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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
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World's first womb transplant baby
In September 2014, the world's first baby was born to a mother with a transplanted womb, making headlines around the globe. Malin Stenberg had the pioneering surgery over a year earlier when she received the donated organ from a family... -
The Chindits
During World War Two, an unconventional special force was formed. Known as the Chindits, they fought behind enemy lines in Burma, now Myanmar during 1943 and 1944 in the war against Japan. Their leader was the charismatic Orde Wingate,... -
The founding of USAID
On 3 November 1961, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was founded, bringing all existing aid work under one single agency. A key proponent of it was Barbara Ward, a pioneering British economist and... -
Discovering the Titanic
In September 1985, the wreck of the Titanic was discovered around 400 nautical miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, during a joint American-French expedition. It had remained undisturbed, 13,000 feet underwater in the North... -
John Lennon's final headline concerts
In 1972, after leaving The Beatles, John Lennon and Yoko Ono performed in the United States at the One to One benefit concerts at Madison Square Garden, New York. They were helping to raise money for children with disabilities from... -
The making of the Third Man: A film noir classic
In 1948, filming began on a post-war thriller that would become one of the greatest British movies of all time. Directed by Sir Carol Reed, the film captured the atmosphere of a divided, ruined Vienna. But much of its lasting power... -
Washington DC’s Mount Pleasant riot
In May 1991, a female police officer shot and wounded a young immigrant from El Salvador in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood in Washington DC in the United States. It sparked several days of disturbances in the largely Hispanic area,... -
Creating CAPTCHA
In 2000, as the internet expanded, websites faced a growing challenge to stop spam bots from flooding their systems. To separate humans from machines, researchers at the United States’ Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh,... -
The creation of the International Criminal Court
In 1998, at a conference organised by the United Nations, a blueprint was devised for what would be the world's first permanent International Criminal Court. Judge Phillipe Kirsch chaired the Rome conference that led to the formation... -
Geneva Conventions
In 1859, Swiss businessman Henry Dunant witnessed the Battle of Solferino, in Italy. He couldn’t believe the lack of aid for the wounded soldiers and came up with two ideas – a voluntary aid organisation and an international treaty to... -
The rise and fall of BlackBerry
In the early 2000s, BlackBerry was the phone that ruled the world. But within a decade, it collapsed, overtaken by the touch screen revolution. Sam Gruet speaks to former co-CEO Jim Balsillie about BlackBerry’s meteoric rise, its... -
The book that changed Norway’s view of immigrants
In 2010, a book came out in Norway that transformed the way people looked at paperless immigrants. The author, a 25-year-old Russian woman, fled North Ossetia as a child with her parents. They were never granted asylum, yet she managed...