Witness History
2,017 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 month ago - ★★★★★ - 853 ratingsHistory as told by the people who were there.
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Episodes
Dadaab: The World's Largest Refugee Camp
January 18, 2017 08:50 - 8 minutes - 4.1 MBIn the early 1990s, Somalia was consumed by civil war and famine. Millions fled their homes. Many tried to reach neighbouring Kenya in search of survival. In response, the UN set up a refugee camp complex at Dadaab, in a remote part of Eastern Kenya. It became the largest refugee camp in the world. At its height Dadaab was home to 500,000 refugees, most of them Somalis. But the Kenyan government has now announced that it will close down the camp and return the refugees to Somalia. We hear ...
The Murder of Journalist Hrant Dink
January 17, 2017 08:58 - 8 minutes - 4.09 MBOn 19 January 2007, Hrant Dink, Turkey's most prominent Armenian journalist was shot dead by an ultra-nationalist teenager in front of his office in Istanbul. Dink had founded Turkey's only bilingual Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos. The murderer confessed to the crime saying he'd killed Dink 'for insulting Turks'. Turkish writer Ece Temelkuran spoke to Cagil Kasapoglu about the day she lost her friend. Photo: Hrant Dink is pictured on May 19, 2005. (Credit: Burak Kara / Getty Images)
The End of El Salvador's Civil War
January 16, 2017 08:56 - 8 minutes - 4.1 MBIn January 1992 a peace treaty was signed by El Salvador's Marxist FMLN rebels and the US-backed government to end one of the most bitterly fought Cold War conflicts in Latin America. It took two years of UN-brokered negotiations to reach a deal, which saw the FMLN lay down its weapons and become a legal political party. In return, the government agreed to radical reforms of the military and the creation of a new civilian police force. Mike Lanchin hears from a former female guerrilla about ...
US Presidential Transitions
January 13, 2017 08:50 - 9 minutes - 4.13 MBWhat exactly goes on during the months between the election of a President and their inauguration? Witness looks at past 'transition' periods and hears from Senator Ted Kaufman the man who re-wrote the rules about how the US government handover should take place. Photo: President Obama with President-elect Trump in the White House. Credit: Getty Images.
Princess Diana's Minefield Walk
January 12, 2017 09:00 - 9 minutes - 4.16 MBIn January 1997 the world's most famous woman, Diana Princess of Wales, called for an international ban on landmines. She was visiting Angola where she caught global attention by walking through a live minefield. Paul Heslop from the Halo Trust helped organise the Princess' visit and was with her during her iconic walk. He spoke to Farhana Haider about the impact of Princess Diana's campaign. Photo: Princess Diana with Paul Heslop in a landmine field in Angola, 15th January 1997. (Credit:...
Death in the Amazon
January 11, 2017 10:40 - 9 minutes - 4.26 MBIn January 1956, members of the Auca tribe in Ecuador attacked and killed five American missionaries. They had made contact with the isolated tribe to try to convert them to Christianity. Mike Lanchin speaks to Steve Saint and Valerie Shepard, children of two of the victims, who later met their fathers' killers. Photo: Nate Saint and Wao, a member of the Auca tribe, January 1956 (courtesy of Saint family)
Chicago's Police Torture
January 11, 2017 09:00 - 8 minutes - 4.08 MBIn January 2003, the city's governor announced that four men living on death row were to be pardoned. They had given false confessions after being tortured by police. Darrell Cannon, another of the victims, and his lawyer Flint Taylor spoke to Rachael Gillman for Witness. Photo credit: Tim Boyle
The Zimmermann Telegram
January 10, 2017 08:50 - 9 minutes - 4.25 MBIn 1917, British code-breakers exposed a German plot against the United States which helped alter the course of World War One . The Americans had remained neutral during the first three years of war, but by 1917, Germany was planning to restart unrestricted submarine warfare which it feared would trigger America's entry into the war on the Allied side. German foreign minister, Arthur Zimmermann, proposed a Mexican attack on the United States. Photo: (L) The Zimmermann telegram in code as sen...
