New Zealand’s first dinosaur and India’s plague outbreak

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History episodes.

We start our programme looking at the discovery of New Zealand’s first dinosaur by Joan Wiffen.

Our expert guest is Professor Eugenia Gold, a paleontologist at Suffolk University, in Boston, United States, and the author of children’s book She Found Fossils.

Then, we hear how the CT scanner was invented.

Following that, we go to India in 1994 and an outbreak of the pneumonic plague.

Plus, the story of how a small group of mountaineers risked their lives to camouflage landmarks in Leningrad during World War Two.

Finally, we hear from designer Ruth Kedar about how she came to create one of the most famous logos in history.

Contributors:

Chris Wiffen – son of late fossil-hunter Joan Wiffen.

Professor Eugenia Gold – paleontologist at Suffolk University, Boston, United States.

Robert Cormack – son of late CT scanner inventor, Allan Cormack.

Doctor Vibha Marfatia – who escaped the pneumonic plague.

Mikhail Bobrov – late mountaineer who helped save Leningrad’s landmarks.

Ruth Kedar - designer of the Google logo.

(Photo: Theropod dinosaur. Credit: Science Photo Library)