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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 businessman who defied the Italian Mafia Sep 06, 2019

Show notes

In 1991, Palermo businessman Libero Grassi published an open letter in Sicily’s main newspaper denouncing the Mafia for constantly demanding extortion payments. Grassi was hailed as a hero, but his public refusal to pay was intolerable to the Mafia and a few months later he was executed in person by one of Cosa Nostra’s top bosses. Libero Grassi’s defiance is credited with inspiring a new grass-roots movement among businesses in Sicily that stands up to the Mafia. Simon Watts talks to his daughter, Alice Grassi.

PHOTO TO COME

The Holocaust denial trial Sep 05, 2019

Show notes

The controversial historian, David Irving, tried to sue Penguin Books and professor Deborah Lipstadt for libel after she called him a Holocaust denier in one of her books. The case drew intense media interest. Deborah Lipstadt told Rebecca Kesby what it was like to have to defend her work and the memories of survivors of the Holocaust at the High Court in London in 2000. History was on trial.

(Photo: American academic Deborah Lipstadt (C) exults 11 April 2000 at the High Court in London after winning a libel case brought against her and Penguin publications by British revisionist historian David Irving. Credit: Martyn Hayhow/AFP/Getty Images)

Inside lunar astronaut quarantine Sep 04, 2019

Show notes

When the crew of Apollo 11 returned to earth after their historic mission to the Moon, they were immediately placed in quarantine for 3 weeks. It was done to protect the Earth from the dangers of possible lunar alien life. Dr William Carpentier was the flight surgeon for the Apollo 11 mission and was placed in quarantine with the crew to monitor their health and check for any signs of alien life. He talks to Alex Last about his memories of working with the Apollo programme and life in quarantine.

Photo: Apollo 11 astronauts (left to right): Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin peer from window of the Mobile Quarantine Facility aboard the U.S.S. Hornet after their July 24th recovery.

The first all-women peacekeeping unit Sep 03, 2019

Show notes

The UN deployed its first all-female contingent of peacekeepers in Liberia in West Africa. The country was still recovering from its long civil war when the Indian policewomen arrived in 2007. Jill McGivering has been hearing from Seema Dhundia of India's Central Reserve Police Force who led the unit.

Image: Seema Dhundia in front of her contingent of Indian policewomen on their arrival in Monrovia, Liberia, in January 2007. (Credit:Issouf Sanogo/AFP/Getty Images)

The outbreak of World War Two Sep 02, 2019

Show notes

On September 1st 1939 German forces invaded Poland. Douglas Slocombe, a British cameraman, was there at the time and filmed the build-up to the war. In 2014 he spoke to Vincent Dowd about what he saw in Gdansk and Warsaw, before escaping from the country.

This programme is a rebroadcast

(Image: German citizens in Gdansk (also known as Danzig) welcoming German troops during the invasion of Poland on September 3rd 1939 . Credit:EPA/National Digital Archive Poland.)

The paedophile identified by his hands Aug 30, 2019

Show notes

In 2009 a paedophile was convicted with the help of a new form of identification - hand analysis. Dame Sue Black of Lancaster University explains how her team developed this tool and how criminal courts in Britain first responded to the evidence. She says vein patterns as well as scars and skin creases suggest hands may eventually be found to be as identifiable as fingerprints.

Photo: Courtesy of Lancaster University

Nina Simone moves to Liberia Aug 29, 2019

Show notes

The great African-American jazz singer Nina Simone moved to the Liberian capital Monrovia in September 1974. Simone was famous for her vocal support for the civil rights movement in the USA as well as for songs like I'm Feeling Good, Mississippi Goddam and I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free, and she was invited to the West African republic by her friend the singer Miriam Makeba.

Lucy Burns speaks to Nina Simone's friend James C Dennis Sr.

Picture: Nina Simone performs on stage at Newport Jazz Festival on July 4th 1968 in Newport, Rhode Island (David Redfern/Redferns)

The Kindertransport children who fled the Nazis Aug 28, 2019

Show notes

In the months leading up to outbreak of World War Two in September 1939, some 10,000 unaccompanied children were sent by their parents out of Germany and Austria, to safety in the UK. Many of them never saw their families again. Dame Stephanie Shirley was just five years old when she and her older sister were put on a train by their mother in Vienna. She has been telling Mike Lanchin about arriving in a foreign land as a little girl.

Photo:Getty Images

Mexico's murdered women Aug 27, 2019

Show notes

In 1993 young women began disappearing in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez. Since then hundreds are reported to have been kidnapped and killed. Mike Lanchin has spoken to a forensic scientist who used to work in the city; and to the mother of one of the murdered girls. This programme was first broadcast in 2013.

Photo: Jorge Uzon. AFP/Getty Images

The murder of black teenager Emmett Till Aug 26, 2019

Show notes

Emmett Till, a black teenager from Chicago, was brutally murdered in Mississippi, in the USA.

His death was one of the key events that energized the American civil rights movement.

An all-white jury acquitted the two white suspects.

Farhana Haider has been listening through interviews with some of Emmett's family, to tell the story of the young boy who became an icon in the struggle against racism in America.

(Photo: Emmett Till lying on his bed in Chicago, in 1955. Credit: Getty Images)

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