Witness History
BBC World Service
Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by and curious about 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 how the Excel spreadsheet was developed, the creation of cartoon rabbit Miffy and how the sound barrier was broken.We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: the moment Reagan and Gorbachev met in Geneva, Haitian singer Emerante de Pradines’ life and Omar Sharif’s legendary movie entrance in Lawrence of Arabia.You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, like the invention of a stent which has saved lives around the world; the birth of the G7; and the meeting of Maldives’ ministers underwater. We cover everything from World War Two and Cold War stories to Black History Month and our journeys into space.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Mar 2, 2021 • 9min
Refugee Island
In 2001, boats carrying hundreds of, mainly Afghan, refugees arrived on the tiny Pacific island of Nauru. This marked the beginning of the “Pacific Solution” – a policy by the Australian government to establish offshore centres for processing asylum claims. The policy was intended to act as a deterrent, discouraging people from travelling to Australia. Many of the refugees lived in the cramped conditions of Nauru for years. In this Witness History, Josephine Casserly speaks to Yahya, an Afghan refugee who left his home country as a school student when the Taliban gained control of his local area. Yahya was one of the first refugees to arrive at Nauru’s detention centre. Like many, he was hopeful that his stay in the makeshift camp would be a temporary measure, and he’d be quickly resettled in Australia. But that was not to be.(Asylum seekers on their first day in the compound at Nauru after their long voyage, Sept 2001. Credit: Angela Whylie/Getty images)
Mar 1, 2021 • 10min
The world's deepest dive 11km down
Don Walsh was the first to go to the very bottom of the deepest part of the ocean in 1960 in a specially designed submarine, the Bathyscaphe Trieste. The water pressure was 800 tonnes per square inch, and the successful mission to "Challenger Deep" in the Mariana Trench under the western Pacific, was a technological breakthrough in marine engineering. Don Walsh describes the dive to Rebecca Kesby, and explains why understanding the deep ocean is crucial in the fight to reduce climate change. (Photo: The Bathyscaphe Trieste in 1960. Getty Images)
Feb 25, 2021 • 10min
The WW2 airman from Sierra Leone
Johnny Smythe was one of very few West Africans to fly with Britain's air force during WW2. Recruited in Sierra Leone in 1941 he was trained as a navigator and flew 26 missions on RAF bombers before being shot down over Germany and taken prisoner in 1943. His son Eddy Smythe spoke to Tim Stokes about his father’s story.Photo: Johnny Smythe in his RAF uniform. Copyright: Eddy Smythe.
Feb 24, 2021 • 15min
The fall of Kwame Nkrumah
The Ghanaian president, Kwame Nkrumah, was one of Africa's most famous independence leaders. But in 1966, while he was out of the country, the Ghanaian military and police seized power in a coup. The legendary Ghanaian film maker Chris Hesse worked closely with Nkrumah and was with him at the time. He spoke to Alex Last about his memories of the coup and his friendship with the man who'd led Ghana to independence.Photo: Kwame Nkrumah c 1955 (Getty Images)
Feb 23, 2021 • 9min
Ireland's bank bailout
In the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis Ireland had to borrow billions to stop its banks from going under and to keep its economy afloat. The IMF, the EU and the European Central Bank provided the money. Matt Murphy has been speaking to Patrick Honahan, who was Ireland's central banker at the time of the bailout. Photo: Protesters take to the streets of Dublin in November 2010 to oppose savage public spending cutbacks needed to secure an international bailout. Credit:Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images
Feb 22, 2021 • 13min
Acid rain
In the 1960s, Swedish scientists documented how acid rain was poisoning lakes, killing fish, damaging soils and forests. Crucially they said it was an international problem, because the acid rain was caused by industrial pollution being carried on the prevailing winds from countries thousands of miles away. Acid rain is primarily created by the burning of fossil fuels, particularly coal, which releases large amounts of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides into the air. These particles then mix with moisture in the atmosphere to create sulphuric and nitric acid, which then falls back to earth as acid rain. The phenomenon of acid rain was noticed in the 19th century but the threat was largely ignored. Alex Last spoke to Prof Henning Rodhe of Stockholm University about the research that alerted the world to the dangers of acid rain.Photo: Forest decline caused by acid rain in the Giant Mountains in Poland - 1998 (Getty Images)
Feb 19, 2021 • 9min
Mary Wilson
The Motown group The Supremes had a string of number one hits in 1964. They would become the most popular girl group of the 1960s. One of the three original singers, Mary Wilson, spoke to Vincent Dowd about growing up in Detroit, commercial success, and civil rights.Photo: The Supremes, (left to right) Florence Ballard, Mary Wilson, Diana Ross, on a visit to London in 1964. Credit: PA Wire.
Feb 18, 2021 • 10min
Free breakfasts with the Black Panthers
The Black Panther Party hit the headlines in the late 1960s with their call for a revolution in the USA. But they also ran a number of "survival programmes" to help their local communities - the biggest of which was a project providing free breakfasts for schoolchildren.Reverend Earl Neil was one of the organisers of the first Free Breakfast for Children programme at St Augustine's Church in Oakland, California. He spoke to Lucy Burns.(IMAGE: Shutterstock)
Feb 17, 2021 • 10min
The Immortal Cells of Henrietta Lacks
The story of an African American woman who played a largely unsung role in countless medical breakthroughs over more than half a century. Henrietta Lacks had cells taken from her body in 1951 when she was suffering from cancer. Those cells were found to be unique in a most particular way. They continued to reproduce endlessly in the laboratory. Culture from those cells have since been used in thousands of scientific experiments. But as Farhana Haider reports, Henrietta herself was never asked if her cells could be used in medical research.(Photo: Henrietta Lacks. Copyright: Lacks Family)
Feb 16, 2021 • 9min
Britain's forgotten slave owners: Part two
How one man used research by historians at University College London into Britain's forgotten slave-owners to track down the descendants of the family who'd owned his ancestors two centuries earlier. Dr James Dawkins tells Louise Hidalgo how his quest led him to the famous evolutionary biologist, Professor Richard Dawkins, author of the Selfish Gene, with whom he shares a name and a past.Picture: slaves unloaded from slave ship at their destination; from Amelia Opie The Black Man's Lament: or How to Make Sugar, London, 1826 (Credit: Universal History Archive/Getty Images)
