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 assassination of the UN's first Middle East mediator
Wed 29 Apr 2020
The first Middle East mediator, Count Bernadotte, was assassinated in Jerusalem in 1948
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The 1957 flu that killed a million people
Tue 28 Apr 2020
In 1957 a new strain of flu emerged in East Asia and quickly spread around the world
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Waria warriors - the fight for trans rights in Indonesia
Mon 27 Apr 2020
The transgender Indonesians who fought for their rights in the 1970s and 1980s
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Tennessee Williams on the 蜜芽传媒
Fri 24 Apr 2020
The great American playwright revealed a lot about himself in 蜜芽传媒 interviews
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The Brompton Manley Ventilator
Thu 23 Apr 2020
The development of a ventilation system that was a precursor to modern ventilators.
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Edhi: Pakistan's 'Angel of Mercy'
Wed 22 Apr 2020
Abdul Sattar Edhi built one of the biggest welfare charities in the world
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The last survivor of the transatlantic slave trade
Tue 21 Apr 2020
A woman who died in the US in 1940 was captured and enslaved in West Africa as a child
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The Deepwater Horizon disaster
Mon 20 Apr 2020
A deadly explosion on a drilling rig led to an environmental disaster in the US
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A space crash
Fri 17 Apr 2020
Michael Foale was on board the Mir space station when a resupply vessel crashed into it.
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When Skylab fell to Earth
Thu 16 Apr 2020
The space station which was meant to break up and fall into the sea but instead hit land
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The last men on the Moon
Wed 15 Apr 2020
In 1972 the American space agency NASA carried out its final Moon mission
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Nasa's female aquanauts
Tue 14 Apr 2020
The women who led the way in America's space programme by spending two weeks underwater
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The unlikely pioneers of online shopping
Fri 10 Apr 2020
How a 72-year-old grandmother started online shopping before the internet
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The Trojan Room coffee pot
Tue 7 Apr 2020
The world's first webcam went online in 1993. Its camera was focused on a coffee pot.
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The 蜜芽传媒brew computer club
Mon 6 Apr 2020
A group of Californian computer enthusiasts first began meeting to share ideas in 1975.
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Being a Chinese Muslim
Fri 3 Apr 2020
It has never been easy to practice a religious faith in communist China
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The Swedish warship restored after 300 years
Thu 2 Apr 2020
A Swedish warship, Vasa, sank in the 17th century but was raised from the seabed in 1961
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Avenging the Amritsar Massacre
Wed 1 Apr 2020
A former British governor of Punjab was shot in 1940 as revenge for killings in Amritsar
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The trembling giant
Tue 31 Mar 2020
Could the biggest living organism on earth be a colony of quaking aspen trees?
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Britain's first woman judge
Mon 30 Mar 2020
Rose Heilbron was a trailblazer for women in the legal profession in Britain.
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The AIDS Memorial Quilt
Fri 27 Mar 2020
In 1985 activists made a giant quilt to commemorate those killed by AIDS in the USA.
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The Cheonan sinking
Thu 26 Mar 2020
On March 26th 2010 a South Korean naval ship sank after an explosion - 48 sailors died
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The Saudi bombardment of Yemen
Wed 25 Mar 2020
In March 2015 Saudi Arabia and its allies began an intense aerial bombardment of Yemen
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Sequencing the 1918 influenza virus
Tue 24 Mar 2020
Over 50 million people are thought to have died from influenza around the world in 1918
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The Chinese cure for malaria
Fri 20 Mar 2020
How scientists in the 1970s discovered an anti-malarial drug using a traditional remedy.
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The launch of the Hubble Space Telescope
Thu 19 Mar 2020
How NASA put an orbiting observatory into space in 1990.
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Red Hollywood
Wed 18 Mar 2020
Former actress Marsha Hunt remembers the anti-Communist witch-hunt of the late 1940s.
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The fight to make sexual harassment a crime
Tue 17 Mar 2020
The story of a landmark ruling for women's rights in the United States.
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The 'I Love You' computer virus
Mon 16 Mar 2020
How a virus created by a Filipino college dropout sparked global panic in May 2000
