/http%3A//ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/3000x3000/p0kt82ds.jpg)
Witness History
BBC
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.
Beschikbare afleveringen
-
The brains behind Thunderbirds
In 1965, a groundbreaking children's show using cutting-edge puppets first blast onto television screens. Thunderbirds was set in 2065 and followed the antics of secret organisation ‘International Rescue’ which was manned by Jeff... -
Emerante de Pradines: Haiti’s musical trailblazer
Emerante de Pradines was a Haitian singer, dancer and folklorist who became the first person from her country to sign a record deal. She was dedicated to de-demonising vodou music and folklore and went on to teach dance at some of... -
Orson Welles broadcasts The War of the Worlds
The night before Halloween in 1938, 23-year-old Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre on the Air performed a radio adaptation of HG Wells’s The War of the Worlds. It would become one of the most notorious radio broadcasts in history. In... -
Srebrenica massacre
It's 30 years since a massacre of Bosnian Muslims during the war in the former Yugoslavia. The Srebrenica massacre, recognised by the United Nations as a genocide, was the shocking climax of the war in Bosnia. In 2014, Louise Hidalgo... -
The invention of the balloon-expandable stent
An estimated 2 million stents are implanted into people’s hearts around the world each year – making it one of the key treatments for heart disease. The treatment was invented by Argentinian doctor Julio Palmaz, who credits a piece... -
Death of a priest
The 1977 murder of Father Rutilio Grande sent shockwaves through El Salvador. The 48-year-old Jesuit priest was an outspoken champion of the poor in the deeply divided central American nation. In the immediate aftermath of his murder,... -
The man who invented the scratch card
In May 1974, scratch cards went on sale for the first time in the US State of Massachusetts. Free giveaway and coupon games from stores had been commonplace across the USA during the 1950s and '60s – but players could easily cheat. ... -
GLP-1: A breakthrough for diabetes and obesity
In the 1980s, scientists made a discovery that would eventually lead to the development of drugs now used worldwide to treat diabetes and to help people manage obesity through weight loss injections. One of the key scientists behind... -
The UK’s first black-owned music studio
Sonny Roberts, a Jamaican carpenter, arrived in Britain in the 1950s. It was a time of racial disharmony, including the Notting Hill riots and the murder of Kelso Cochrane. In this tense atmosphere, black musicians struggled to make a... -
Wangari Maathai: The first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize
In 2004, the Kenyan ecologist Wangari Maathai became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Wangari Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977, a grass-roots organisation empowering local women to plant trees. It... -
The British oil tanker sunk in Indonesia
In 1958, the British oil tanker, SS San Flaviano, was sunk in the harbour of Balikpapan, Indonesia, while a rebellion was underway against President Ahmed Sukarno. It’s reported the bomb was dropped by a CIA pilot authorised to aid... -
My aunt created The Moomins
The first Moomins story about a family of nature-loving white round trolls was published in 1945 during World War Two. The Moomins and the Great Flood was created by writer and artist Tove Jansson as a source of comfort during bleak...