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Witness History

Witness History is a short BBC World Service podcast about history that takes you inside big moments from the past through first-hand testimony and archive. Each weekday, in around nine minutes, we revisit one moment that helped shape the world and hear it through the voice of someone who was there. Scientists, artists, campaigners, soldiers, leaders and everyday people tell their true stories.

When you subscribe to Witness History, you’ll be taken inside turning points in world affairs, from West Africa’s fight back against Boko Haram in 2015, to the behind-closed-doors talks that led to the US-Cuba “thaw” and the surprise announcement of restored relations.

You’ll discover what it was like to experience disasters and how people recovered from them, including the Tabasco floods in Mexico, Portugal’s worst train disaster, and the huge clean-up after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

You’ll explore culture and ideas too: Sweden’s Expedition Robinson, often credited as the first modern reality TV game show; the friendship between The Beatles’ George Harrison and Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar; and the night a tiger attack brought Las Vegas superstars Siegfried and Roy’s show to a sudden end.

And if you’re curious about inventions, we’ll tell you how air fryers, BlackBerry, YouTube, Alexa, GPS, superglue, the shopping cart (shopping trolley) and bubble tea were created.

If you’re new to Witness History, the appeal is simple: real voices, one strong true story, and a fresh way to understand today through events from history – all in the time it takes to enjoy a cup of tea or a walk around the block. Join millions of BBC World Service podcast listeners around the globe and enjoy the insight, context and detail Witness History will bring you.

Copyright: © (C) BBC 2024

Latest Episodes:

David Attenborough's First Expedition Apr 07, 2021

Show notes

In 1954, the BBC broadcast a new TV programme in Britain.

It was called Zoo Quest and it launched the career of a man who has since brought the natural world into millions of homes around the world, the broadcaster Sir David Attenborough.

Louise Hidalgo has been listening back through the BBC archives to Sir David telling the story of the first natural history expedition for Zoo Quest, to Sierra Leone in West Africa.

Mexico's female serial killer Apr 06, 2021

Show notes

Former female wrestler Juana Barraza was found guilty in March 2008 of murdering at least eleven elderly women in Mexico city over a period of seven years. Barraza, who became known as the "little old lady killer", admitted to murdering three women, and told investigators that it was because of her lingering resentment for the abuse that she'd suffered as a child at the hands of her alcoholic mother. Mike Lanchin has been hearing from Mexican neuro-psychologist Dr Feggy Ostrosky, who spent days interviewing Barraza in jail, trying to understand what had turned her into a serial killer.

(Photo: Former female wrestler Juana Barraza. Credit: David Deolarte/AFP/Getty Images)

The women who reclaimed the night Apr 05, 2021

Show notes

How women in the North of England took to the streets in the late 1970s to protest against a serial killer dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper. Police advised them to stay indoors to avoid being attacked but the feminist protestors wanted greater protection for women and girls. Rebecca Kesby has been hearing from Al Garthwaite one of the organisers of Britain's first "Reclaim the Night" march.

Photo: women taking part in a Reclaim the Night march. Credit: BBC

Black Jesus Apr 02, 2021

Show notes

On Easter Sunday 1967 the Reverend Albert Cleage renamed his church in Detroit the Shrine of the Black Madonna. He preached that if man was made in God's image there was little chance that Jesus was white as most of the world's population is non-white. Reverend Cleage also pointed to the many depictions of black madonnas all over the world throughout history. Claire Bowes has been speaking to his daughter Pearl Cleage, a writer and activist, about her father's belief in black representation and self-determination.

Photo: Black Madonna and Child courtesy of BLAC Detroit. Archive: Thanks to the Chicago History Museum and WFMT for the Studs Terkel Radio Archive.

Kidnapped on an orchid hunt Apr 01, 2021

Show notes

In March 2000, two young English travellers, Tom Hart-Dyke and Paul Winder, were kidnapped by Colombian guerrillas while attempting to cross the notoriously dangerous Darien Gap region on the border with Panama. Hart-Dyke is a gardener who was on a mission to collect orchids, and he survived a nine-month ordeal by building a nursery in the cloud forest and planning his own dream garden for the family castle back home in Kent. He talks to Simon Watts.

PHOTO: Tom Hart-Dyke (l) with Paul Winder shortly after their release (Press Association)

Mrs Thatcher’s ground-breaking Soviet TV interview Mar 31, 2021

Show notes

How Mrs Thatcher shook up the Soviet media with a landmark interview in Moscow in 1987 focusing on nuclear disarmament. It was broadcast unedited and helped bring in the era of “glasnost.” Bob Howard talks to Boris Kalyagin, one of the three Soviet journalists who interviewed the British prime minister.

Margaret Thatcher, circa 1993. copyright Jeff Overs / BBC

When the prisoners ran the prison Mar 30, 2021

Show notes

In March 1973 guards went on strike at Walpole maximum security prison in the US state of Massachussetts, and the prisoners took over. For the next three months the inmates, organised in the National Prisoners Reform Association, ran daily life in the prison. They were helped by a group of outside observers, drawn from members of the community. Mike Lanchin has been hearing from the organiser of the observer teams, Rev. Ed Rodman, about his memories of this unique, but ultimately doomed, experiment in prison reform.

(Photo credit: The Boston Globe)

Anorexia nervosa Mar 29, 2021

Show notes

The American singer, Karen Carpenter, died in 1983 of anorexia nervosa. She was one half of a world famous brother and sister duo called The Carpenters. She was aged just 32. Up until then anorexia nervosa had often been referred to in the media as the "slimmer's disease". Skinny celebrities were seen as both beautiful and successful and anorexia was somewhat glamorised. Claire Bowes has been speaking to Dr Pat Santucci, a psychiatrist who helped set up the world's first national organisation dealing with eating disorders, the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Eating Disorders, known as ANAD. Dr Santucci says wherever western culture has an influence, you will find anorexia nervosa.

Photo: courtesy of Science Photo Library

South Africa takes on big pharma Mar 25, 2021

Show notes

At the end of the 1990s, tens of millions of people across Africa had been infected with HIV and in South Africa hundreds of thousands of people were dying from AIDS. People were demanding cheaper drugs, but the big pharmaceutical companies didn’t want to play ball. They took the South African to court over the right to import cheap drugs in a case which would last three years and which would pit the big pharmaceutical companies against Nelson Mandela and the rainbow nation. Bob Howard talks to Bada Pharasi, a former negotiator at South Africa’s department of health.

SANDTON, SOUTH AFRICA - JUNE 17: HIV/AIDS activists demonstrate in front of the American consulate on June 17, 2010. Credit: Photo by John Moore/Getty Images.

The woman who got America talking about sex Mar 24, 2021

Show notes

Dr Ruth Westheimer first became popular on a radio show in New York in the early 1980s. Her frank and open approach to giving advice on all sorts of different questions about sex soon made her a TV personality too.

Photo: Dr Ruth Westheimer. Credit: Getty Images

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