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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:

The ‘Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes’ anti-racist exercise Jun 19, 2020

Show notes

When Dr Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1968, US school teacher, Jane Elliott, decided to try to teach her all-white class about racism. She decided to segregate them according to the colour of their eyes, and treated them differently. Although controversial from the start, the “blue eyes/brown eyes” teaching exercise has been adapted in schools and workplaces for diversity training ever since. Jane Elliott has been explaining to Rebecca Kesby why she still thinks the model has value today in defeating racial prejudice.

The friendship train Jun 18, 2020

Show notes

The passenger train service between India and Bangladesh was resumed after more than 40 years. The train service had been suspended after the 1965 war between India and Pakistan of which Bangladesh was then a part. Partitioned in 1947, Bengal was divided in half between Hindu majority India and Muslim majority East Pakistan. Families were torn apart. East Pakistan later become Bangladesh after gaining independence in 1971. The Maitree or Friendship Express was the first passenger train service to connect the two Bengals in 43 years. Farhana Haider has been speaking to Dr Azad Chowdhury who was on board the inaugural train journey.

Photo: Calcutta-Dhaka Maitree (Friendship) Express in Calcutta station, India, 14 April 2008, before its inaugural run to Bangladesh. Credit: EPA/PIYAL ADHIKARY

Sex trafficking and peacekeepers Jun 17, 2020

Show notes

In the late 1990s, whistle-blowers implicated UN peacekeepers and international police in the forced prostitution and trafficking of Eastern European women into Bosnia, which was just emerging from a bitter civil war. Louise Hidalgo has been talking to one of those who sounded the alarm, British human rights lawyer, Madeleine Rees, who was then working for the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Bosnia.

Picture: the United Nations Peacekeeping Force patrols the Bosnian capital Sarajevo in March 1996 (Credit: Roger Lemoyne/Liaison/Getty Images)

Beethoven's role in China's Cultural Revolution Jun 16, 2020

Show notes

During the early years of Cultural Revolution in China, all European music was banned. Even enjoying traditional Chinese music and art was illegal. Anyone found with old instruments or recordings could be imprisoned. But that didn’t stop some musicians and enthusiasts from playing or listening to the music they loved, sometimes as an act of rebellion. A favourite during those times in China was the German composer – Ludwig Van Beethoven. Conductor, Jindong Cai tells Rebecca Kesby how he decided to become a musician after listening to an illegal recording of one of his symphonies.

(Portrait of German composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) by German painter Joseph Karl Stieler, 1820. (Photo by Kean Collection/Getty Images)

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and the Five Stages of Grief Jun 15, 2020

Show notes

Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. When Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross published her bestselling book On Death and Dying in 1969, she described a series of emotional stages that she had seen terminally ill patients experience – later known as the Five Stages of Grief. But there was much more to her work in end of life care. Her son Ken speaks to Lucy Burns.

Photo: Dr. Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, Virginia Farm, 1987. Photo courtesy of Ken Ross www.ekrfoundation.org

Three Strikes Law Jun 12, 2020

Show notes

One man's experience of the controversial US law that saw thousands locked up for life. Under the law in California, a third conviction for a felony offence would lead to a life sentence. At times in California, 45% of "three strikers" were African American. Many were sentenced to life in prison for non-violent or minor offences. Alex Last hears the story of Bilal Chatman, and his hopes for reform.

Photo credit: Getty Images

Rodney King and the LA riots Jun 11, 2020

Show notes

People took to the streets of Los Angeles in fury after police, who had assaulted a black driver called Rodney King, were acquitted in 1992. His assault had been captured on video and played repeatedly on US television. In 2012 Nina Robinson spoke to Rodney King about the beating, the trial of the police, and the anger and mayhem that followed their acquittal.

Photo: Rodney King in 2012. Credit: REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

Black basketball pioneers - Texas Western Jun 10, 2020

Show notes

In 1966, an all-black team went head-to-head with an all-white team for the National College Basketball championship - one of the biggest prizes in American sport. To much surprise, the African-Americans of Texas Western College defeated the University of Kentucky, then the number one team in the country. The game is now regarded as breaking the colour barrier in US basketball. In 2016 Nija Dalal-Small spoke to Nevil Shed, one of that groundbreaking Texas Western team. The programme is a Sparklab Production for BBC World Service.

PHOTO: Texas Western celebrate their victory in 1966 (Getty Images)

The 16th Street church bombing Jun 09, 2020

Show notes

Four young black girls were killed in a racist attack on a church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. The 16th Street Baptist Church was a centre for civil rights activists in the city. One of the girls who died was Addie Mae Collins, her sister, Sarah Collins Rudolph was badly injured but survived. In 2013 she spoke to Eddie Botsio about the bombing.

Photo: men carrying the coffin of Addie Mae Collins at her funeral. Copyright: BBC

Brown v the Board of Education Jun 08, 2020

Show notes

In 1954 the US Supreme Court ruled that the segregation of public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional. The case was a turning point in the long battle for civil rights in America. In 2017 Farhana Haider spoke to Cheryl Brown Henderson, the youngest daughter of Oliver Brown, who was the named plaintiff in the class action against the local board of education.

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

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