Witness History
BBC World Service
Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by and curious about 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 how the Excel spreadsheet was developed, the creation of cartoon rabbit Miffy and how the sound barrier was broken.We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: the moment Reagan and Gorbachev met in Geneva, Haitian singer Emerante de Pradines’ life and Omar Sharif’s legendary movie entrance in Lawrence of Arabia.You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, like the invention of a stent which has saved lives around the world; the birth of the G7; and the meeting of Maldives’ ministers underwater. We cover everything from World War Two and Cold War stories to Black History Month and our journeys into space.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Aug 4, 2020 • 9min
The internment of Japanese Americans
Thousands of Japanese Americans were sent to prison camps after the USA entered World War Two following the bombing of Pearl Harbour. Whole families found themselves housed in barracks behind barbed wire fences. Former Star Trek actor, George Takei, was just a child when he was locked up in one of the camps. In 2010 he spoke to Lucy Williamson about his experiences there.This programme is a rebroadcast.Photo: Japanese American children on their way to internment camps. Credit: Dorothea Lange/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.
Aug 3, 2020 • 9min
The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
On 7 December 1941, Japan launched a surprise strike on the American naval base, Pearl Harbor, in Hawaii. Thousands of American servicemen were killed or injured in the attack, which severely damaged the US Pacific Fleet. The next day, President Franklin Roosevelt declared war on Japan and America entered World War II. Adolph Kuhn was a US Navy mechanic stationed at Pearl Harbor when the bombs began to fall.Photo: The USS Arizona sinking at Pearl Harbor. (Credit: Getty Images)
Jul 31, 2020 • 10min
The death of Heinrich Himmler
One of Hitler's most important henchmen was caught by British troops in the chaos of post-war Germany just after WW2 had ended in Europe. A British soldier described to the BBC how the leading Nazi bit down on a cyanide capsule and died. Gordon Corera has been listening to the archive account of Himmler's death, and finding out more about the situation in Germany immediately after its surrender to the Allies.Photo: Heinrich Himmler in 1939. Credit: Central Press/Getty Images
Jul 30, 2020 • 9min
Benidorm and the birth of package tourism
The Spanish town of Benidorm is now one of the world's most popular holiday resorts - receiving more than 10 million visitors a year. The hotels and skyscrapers are the vision of Benidorm's mayor in the 1950s and 60s, Pedro Zaragoza. Zaragoza personally convinced Spain's dictator, General Franco, to allow more tourism - and to allow sunbathers to wear the bikini. Simon Watts introduces the memories of Pedro Zaragoza, as recorded by Radio Elche Cadena Ser shortly before his death.PHOTO: A busy day in Benidorm (Reuters)
Jul 29, 2020 • 14min
Adrift for 76 days
A remarkable story of survival. In 1982, Steven Callahan was sailing alone across the Atlantic when one night his yacht hit something in the water and began to sink. He managed to get into a life raft but no one knew he was in trouble. For the next two months he drifted 2000 miles across the ocean. How did he survive? He told his story to Alex Last.
Photo: Steve Callahan shows how he hunted fish from his life raft. © Steve Callahan
Jul 28, 2020 • 9min
Australia's 'Black Saturday' bushfires
The forest fires of 2019-2020 in Australia were the worst the country had ever experienced - but ten years earlier Australia had a foretaste of that disaster when 400 separate bushfires burnt their way across the state of Victoria. At the time they were the worst fires Australia had ever seen. Rachael Gillman has been speaking to one of the firefighters who battled to bring the fires under control.Photo Credit: Getty Images
Jul 27, 2020 • 10min
The writer who put Latinos centre stage
The Cuban-American Dolores Prida wrote with a distinctive voice in her plays, newspaper columns and as an agony aunt in the Latina magazine. She challenged perceptions of how Latin Americans should be viewed in the US. When she died in 2013, President Obama paid tribute to her "conviction, compassion and humour." Mike Lanchin speaks to Prida's close friend, the former editor at New York's Daily News, Maite Junco.Photo: Dolores Prida (left) with Maite Junco, Jan 2013 (courtesy of Maite Junco)
Jul 24, 2020 • 9min
The fastest vaccine ever developed
In the 1960s five-year-old Jeryl Lynn Hilleman got ill with mumps. Her father Dr Maurice Hilleman took a swab from the back of her throat and used it to help create a vaccine for the disease - more quickly than any previous vaccine had ever been completed. During his decades long career Dr Hilleman worked on vaccines for measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, hepatitis and meningitis.Photo: Jeryl Lynn Hilleman with her sister, Kirsten, in 1966 as a doctor gave her the mumps vaccine developed by their father Maurice Hilleman. Courtesy of Merck.
Jul 23, 2020 • 14min
The first safe house for Afghan women
In 2003 the first refuge for women fleeing violence and abuse was opened in Kabul, Afghanistan, a country that has been labelled one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman. The UN estimates that over 50% of women in Afghanistan face domestic abuse from their partner in their lifetime. Farhana Haider has been speaking to Mary Akrami who risked her life to help set up and run Afghanistan's first women's safe house.
Photo Mary Akrami Credit Getty
Jul 22, 2020 • 10min
The struggle to save Borneo's rainforests
The rainforests of Sarawak in Malaysia on the island of Borneo are some of the richest and most biodiverse ecosystems on earth - but for decades they've been under threat from commercial logging, permitted by the Malaysian government. In the 1980s, local people from the Penan and Kelabit ethnic groups began to fight back against the logging, setting up blockades and appealing to international environmental groups for support. Their campaign would make headlines around the world.Lucy Burns speaks to activist Mutang Urud, who helped organise the blockades and later went on a world tour to attract attention to their cause.PICTURE: Tribespeople with spears block the road as plantation company vehicles approach a blockade in Long Nen in Malaysia's Sarawak State in August 2009. (AFP photo/Saeed Khan via Getty Images)
