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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

  •

    The Buenos Aires Herald

    Wed 16 Aug 2017

    The English-language newspaper was credited with standing up to Argentina's dictatorship.

  • Nike and the Sweatshop Problem

    Tue 15 Aug 2017

    In the 1990s Nike got a bad name after being linked to sweatshops in Asia.

  • Germany's Nudists

    Mon 14 Aug 2017

    How East Germans went naked on the beaches despite official communist party disapproval.

  • Reagan's Bombing Joke

    Fri 11 Aug 2017

    "We begin bombing in five minutes" said the US President in 1984. But he was only joking

  • Florence Nightingale

    Thu 10 Aug 2017

    The "lady with the lamp" died on August 13th 1910.

  • The Calcutta Killings of 1946

    Wed 9 Aug 2017

    Exactly a year before Indian independence there were deadly riots in the city of Calcutta

  • The Murder of Naji al-Ali

    Tue 8 Aug 2017

    The acclaimed Palestinian cartoonist was gunned down in London in 1987

  • Discovering The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

    Mon 7 Aug 2017

    Charles Moore recalls how he came across the world's largest floating rubbish dump.

  • The Camp David Summit

    Fri 4 Aug 2017

    In 2000 the US led a major effort to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

  • China's Crackdown on Falun Gong

    Thu 3 Aug 2017

    In July 1999, the Chinese government banned the spiritual movement Falun Gong

  • The Birth of the Water Baby

    Wed 2 Aug 2017

    In 1977 a state hospital near Paris began quietly changing the way women gave birth.

  • Surviving the "Auschwitz of the Balkans"

    Tue 1 Aug 2017

    Croatian fascists killed Serbs, Jews and Roma people in Jasenovac camp during WW2.

  • The Death of Evita

    Mon 31 Jul 2017

    Remembering Argentina's controversial First Lady Eva Peron, who died on July 26 1952.

  • Pioneer North Sea Divers

    Fri 28 Jul 2017

    In the 1970s, deep sea divers were at the sharp end of the North Sea oil boom

  • Chiang Kai Shek: The Man Who Lost China

    Thu 27 Jul 2017

    The Chinese civil war remembered by the Nationalist leader's former chief aide.

  • When homosexuality was a crime

    Wed 26 Jul 2017

    Hear one man's story of living in fear before 1967 when Britain legalised homosexuality

  • Khrushchev's Soviet Housing Programme

    Tue 25 Jul 2017

    In the 1960s, many Soviet families moved to a flat of their own for the first time.

  • The Welsh Language Act

    Mon 24 Jul 2017

    In July 1967 there was a breakthrough for the Welsh language.

  • US Psychological Warfare in Vietnam

    Fri 21 Jul 2017

    How American military PSYOP teams waged war in Vietnam in the 1960s

  • The Bonus Army

    Thu 20 Jul 2017

    In summer 1932, thousands of American First World War veterans marched on Washington

  • The Killing of Gianni Versace

    Wed 19 Jul 2017

    In July 1997 the Italian fashion designer was shot on the steps of his Florida mansion.

  • Nintendo's Family Computer

    Tue 18 Jul 2017

    The home gaming console was a breakthrough in the world of computer games.

  • The Mont Blanc Tunnel

    Mon 17 Jul 2017

    In July 1965 an 11-km tunnel dug deep beneath the Alps was opened to traffic

  • The Oka Crisis

    Fri 14 Jul 2017

    Indigenous Canadians spent the summer of 1990 in a stand off with police.

  • Castlemorton Common: Britain's Biggest Illegal Rave

    Thu 13 Jul 2017

    In the summer of 1992 thousands of ravers and New Age travellers gathered for a festival.

  • The Rudolf Nureyev Phenomenon

    Wed 12 Jul 2017

    In 1961, one of the world's best ballet dancers, Rudolf Nureyev, defected from the USSR.

  • The Imprisonment of Irina Ratushinskaya

    Tue 11 Jul 2017

    The dissident poet was sentenced to 7 years in a Soviet labour camp.

  • The birth of UKIP

    Mon 10 Jul 2017

    In 1993, academic Dr Alan Sked started an anti-EU political party

  • The First Tamil Suicide Bombing

    Fri 7 Jul 2017

    In July 1987 Tamil separatist rebels attacked a Sri Lankan army camp.

  • The Staffordshire Hoard

    Thu 6 Jul 2017

    In 2009, a metal detectorist found the largest ever hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold and silver

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