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
Jul 14, 2020 • 10min
How Club Med changed holidays
Holidaymakers arrived at the first Club Med resort on the Spanish island of Majorca in summer 1950. The French company - full name Club Méditerranée - was founded to offer a new kind of post-war holiday by Belgian water polo player Gérard Blitz, who believed that "the time to be happy is now". The facilities were initially rudimentary, with guests sleeping in huts and sharing tables at meals - but the all-inclusive holiday model they pioneered soon spread all over the world.Lucy Burns speaks to Pierre-Xavier Bécret, whose parents worked on that first Majorca holiday and went on to be involved with Club Med for many years.Picture: postcard image of the Club Med resort in Corfu, 1970s (Editions Intercolor, with thanks to www.collierbar.fr)
Jul 13, 2020 • 9min
The fight for women's prayer rights in Israel
In 1988, a group of Jewish feminists demanded the right to pray as freely as Jewish men at one of Judaism’s holiest sites. They called themselves the ‘Women of the Wall’. The organisation is made up of every Jewish denomination including reform, conservative and orthodox Jews. Its focus is one of the holiest sites in Judaism - the Western Wall in Jerusalem.
Rachael Gillman has been speaking to Anat Hoffman, one of the founding members of 'Women of the Wall'.(Photo: Members of 'Women of the Wall' praying at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, holding their prayer shawls. Getty Images.)
Jul 10, 2020 • 14min
The 1960s report that warned the USA was racist
In the summer of 1967 more than 100 cities in America were caught up in riots. US Senator Fred Harris urged the President, Lyndon B Johnson, to investigate the causes. He set up the Kerner Commission and appointed Fred Harris as one of 11 members to find out why America was burning. The final report shocked many Americans when it blamed white racism for creating and sustaining black ghettos. It said the US was dividing into two separate and unequal societies - one black and one white. Claire Bowes has been speaking to former US Senator Fred Harris.Photo: Members of the Kerner Commission giving final approval to the panel's report on 28th February 1968. Senator Fred R. Harris, (D-Okla.) third from left.
Credit: Bettmann/Getty
Jul 9, 2020 • 9min
The death of Frida Kahlo
The great Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo, died on July 13th 1954, at the age of 47. The art critic, Raquel Tibol, lived in Frida's house during the last year of the artist's life. In 2014 she spoke to Mike Lanchin for Witness History about the pain and torment of Kahlo's final days.This programme is a rebroadcast.Photo: Frida Kahlo with her husband Diego Rivera in 1939. (Copyright Getty Images /Bettmann /Corbis)
Jul 8, 2020 • 9min
Montreal's 'Night of Terror'
When Montreal's police force went on strike for one day over pay in 1969, there was looting and rioting in the streets. But the city's problems leading to the unrest had been building for more than a decade. Organised crime, militant separatists and commercial rivalries all erupted on 7th October, just as police officers decided to protest that their pay was much lower than officers in other Canadian cities. Sidney Margles was a local reporter, and described the scene, and the underlying problems, to Rebecca Kesby.(PHOTO: The scene at the Murray Hill Limousine garage as rioting left several buses on fire and damage to property, following a police strike in Montreal. Getty Images)
Jul 7, 2020 • 13min
The unlawful death of Christopher Alder
The black former soldier choked to death in handcuffs on the floor of a British police station in 1998. CCTV footage taken from the police station showed the 37 year-old father of two gasping for air as officers chatted and joked around him. It took 11 minutes for him to stop breathing. An inquest found he was unlawfully killed but no-one has been held accountable for his death. Farhana Haider speaks to Janet Alder about her long fight to get justice for her brother.Photo:Christopher Alder an ex paratrooper who died in a police station in Hull on 1 April 1998. Credit Alder family hand out.
Jul 6, 2020 • 10min
The doctor who discovered how cholera spread
In the 1800s cholera was a mysterious disease killing millions around the world. No-one knew how to stop it till an English doctor, John Snow, began investigating the outbreak of 1854. At a time before germ theory was properly understood, many public health experts thought disease was carried on what they called "bad air". John Snow was alone in thinking cholera was spread through contaminated water and by the time of his death - in 1858 - his theories had still not been fully accepted. Claire Bowes spoke to Dr Nigel Paneth, a biographer of John Snow, about the skills he brought to the developing science of epidemiology.Photo: Portrait of John Snow (Science Photo Library BBC)
Jul 3, 2020 • 9min
How South Africa banned skin-lightening creams
In 1990, South Africa became the first country in the world to ban skin-lightening creams containing the chemical compound hydroquinone. For years the creams had caused an irreversible form of skin damage called ochronosis for the black and Asian South Africans using the products. Rachael Gillman has been speaking to Dr Hilary Carman, one of the activists who worked to ban the creams and Dr Ncoza Dlova who became one of the country's first black dermatologists.Photo: A woman applying a skin-lightening cream to her face. Credit: AFP/Getty Images
Jul 2, 2020 • 14min
The lost Nazi-era art trove
In 2012 a stunning, secret collection of art was found in Germany. Much of it had disappeared during Nazi rule in the 1930s and 40s. It had once belonged to one of the Nazi's top art dealers, Hildebrand Gurlitt. It was found by chance in the Munich apartment of his elderly, reclusive son, Cornelius. It contained lost works by Renoir, Matisse, Chagal and the masters of the German expressionist movement. Many of the works had been confiscated during the Nazis "Degenerate Art" campaign in the late 1930s, when the Nazis stripped thousands of works of art from public display. Alex Last spoke to Dr Meike Hoffmann, an expert on Nazi art policy, who was one of the first to examine the collection. Photo: One of the art works discovered in the Gurlitt collection was Pferde in Landschaft (Horses in Landscape) by famous German expressionist Franz Marc.
Jul 1, 2020 • 9min
Quarantined in a TB sanatorium
What it was like to be a child quarantined in a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients in the 1950s. Ann Shaw was nine when she was first admitted to the Craig-y-nos sanatorium in Wales and 13 when she was finally allowed home. Until antibiotic treatments came along, to stop the disease spreading, TB patients were kept apart from the general population and their families, often for years. This included babies and children, leaving many traumatised. Ann Shaw tells Louise Hidalgo about the half-life they lived in the sanatorium.Picture: boys on the balcony of the Craig-y-nos TB sanatorium; fresh mountain air was regarded as one of the best treatments for TB (Credit: from the private collection of the family of Mari Friend, a former patient at Craig-y-nos)
