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
-
![]()
Fighting the Islamic State group online
Wed 25 Sep 2019
How one historian living in Mosul took aim at the Islamic State group on the internet.
-
![]()
Being black in Nazi Germany
Tue 24 Sep 2019
Theodor Wonja Michael was a child when Hitler came to power in Germany.
-
![]()
The Sound of Music on Broadway
Mon 23 Sep 2019
The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical was performed on stage before it became a movie.
-
![]()
Sir Anthony Blunt - Soviet spy
Fri 20 Sep 2019
The distinguished art historian was exposed as a former Soviet spy in the autumn of 1979.
-
![]()
CS Lewis and the Chronicles of Narnia
Thu 19 Sep 2019
The first book in CS Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia series was published in autumn 1950
-
![]()
Free breakfast with the Black Panthers
Wed 18 Sep 2019
The revolutionary Black Panther Party provided free breakfasts for local schoolchildren.
-
![]()
The repeal of 'Don't ask, don't tell'
Tue 17 Sep 2019
Until 2011 LGBT service people in the US armed forces had to keep their sexuality secret
-
![]()
An Ethiopian war hero
Mon 16 Sep 2019
Ethiopia sent soldiers to fight alongside the United Nations during the Korean War
-
![]()
Magellan and the first voyage around the world
Fri 13 Sep 2019
In 1519, the Portuguese explorer set off on the first circumnavigation of the globe.
-
![]()
Conflict timber in Liberia's civil war
Thu 12 Sep 2019
How the timber industry fuelled a brutal civil war in West Africa.
-
![]()
India's affirmative action controversy
Wed 11 Sep 2019
Why guaranteeing government jobs to lower caste Hindus led to weeks of student protests.
-
![]()
The TV series Friends
Tue 10 Sep 2019
One of the most successful TV comedy shows of all time hit US screens in September 1994
-
![]()
The coup, the president and the embassy
Mon 9 Sep 2019
How the deposed Honduran president spent months holed up in the Brazilian embassy
-
![]()
The businessman who defied the Italian Mafia
Fri 6 Sep 2019
In 1991 Libero Grassi was killed in Sicily for publicly refusing to pay protection money.
-
![]()
The Holocaust denial trial
Thu 5 Sep 2019
The libel case that put history itself in the dock in 2000
-
![]()
Inside lunar astronaut quarantine
Wed 4 Sep 2019
Apollo 11's doctor tells how NASA tried to protect Earth from possible lunar alien life
-
![]()
The first all-women peacekeeping unit
Tue 3 Sep 2019
The UN deployed its first all-female peacekeepers in Liberia in 2007.
-
![]()
The outbreak of World War Two
Mon 2 Sep 2019
On September 1st 1939 German troops invaded Poland. Cameraman Douglas Slocombe was there.
-
![]()
The paedophile identified by his hands
Fri 30 Aug 2019
The first conviction of a paedophile using hand analysis.
-
![]()
Nina Simone moves to Liberia
Thu 29 Aug 2019
The great African-American jazz singer moved to West Africa in 1974.
-
![]()
The Kindertransport children who fled the Nazis
Wed 28 Aug 2019
How thousands of unaccompanied children were sent to safety by their desperate parents
-
![]()
Mexico's murdered women
Tue 27 Aug 2019
How young women began disappearing in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez in 1993
-
![]()
The murder of black teenager Emmett Till
Mon 26 Aug 2019
In 1955, Emmett Till, a black teenager from Chicago, was brutally murdered in Mississippi
-
![]()
The death of Brazil's Getulio Vargas
Fri 23 Aug 2019
How the influential Brazilian leader took his own life rather than submit to the military
-
![]()
The return of the wolf
Thu 22 Aug 2019
Wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone decades after they were wiped out in the US.
-
![]()
I helped liberate Paris from the Nazis
Wed 21 Aug 2019
A former member of the French resistance remembers the drama of August 1944
-
![]()
Finding El Salvador's missing children
Tue 20 Aug 2019
The search for hundreds of children kidnapped by the Salvadoran army during the civil war
-
![]()
The first human Cyborg
Mon 19 Aug 2019
In 1998 a transponder was implanted into the body of British scientist, Kevin Warwick.
-
![]()
Dr Seuss: the man who taught America to read
Fri 16 Aug 2019
The Dr Seuss books revolutionised reading in America in the 1950s.
-
![]()
Catching 'Carlos the Jackal'
Thu 15 Aug 2019
How the CIA tracked down one of the world's most wanted men
