The History Hour

Latest Episodes:

Disability History special Nov 28, 2020

Show notes

We look back at the fight for disability rights in the UK and India in the 1990s, plus the remarkable life of Helen Keller as told by her great niece, how a Rwandan Paralympic volleyball team made history, and the invention of the iconic disability vehicle, the Invacar. And we speak to Colin Barnes, Emeritus Professor of Disability Studies at Leeds University, about the historic struggle for disabled rights and recognition.

Photo: A disabled woman on her mobility scooter is carried away by four policemen after obstructing the traffic outside the Houses of Parliament. Credit: PA Archive/PA Images

The world's first woman premier Nov 21, 2020

Show notes

Sirimavo Bandaranaike was elected prime minster of Sri Lanka, or Ceylon as it was known then, in 1960 following the assassination of her husband, Solomon Bandaranaike and became the first female prime minister in the world. We hear from Dr Asanga Welikala about her legacy. Plus the first Arab leader to visit Israel, the former hostage taken captive by Somali pirates in 2008 who came to sympathise with their plight and the Jewish refugees given sanctuary by America during WW2. Also the revolutionary and graphic book for women published in 1973 which helped us understand women's bodies and is now published in 33 different languages.

Photo: Sirimavo Bandaranaike the Prime Minister of Ceylon (later Sri Lanka), 1960. Credit Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

The Guerrilla Girls Nov 14, 2020

Show notes

In 1985 a group of anonymous female artists in New York began dressing up with gorilla masks on their heads and putting up fly-posters around the city's museums and galleries. We hear from two of the original Guerrilla Girls, who launched a campaign to demand greater representation for women and minorities in the art world. Also on the programme, the rarely heard voices of Africans who were forced to take sides in WW1; how Pluto lost its status as a planet, the invention of a revolutionary sign language, Makaton, in the 1970s, and changing 20th century theories of child rearing.

PHOTO: Some of the Guerrilla Girls in 1990 (Getty Images)

The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin Nov 07, 2020

Show notes

In 1995, the Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, was murdered at a peace rally in Tel Aviv. We hear how his death scuppered hopes of peace in the Middle East. Plus, the racism endured by children born to black American soldiers and German mothers after World War Two, the rebuilding of Dresden's most famous church, and nude theatre in London and New York.

PHOTO: Yitzhak Rabin in 1993 (Getty Images)

US presidential history special Oct 31, 2020

Show notes

Eyewitness accounts of moments in US presidential history: Inside JFK's election victory, remembering Shirley Chisholm - the first African American from a major party to make a presidential run, plus a senator's account of the Watergate hearings, the rise of the religious right and the story of President Bush's 9/11.

Photo: US President John F. Kennedy giving his first State of the Union address to Congress in January 1961. (Credit: NASA/SSPL/Getty Images)

Why Portugal decriminalised all drugs Oct 24, 2020

Show notes

In the grips of a drug crisis, why Portugal took a radical approach in 2001 and became the first country in the world to decriminalise all drugs. Also searching for those who disappeared during apartheid rule in South Africa, how mistakes with the initial production of the polio vaccine made thousands of children ill in 1995, plus the black women who helped propel NASA's space programme and Joan Littlewood a giant in 20th century British theatre.

(Image: Staffers interview a new patient in Lisbon, Portugal (Credit: Horacio Villalobos - Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)

CNN and the 24-hour news revolution Oct 17, 2020

Show notes

In June 1980, US media mogul Ted Turner launched the first TV station dedicated to 24 hour news, Cable News Network or CNN. We get a first-hand account of the early days of a channel that transformed news and politics. Plus, the end of Lebanon's civil war, the long fight for full voting rights for African-Americans and Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's plan to become a film mogul.

(PHOTO: Ted Turner attends official CNN Launch event at CNN Techwood Drive World Headquarters in Atlanta Georgia, June 01, 1980 (Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images)

British black history special Oct 10, 2020

Show notes

We present five eyewitness accounts of moments in British black history. Including the late Sam King remembering the voyage of the Empire Windrush, plus Britain's first black headteacher Yvonne Conolly, Dr William Lez Henry on confronting the Far Right in the battle of Lewisham, Reggae star David Hinds on fighting the nightclub colour bar in 1970s Birmingham and Trix Worrell on the creation of the pioneering and hugely popular TV comedy Desmond's. Max Pearson is joined by Colin Grant, the writer, broadcaster and author of Homecoming: Voices of the Windrush Generation.

Photo: Newly arrived Jamaican immigrants on board the 'Empire Windrush' at Tilbury, 22nd June 1948: (Douglas Miller/Keystone/Getty Images)

The Mafia and Italian politics Oct 03, 2020

Show notes

The trial which linked a senior Italian politician to the Mafia, the death of the charismatic Egyptian President - Gamal Abdel Nasser, a whale rescue which brought together cold war enemies, the German house which witnessed a century of change and the birth of Google.

Photo: Giulio Andreotti in 1983. Credit: Mondadori Portfolio/Getty Images

Blackwater killed my son Sep 26, 2020

Show notes

An Iraqi father remembers the day in September 2007 when US private security guards opened fire on civilians in central Baghdad killing 17 people, including his 9-year-old son. Plus, former president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf on negotiating the cancellation of Liberia's massive debt; the chaos of Florida's 'hanging chads' in the 2000 US elections; when Nelson Mandela visited Detroit; and the end of the Galileo space project.

Photo: An Iraqi looks at a burnt car on the site where Blackwater guards opened fire on civilians in Baghdad on 16 September 2007 (Credit ALI YUSSEF/AFP via Getty Images)

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