Turkey's Headscarf Row
January 09, 2017 08:58 - 9 minutes - 4.14 MBIn May 1999, a newly elected woman MP for the pro-Islamic Virtue Party in Turkey, Merve Kavakci, appeared in parliament wearing a headscarf. She faced a strong reaction from secular MPs and the Prime Minister at the time. She was booed, shouted at and prevented from taking her oath of office. Merve Kavakci spoke to Cagil Kasapoglu about that day. Photo: Merve Kavakci in the Turkish parliament. (Credit: Turkish Assembly TV)
Albania's Economic Chaos
January 05, 2017 08:50 - 8 minutes - 4.07 MBAlbania was hit by a wave of violent unrest in January 1997 after the collapse of 'pyramid' investment schemes. At least two-thirds of the population had invested in the get-rich-quick schemes. Demonstrators took to the streets calling for the resignation of the Albanian President Sali Berisha. Soon protesters were clashing with armed police. Monica Whitlock speaks to Lorina Naci who was a schoolgirl in Tirana at the time. (Photo: The Albanian capital Tirana in January 1997. Credit: Associa...
Charter 77
January 04, 2017 08:50 - 8 minutes - 4.08 MBIn January 1977 an opposition movement began in Czechoslovakia with a call for human rights. More than 200 writers and intellectuals signed the original Charter - many of them were then arrested. One of the leaders of the movement was Vaclav Havel, the playwright who went on to become President after the fall of communism. Louise Hidalgo has spoken to Martin Palouš who was one of the original signatories. Photo: Vaclav Havel talking about Charter 77 in 1978. Credit: Getty Images.
Vietnam War: The Cu Chi Tunnels
January 03, 2017 08:50 - 8 minutes - 4.11 MBVietnamese veteran, Le Van Lang, remembers the war in the Viet Cong's underground tunnel network in South Vietnam. A resident of Cu Chi district, 20 km north of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) he helped construct the tunnels and joined the insurgency against the South Vietnamese government and their American allies. The vast tunnel network became a key base and shelter for Viet Cong guerrillas and North Vietnamese units during the war, Photo: A Vietnamese soldier in a preserved section of tun...
Russia's 'Dog Man'
December 30, 2016 08:58 - 9 minutes - 4.12 MBIn November 1994, the Russian conceptual artist Oleg Kulik posed in front of an art gallery in central Moscow, naked, pretending to be a guard dog and attacking passers by. It was his way of highlighting the fact since the collapse of the USSR three years earlier, Russians had lost their ability to relate to each other, and were reduced to living like animals. Dina Newman speaks to Kulik about his protest performance, which made him famous around the world. Photo: Oleg Kulik impersonating a...
The Launch of Vogue Russia
December 29, 2016 00:10 - 9 minutes - 4.22 MBAfter the collapse of the USSR, Vogue Magazine launched in Russia in 1998. But it was a difficult beginning for the glossy fashion publication as the country was in the middle of an economic crisis at the time. Aliona Doletskaya was the first editor in chief, and she told Rebecca Kesby how she wanted to represent the best of Russian design as well as bring the West to Russians. (Photo: Russian top model Natalia Vodianova holds up a T-shirt decorated with her portrait in front of a poster o...
The Nuclear Legacy
December 28, 2016 23:43 - 9 minutes - 4.2 MBOne of the most potentially dangerous legacies of the collapse of the Soviet Union was its huge nuclear arsenal and nuclear weapons industry. There were particular concerns about the Soviets' former nuclear testing site at Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan, a vast swathe of contaminated land where there were tunnels with spent plutonium. When the Soviet Union ended, the site was left open to scavengers. Louise Hidalgo has been hearing from the former head of America's nuclear weapons laboratory, D...
Georgia In Crisis
December 27, 2016 09:00 - 8 minutes - 4.07 MBAfter the breakup of the Soviet Union in December 1991, freedom came at a price for some of the newly independent Soviet states. Georgia found itself on the verge of civil war, while President Zviad Gamsakhurdia, was forced into hiding and gunmen took to the streets. In 2010 Tom Esslemont spoke to a survivor of Georgia's crisis. Photo: Former Georgian President Zviad Gamsakhurdia (L) with bodyguards in the bunker underneath the parliament in Tbilisi during Georgia's brief civil war. (Phot...
