Witness History
BBC World Service
Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there.
For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.
Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue.
We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina’s Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall’ speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler’s List; and Jacques Derrida, France’s ‘rock star’ philosopher.
You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest, the disastrous D-Day rehearsal, and the death of one of the world’s oldest languages.
For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.
Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue.
We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina’s Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall’ speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler’s List; and Jacques Derrida, France’s ‘rock star’ philosopher.
You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest, the disastrous D-Day rehearsal, and the death of one of the world’s oldest languages.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Feb 12, 2021 • 10min
How US 'smart bombs' hit an Iraqi air raid shelter in the first Gulf War
More than 400 civilians were killed when two US precision bombs hit the Amiriya air raid shelter in western Baghdad on the morning of 13 February 1991. The Americans claimed that the building had served as a command and control centre for Saddam Hussein's forces. It was the largest single case of civilian casualities that ocurred during Operation Desert Storm, the US-led campaign to force Iraq to withdraw from neighbouring Kuwait. Mike Lanchin has been hearing from one Iraqi woman whose four children were inside the air raid shelter the day it was bombed. Photo: Inside the Amiriya air-raid shelter following the US bombing (Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images)
Feb 11, 2021 • 9min
A Ghanaian nurse's story
Nurses from outside the UK form a vital part of the country's National Health Service. Many come from African countries. Cecilia Anim - who left Ghana for England in 1972 - became the first black woman to be made president of the Royal College of Nursing. In 2017 she was awarded a CBE by the Queen. She has been speaking to Sharon Hemans for Witness History.Photo: Cecilia Anim as a student nurse in Ghana in the 1960s. Credit: Cecilia Anim.
Feb 10, 2021 • 11min
The paper that helped the homeless
In 1989 celebrities in New York set up the 'Street News' paper to help the homeless. People living rough sold the paper at a profit instead of begging, initially it was very successful with around 250,000 copies sold per issue and the idea was copied around the world. Lee Stringer was living on the street when he began selling 'Street News', he discovered a talent for writing and went on to be a columnist and then editor of the paper. He told Witness History how living on the streets made him a better writer and how he became a successful author as a result of the chance he was given at 'Street News'.(Photo: A street vendor holds a copy of 'Street News'. Credit CBS)
Feb 9, 2021 • 9min
Gay and lesbian support for the British miners' strike
In 1984 a group of lesbians and gay men organised a benefit concert to support striking coal-miners. They sent the money they raised to a mining village in Wales. The miners' strike was the biggest industrial dispute in British history. Hear from Mike Jackson, one of the gay men inspired by the miners' struggle.
Feb 9, 2021 • 9min
Francis Bacon in the archives
Francis Bacon painted distorted and disturbing images but his works are now widely considered one of the great achievements of post-war British art. Vincent Dowd has been trawling through the BBC archives listening to Bacon talking about his work, and gaining an insight into his Bohemian, hard-drinking ways.Photo: Francis Bacon in London in 1970. Credit: Press Association
Feb 8, 2021 • 9min
DES Daughters
DES or Diethylstilbestrol was a form of synthetic estrogen developed in the 1930s, regularly prescribed to pregnant women to prevent miscarriage. But in the 1960s it was discovered that not only did it not prevent miscarriage, it also had dangerous side effects for the daughters of the women who had taken it while pregnant – including reproductive problems and rare gynaecological cancers. Millions of women were exposed all over the world. Lucy Burns speaks to mother and daughter Linda and Katie Greenebaum about their experiences of DES.This programme was made with the help of DES Action in the USA. www.DESAction.org Photo: black and white image of smiling baby (H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock/Getty Images)
Feb 5, 2021 • 12min
General Robert E Lee: US Civil War rebel
The US Civil War of 1861-65 left 700,000 troops dead. The Southern Confederate states rebelled against the Union of the North because the Confederates wanted to protect the right to own slaves. The hero of the rebel cause, General Robert E Lee, was charged with treason and had his citizenship revoked. So why did Congress reinstate his citizenship in 1975 more than one hundred years after his death? Claire Bowes has been speaking to former Democrat Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman who was one of just ten members of Congress to vote against the rehabilitation of General Lee and to John Reeves author of the book, The Lost Indictment of Robert E Lee. They describe how the proposal, put forward by a pro-segregationist Senator from Virginia, passed without even the mention of slavery.Photo: General Robert E Lee courtesy of the Library of Congress
Feb 4, 2021 • 15min
Drugs in the Vietnam War
During the Vietnam war, US commanders grew increasingly concerned about the widespread use of drugs by US troops in Vietnam. Initially the focus was on marijuana. But in the early 1970s, reports began to emerge of the large scale use of heroin by US military personnel. The drug had became widely available in South Vietnam. Alex Last spoke to Dr Richard Ratner, then a psychiatrist in the US army in Vietnam, about his memories of treating soldiers suffering from heroin addiction. Photo: Two soldiers in Vietnam exchange vials of heroin, July 1971 (Getty Images)
Feb 3, 2021 • 10min
The Burma uprising of 1988
On August 8th 1988 the Burmese military cracked down on anti-government demonstrators, killing hundreds possibly thousands of people. In the weeks of protest that followed, Aung San Suu Kyi rose to prominence as an opposition figure. The date 8.8.88 has come to symbolise the resistance movement in Myanmar at the time. Ma Thida was a medical student working at Rangoon General Hospital when the dead and injured began to arrive. In 2018 she spoke to Rebecca Kesby about treating gunshot wounds for the first time, and about her political activism and subsequent imprisonment.
This programme is a rebroadcast.Photo: Demonstrators in Rangoon in 1988. Credit: Getty Images
Feb 2, 2021 • 10min
The Moscow State Circus
The biggest circus in Soviet Russia opened in Moscow in April 1971. Circus was considered the “people’s art form” in the USSR and was highly popular. The new Moscow State Circus building on Vernadsky Avenue could seat up to 3400 people and was filled with state of the art technology. Alexander Egorenko was one of the backstage crew, and still works at the circus today. He tells Lucy Burns about his memories of the circus.(Elephant Nicole celebrates her birthday at the Great Moscow State Circus, Jan 18 2021. Photo: Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Getty Images)
