in Japan

    Wed 13 May 2020

    It took until 1999 for Japanese women to be allowed to take the contraceptive pill.

  • The first 24-hour children's helpline

    Tue 12 May 2020

    When a free helpline for kids was set up it showed just how widespread child abuse was

  • The liberation of the Channel Islands

    Mon 11 May 2020

    The only part of the British Isles to be occupied during WW2 was liberated in May 1945

  • VE Day

    Fri 8 May 2020

    VE Day saw Londoners celebrate the end of the Second World War in Europe.

  • The Soviet occupation of Berlin

    Thu 7 May 2020

    After Germany's surrender to Allied forces in May 1945, Soviet soldiers occupied Berlin

  • The battle for Berlin

    Wed 6 May 2020

    Eyewitness accounts of the final battle for the capital of Nazi Germany in 1945

  • The death of Hitler

    Tue 5 May 2020

    First-hand accounts of Hitler's death from the 蜜芽传媒's archives

  • The Wehrmacht exhibition that shocked Germany

    Mon 4 May 2020

    An exhibition about the German army鈥檚 role in WW2 caused a scandal in 1995.

  • Hiroshima's trees of hope

    Fri 1 May 2020

    Trees which survived the atomic bomb in Hiroshima are still growing in the Japanese city

  • The Galapagos sea cucumber dispute

    Thu 30 Apr 2020

    How fishermen and conservationists battled in the species-rich waters of the archipelago

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