The History Hour

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Italy's Secret "State-within-a-State" Jun 24, 2017

Show notes

Murder and conspiracy among Italy's elite, an Italian atrocity in 1930s Ethiopia, Christians in the Korean War, Japan hosts the first Body Worlds, and Asian Americans struggle against racism and violence in the 1980s. Photo: Robert Calvi, head of Banco Ambrosiano, who was convicted of fraud but released on appeal shortly before his murder (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

The Woman Who Stopped Equal Rights in America Jun 17, 2017

Show notes

Phlyllis Schalfly, the woman who defeated a law to guarantee gender equality in the US; plus, the first performance of the Beatles hit "All You Need Is Love", a forgotten WW2 disaster, Berber rights in Algeria, and the volcanic eruption on the island of Montserrat.

PHOTO: American political activist Phyllis Schlafly smiles from behind a pair of podium mounted microphones, 1982. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The Six Day War 1967 Jun 10, 2017

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Soldiers from both sides on the battle for Jerusalem; plus Robert Kennedy's assassination, the child who fought slavery in Pakistan, and the cousin of Anne Frank Photo:Israeli forces advancing in the Sinai desert during the Six-Day War, June 1967. (Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Operation Lifeline: Canada's Refugee Revolution Jun 03, 2017

Show notes

How private citizens in Canada sponsored Vietnamese boat-people. Plus the first ever charity rock concert for Chernobyl, the actor who stared in a Hitchcock murder movie, America's first ever female rabbi and Mr Sanitation brings clean toilets in India. Photo: A Vietnamese boat crowded with refugees runs aground on the Malaysian coast. 1979 (BBC)

Brown v The Board of Education May 20, 2017

Show notes

The 1954 US Supreme Court ruling that led to the end of racial segregation in US schools, the Iranian woman protestor whose death on film shocked the world; the start of the worldwide dieting franchise, Weight Watchers and who was Alexander Hamilton?

(Photo African American student Linda Brown, Cheryl Brown Henderson's eldest sister (front, C) sitting in her segregated classroom.Credit: GettyArchive)

The Trial of Maurice Papon May 13, 2017

Show notes

The French minister tried for colluding with the Nazis, the USSR's version of James Bond, the beginning of China's economic boom, plus the first time Americans were told they were too fat - but that their wine was better than France's.

PHOTO: Maurice Papon in October 1997, shortly after his trial for war crimes opened. (Credit: Francois Guillot/AFP/Getty Images)

The Invention of Liposuction May 06, 2017

Show notes

In the 1970s, Italian cosmetic surgeons Arpad and Giorgio Fischer developed the modern technique of liposuction, which involves sucking out fat from under the skin. The global cosmetic surgery industry is now booming and liposuction is one of the most popular procedures. Also in the programme, the little-known civil war in Tajikistan after the breakup of the Soviet Union, how French troops mutinied toward the end of World War One and the start of the legendary Magnum photo agency.

Photo: A doctor performs a liposuction at a hospital in Shanghai, China (Credit: AFP /LIU Jin)

Searching For Argentina's Disappeared Apr 29, 2017

Show notes

In April 1977 a group of women in Argentina held the first ever public demonstration to demand the release of thousands of opponents of the military regime. It was the start of a long campaign by the women, who became known as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Also on the programme: the controversy surrounding Syria's presence in Lebanon, plus the pioneer of psychotherapy RD Laing, Bulgaria's attempts to crush Turkish language and culture, and we hear the shocking testimony of a survivor of Bosnia's notorious rape camps.

(Photo: Mirta Baravalle of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, with a black-and-white photograph of her daughter, Ana Maria)

Charlie Chaplin Returns to America from Exile Apr 22, 2017

Show notes

Charlie Chaplin's son on his father's political views and his rocky relationship with his one-time adopted home, America. Plus the Hubble telescope produces the first clear pictures of the furthest galaxies; shaking off colonialism with the world's first festival for black artists; Japan launches a new way of learning the violin and tragedy in Latin America when American missionaries flying over Peru were mistaken for drug-runners.

(Photo: Charlie Chaplin as the Tramp in the 1925 film, The Gold Rush. Credit: Getty Images)

The Takeover of Russia's NTV Apr 15, 2017

Show notes

NTV was Russia's only nationwide independent TV station until it was taken over in April 2001. We hear from the head of the station at the time. Plus, Ethiopia's Red Terror; the Katyn massacre during WW2; a breakthrough for disability rights in the US with the 504 sit-in; and Sikh bus drivers in the UK win the right to wear turbans to work.

Photo: Life size puppets of Russian political leaders including President Putin, on the set of NTV's popular satirical television show "Puppets"; June 29, 2000. Credit: Oleg Nikishin/Newsmakers/Getty

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