

The History Hour
BBC World Service
A compilation of the latest Witness History programmes.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Dec 16, 2016 • 50min
Yoyes, ETA's female icon
The life and untimely death of a Basque separatist fighter, resisting the Nazis in Lithuania, a medical breakthrough that prevented babies from dying in their cots, the grand old lady of Brazilian TV soaps, and the Hindu milk miracle.Photograph: Maria Dolores Gonzalez Katarain, known as Yoyes, who was the first woman to join the leadership of the separatist group, ETA

Dec 10, 2016 • 50min
100 Women History Hour
A special edition of the programme remembering some of the women that history has overlooked. From women warriors to women scientists. From rural women, to factory workers we bring you the stories of women who made a contribution to history - and who deserve to be remembered.

Dec 3, 2016 • 50min
Bob Marley Survives Assassination Attempt
The shooting of Bob Marley in 1976, the resistance of the Mirabal Sisters, how Ralph Nader made Americans safer, discovering Colombia's ancient Lost City and when Le Corbusier built Chandigarh - India's 1950s modernist marvel.
Photo: Bob Marley, 1970s (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

Nov 25, 2016 • 50min
The 1948 French Miners' Strike
This week, the French Miners' strike of 1948, 50 years since the launch of the Cabaret musical, the Silk Letters Movement of British India, the plane-spotters jailed for spying and how to save baby elephants!(Photo: French President Francois Hollande welcomes former striker Norbert Gilmez during a ceremony at the Elysee Palace in Paris. September 2016. Credit:Reuters.)

Nov 19, 2016 • 50min
The Dili Massacre
It is 25 years since Indonesian troops attacked protestors in the East Timorese capital, plus the impact of The Satanic Verses on British society, smuggling endangered birds out of the jungles of South America, a palace burns in Madagascar and the inspiration behind James Bond's theme tune.(Photo: East Timorese activists preparing for the protest that ended in tragedy. Copyright: Max Stahl)

Nov 13, 2016 • 50min
The Pitcairn Sex Abuse Trial
A mass child sex abuse trial on a remote island in the Pacific that shocked the world, a controversial Kurdish song, the birth of Rolling Stone magazine, men versus computers, and street fighting in San Salvador in the 1980sPhoto: Adamstown, seen in this June 2003 photo of Pitcairn Island (AP)

Nov 5, 2016 • 50min
Dickey Chapelle - War Reporter
On this week's programme, how pioneering American woman war reporter, Dickey Chapelle, was killed in Vietnam; plus two very different perspectives on Mao's China, Mexican writer Octavio Paz and the escape which made Harry Houdini's name.PHOTO: Dickey Chapelle during a US Marines operation in 1958 (Credit: US Marine Corps / Associated Press)

Oct 29, 2016 • 55min
Shell Shock
World War One veterans describe Shell Shock and Prof. Edgar Jones of Kings College on the psychiatric cost of war; plus Hungary's 1956 uprising, how French intelligence was rocked by the abduction of activist Mehdi Ben Barka, the history of Marvel Comics and London's Big Bang.
Photo: French troops shelter during bombardment, 1918. (General Photographic Agency/Getty Images)

Sep 30, 2016 • 50min
The Mayak Nuclear Disaster
One of the world's worst nuclear disasters, the most notorious prison riot in America, Second World War internment in Australia, resistance in apartheid South Africa, and one of Britain's most celebrated artists, Stanley Spencer, through the eyes of his daughters.Photo: The Mayak nuclear reprocessing plant in 2010. Credit: European Pressphoto Agency

Aug 8, 2016 • 51min
The University of Texas Shooting
On 1 August 1966, student Charles Whitman shot dead 14 people and injured another 32 in America's first mass shooting at a university. Plus, the oldest arts festival in the Middle East; how President Reagan smashed the power of the trade unions; and meeting JD Salinger, the reclusive author of "The Catcher in the Rye".PHOTO: Associated Press.