The Break-Up of the Soviet Union
December 26, 2016 08:50 - 8 minutes - 4.05 MBIn December 1991 the leaders of three Soviet Republics - Russia, Ukraine and Belorussia - signed a treaty dissolving the USSR. They did it without asking the other republics, and against the wishes of the USSR's overall President Mikhail Gorbachev. By the end of the year Gorbachev had resigned and the Soviet Union was no more. Dina Newman has spoken to the former President of Belorussia, Stanislav Shushkevich, and the former President of Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, who signed that historic ...
Apollo 8
December 23, 2016 09:00 - 8 minutes - 4.06 MBThe biggest audience in TV history watch NASA's Apollo 8 mission beam back the first pictures from an orbit around the moon at Christmas 1968. The broadcast captured the world's imagination and put the Americans ahead of the Soviet Union in the Cold War battle to put the first men on the moon. Simon Watts talks to Apollo 8 commander, Frank Borman. Picture: The Earth as seen from the Moon, photographed by the Apollo 8 crew (NASA)
Samuel Beckett
December 22, 2016 12:00 - 8 minutes - 4.1 MBOn December 22nd 1989, the great Irish playwright and novelist Samuel Beckett died. Beckett, whose play Waiting for Godot had revolutionised post-war theatre, was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Louise Hidalgo has been talking to fellow playwright and film director Israel Horovitz who was Samuel Beckett's friend. Photograph: Writer Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) (Credit: Reg Lancaster/Getty Images)
Turkey-Greece Island Dispute
December 21, 2016 08:58 - 9 minutes - 4.13 MBA Turkish cargo ship ran aground on a tiny rocky island in the Aegean Sea in December 1995. But a dispute between Turkey and Greece over who owned the island sovereignty almost brought the two nations to war. Agreement still hasn't been reached over the territory called Kardak by the Turks and Imia by the Greeks. Cagil Kasapoglu spoke to the former Turkish diplomat Onur Oymen and the former Greek foreign minister, Theodoros Pangalos, about the crisis. Photo: Turkish journalists prepare a Tu...
Derek Jarman
December 20, 2016 08:50 - 8 minutes - 4.07 MBThe experimental film-maker made his first full-length film in 1976, it was called Sebastiane - and it was in Latin. It was the first openly gay feature film in British cinema. Vincent Dowd has been speaking to Keith Collins who lived with him during his final years, and cared for him when he was dying of AIDS. Photo: Derek Jarman in 1991. Credit: BBC
Death of an Anarchist
December 19, 2016 14:11 - 8 minutes - 4.05 MBGiuseppe Pinelli was an Italian anarchist arrested by police in Milan. A few days later he was seen falling out of the police station window. It is still not clear exactly what happened to Pinelli. Right-wing activists were later convicted of carrying out the bombing for which he'd been arrested. His story was turned into a popular play by the Italian dramatist Dario Fo. Anna O'Neill has been speaking to Silvia and Claudia Pinelli about their father, and their continued search for the t...
The First Latin American 'Telenovela'
December 16, 2016 08:58 - 9 minutes - 4.13 MBVida Alves starred in Latin America's first soap opera, or telenovela. 'Sua Vida Me Pertence' was broadcast in Brazil in December 1951. It kick-started a TV genre that has spread across the globe and is now worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Vida speaks to Mike Lanchin about her memories of making TV history. Photo: Vida Alves and Walter Forster in a scene from 'Sua Vida Me Pertence', Brazil 1951 (Museu Pró-TV)
Cot Death
December 15, 2016 09:00 - 8 minutes - 4.11 MBIn December 1991 a British government campaign was launched to help prevent the sudden unexpected deaths of apparently healthy babies. The incidences of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), at the time often referred to as 'cot death', had been increasing across the western world for decades. Claire Bowes has been speaking to Professor Peter Fleming, the doctor who found out why. Photo: BBC - A father cradles the feet of his 5 day old baby girl.
