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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 first gay marriage in the USA Jun 14, 2019

Show notes

Long before same-sex marriage became legal in the USA in 2015, one gay couple in Minneapolis got married in 1971. Their names were Jack Baker and Mike McConnell. They'd been issued with a marriage licence and the man who held their wedding ceremony was Methodist pastor Roger Lynn. He spoke to Claire Bowes in 2013. This programme is a rebroadcast.

Photo: Jack Baker and Mike McConnell, photographed by R. Bertrand Heine. Courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society.

How America 'lost' China Jun 13, 2019

Show notes

After the end of WW2 the US feared its wartime ally, China, would become communist. In 1946 after the end of Japanese occupation China returned to a civil war which had been fought on and off for years. America saw China as a future ally in business and politics and sent General George Marshall to broker peace between the nationalists and the communists. But just as the communist leader of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin, was advising the Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong to enter into a truce, the British leader Winston Churchill gave his famous speech about an 'iron curtain' descending over Europe and the Cold War began to take hold. Daniel Kurtz Phelan tells Claire Bowes about this largely forgotten pivotal moment in world history.

Photo: General George C. Marshall in the War Department in Washington DC in 1943 (Getty Images)

Archive material: Courtesy of the George C Marshall Foundation

Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrap the Reichstag Jun 12, 2019

Show notes

In June 1995 artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude wrapped the Reichstag in Berlin in fabric.

The former German parliament building sat on the border between East and West Berlin. It had been gutted by fire in 1933 and extensively damaged during the Second World War.

The monumental public art project was seen by more than five million people and became a symbol for Berlin’s renewal after the fall of the Wall and the collapse of communism.

Christo talks about the motivation behind the project and explains how they made it happen.

Picture: view of west and south facades of Wrapped Reichstag, Berlin 1971-1995 by Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Photo by Wolfgang Volz, copyright Christo.

The first anti-psychotic drug Jun 11, 2019

Show notes

In the first half of the 20th century, most mentally ill patients were locked away in psychiatric hospitals and asylums. Those suffering from severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia, were often sedated or restrained. Shock therapies were standard treatments. Then in France in the 1950s, a new drug was discovered which dramatically reduced psychotic symptoms in many patients. It was called Chlorpromazine. Soon it was being used around the world. Alex Last has been speaking to the psychiatrist Dr Thomas Ban, emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at Vanderbilt University, who witnessed the introduction of Chlorpromazine first-hand in the 1950s.

Photo:Nurses prepare a patient for electric shock treatment in a psychiatric hospital. (Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Getty Images)

The end of the war in Kosovo Jun 10, 2019

Show notes

Hundreds of thousands of Kosovan Albanians were forced to leave their homes when NATO started bombing Serb targets in the former Yugoslavia in 1999. By the time the bombing stopped, on June 10th 1999, over 800,000 people had been displaced. Qerim Nuridhini is a Kosovan Albanian refugee who fled first to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and then to the UK. He's been speaking to Rachel Wright.

A refugee from Kosovo confronting a Macedonian Policeman at Blace, Macedonia, April 5th 1999.(Photo By Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

The Gurkha soldiers fight for equality Jun 07, 2019

Show notes

For over 200 years soldiers from Nepal have fought in a special regiment in the British army called the Gurkhas. In 2009 all retired Gurkhas won the right to live in Britain, following a high profile media campaign. The announcement by the British government reversed previous guidelines that prevented all but a small number of Gurkha veterans being granted the right to settle in the UK. Farhana Haider has been speaking to retired Major Tikendra Dal Dewan who was instrumental in the Gurkhas campaign for equality.

(Photo: Tikendra Dewan, chairman of the British Gurkha Welfare Society addresses hundreds of Gurkha soldiers outside the immigration office in Liverpool 01/09 2004. Credit PA)

Broadcasting D-Day Jun 06, 2019

Show notes

Hear how the BBC reported the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France on June 6th 1944. The operation was a crucial step in the liberation of western Europe. Using original BBC reports from the time - from Chester Wilmot, Richard Dimbleby, Robin Duff, Ward Smith and Alan Melville - we tell the story of D-Day. Photo: D-Day Landings: US troops in an LCVP landing craft approach Omaha Beach in Colleville Sur-Mer, France, on June 6th 1944 (US National Archives)

The Little Prince Jun 05, 2019

Show notes

In July 1944, a plane piloted by the author of the world famous children's story The Little Prince, disappeared over the south of France. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, an experienced aviator, was on a reconnaissance mission for the Free French airforce fighting Nazi Germany. No one knew how or where his plane had come down. French diver Luc Vanrell has been telling Mike Lanchin about finding the wreckage of the missing aircraft off the coast of Marseille almost sixty years later.

Photo: The Folio Society

D-Day Jun 04, 2019

Show notes

Eyewitness accounts of the Allied landings on the coast of Normandy during World War Two on 6 June 1944. The massive operation was a crucial step in the liberation of western Europe from years of Nazi rule and the defeat of Hitler's Germany. In this episode, we present the accounts of veterans held in the BBC archive.

Photo: The photo titled "The Jaws of Death" shows a landing craft disembarking US troops on Omaha beach, 6th June 1944 ( Robert Sargent / US COAST GUARD)

Vikings in York Jun 03, 2019

Show notes

When archaeologists uncovered perfectly preserved evidence of domestic life in Viking York in the 1970s, it changed the way the Vikings were viewed. No longer just violent pirates who terrorised communities all over Europe, they were revealed to be merchants and craftsmen who mostly led peaceful lives. Dr Peter Addyman and Professor Julian Richards worked on the dig in the 1970s and told Rebecca Kesby the significance of what they found.

(PHOTO: The Sea Stallion Timewatch - Viking Voyage follows the world's largest reconstructed Viking ship on its 1,000 mile journey from Denmark to Dublin. BBC)

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