The Hindu 'Milk Miracle'
December 14, 2016 09:00 - 8 minutes - 4.09 MBIn September 1995, millions of Hindus around the world were gripped by reports of their God, Ganesha, 'drinking' milk. Rachael Gillman hears from Hindu priest Radha Krishna Bharadwaj about first seeing the apparent 'miracle' at the Shree Durga Vishno temple in New Delhi. Photo Credit: MUFTY MUNIR/AFP/Getty Images
Sara Ginaite Lithuanian Jewish Partisan
December 13, 2016 08:50 - 9 minutes - 4.23 MBDuring World War Two, a young Jewish woman, Sara Ginaite, escaped from the Kaunas Ghetto in Lithuania to fight the Nazis, With her husband Misha, she joined a detachment of communist-led partisans in the Rudnicki forest . They took part in the liberation of Vilnius, where she was famously photographed by a Soviet officer. Now in her 90s, Sara speaks to Witness. Photo: Sara Ginaite, a Jewish Lithuanian partisan , during the liberation of Vilnius, 1944. (USHMM)
Yoyes - Woman leader of ETA
December 12, 2016 09:00 - 8 minutes - 4.08 MBIn the 1970s, Maria Dolores Gonzalez Katarain, known as Yoyes, became the first woman to reach the leadership of the Basque separatist group, ETA, who were fighting a violent campaign for independence from Spain. Yoyes eventually decided to leave and start a new life, but she was considered a traitor. In September 1986, ETA killed her in a crime that shocked even its own supporters. Simon Watts speaks to Yoyes' friend, Elixabete Garmendia.
Fighting for Rural Women in South Africa
December 09, 2016 08:56 - 9 minutes - 4.2 MBIn the 1990s Sizani Ngubane began the Rural Women's Movement to fight for the rights of one of the most marginal groups in South Africa. It's estimated that across the whole of Africa between 70 and 85 per cent of all food is grown by women, but less than 2 per cent of the land is owned or even controlled by women. Helping women with farming tips and business ideas and supporting women evicted from their land, Sizani's movement has grown over the years, and now has more than 50,000 members n...
Recreating Down Syndrome in Mice
December 08, 2016 12:02 - 8 minutes - 4.08 MBIn 2005 British scientist Elizabeth Fisher and a colleague successfully transplanted a human chromosome into a mouse for the first time. It transformed medical research into the genetic condition Down Syndrome that affects millions of people worldwide. Professor Fisher tells Louise Hidalgo about the challenges researchers faced and their thirteen-year struggle to create the first Down Syndrome mouse. Photo: Science Photo Library
Wangari Maathai Wins Nobel Prize
December 07, 2016 08:45 - 9 minutes - 4.12 MBIn 2004, Kenyan Wangari Maathai became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She was an environmentalist and human rights activist who founded the Green Belt Movement in the 1970s. She focused on the planting of trees, conservation, and women's rights but repeatedly clashed with the government while trying to protect Kenya's forest and parks. She was arrested and beaten on several occasions. Witness speaks to her daughter, Wanjira Mathai. Photo: Kenya's Wangari Maathai (L) ch...
Soviet Woman Bomber Pilot
December 06, 2016 09:00 - 8 minutes - 4.02 MBYelena Malyutina was a Soviet female bomber pilot who fought in WW2 and was wounded in action in 1944. She was in one of the three Soviet women's flying regiments which fought on the front line. Before her death in 2014, she was interviewed by Lyuba Vinogradova, author of 'Defending the Motherland: Soviet Women' who fought Hitler's Aces. Dina Newman reports. Photo:Yelena Malyutina and Lyuba Vinogradova (credit: private archive)
Colombia's 'Lost City'
December 05, 2016 10:20 - 8 minutes - 4.1 MBIn 1976, Colombian archaeologists found the ruins of a huge indigenous settlement hidden in a remote mountain range near the Caribbean coast. Known to local tribes as Teyuna, the site is one of the biggest and oldest of its kind in Latin America. It later became known as the Lost City. Simon Watts talks to lead archaeologist, Alvaro Soto-Holguin. (Photo: The Lost City)
Digging up the Truth
December 05, 2016 08:58 - 8 minutes - 4.07 MBIn the early 1980s Mercedes Doretti, a student of anthropology in Buenos Aires, began helping in the search for some of the victims of Argentina's military rule. She went on to form the prestigious Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team, which has carried out exhumations in more than 30 countries. Her work gathering evidence of some of the worst atrocities of our times, has taken her to Bosnia, South Africa, El Salvador and Mexico. Mercedes spoke to Mike Lanchin about the challenges of her har...
Bob Marley Survives Assassination Attempt
December 02, 2016 08:05 - 9 minutes - 4.19 MBIn December 1976 unidentified gunmen tried to kill Bob Marley at his home in Kingston, Jamaica. The legendary reggae singer miraculously survived with just light injuries. Mike Lanchin has been hearing from Nancy Burke, one of Marley's friends and neighbours, who was trapped inside the house as the gunmen stormed in, guns blazing. Photo: Bob Marley, 1970s (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
India's City of the Future: Chandigarh
November 30, 2016 08:50 - 8 minutes - 4.09 MBAfter India's traumatic Partition Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru persuaded the maverick Swiss-French architect, Le Corbusier, to help reinvent a newly independent India by building a new capital city for the province of Punjab. Le Corbusier had revolutionised architecture and urban planning in the first half of the twentieth century. He was loved and hated in equal measure for his modernist approach, favouring flat roofs, glass walls and concrete. Nehru said this new city would be "symbol...
Car Safety and Ralph Nader
November 29, 2016 16:40 - 8 minutes - 4.1 MBIn the early 1960s there were virtually no laws covering car safety in the USA. Even seatbelts weren't compulsory. Then a campaigning young lawyer called Ralph Nader came along. He researched car accidents, and safety requirements in other countries. Then he published a book called 'Unsafe at Any Speed' - soon the law changed. Photo: Ralph Nader (R) examines a wrecked car in a crash test facility. Credit: Reuters.
The Assassination of the Mirabal Sisters
November 28, 2016 00:10 - 9 minutes - 4.4 MBOn November 25th 1960, three sisters and political activists in the Dominican Republic were beaten to death on the orders of the dictator, General Trujillo. Their deaths sparked outrage, and inspired the assassination of the leader himself six months later. (Photo; The three Mirabal Sisters, Patria, Minerva and Maria Teresa)
The 1948 French Miners' Strike
November 25, 2016 08:50 - 8 minutes - 4.02 MBHow coal miners in post-war France went from being seen as heroes to being seen as pariahs. Their left-wing views were even perceived as a threat to democracy itself. Lisa Louis has been speaking to Norbert Gilmez, who lost his job and was blacklisted after taking part in the 1948 strike. Photo: French President Francois Hollande welcomes former striker Norbert Gilmez during a ceremony at the Elysee Palace in Paris in September 2016. Credit: Reuters.
The Silk Letters Movement
November 24, 2016 10:10 - 8 minutes - 4.07 MBIn 1916 the authorities in India uncovered what they believed was a plot to overthrow British rule in the subcontinent. It involved an Islamic teacher from the city of Deoband in northern India. Messages written on sheets of silk had been intercepted by the British. Owen Bennett Jones presents reports from the colonial archives. (Photo: The Darul Uloom Deoband, the seminary at the heart of the Silk Letter Movement)
Saving Orphaned African Elephants
November 23, 2016 08:50 - 8 minutes - 4.09 MBAmid the slaughter of African elephants by poachers, a Kenyan-British woman became the first to successfully hand-rear orphaned baby African elephants . As infants, elephants are dependent on their mother's milk and are extremely vulnerable. Without their mothers, orphans struggle to survive. In 1987 Dame Daphne Sheldrick worked out a formula that can keep them alive. The charity she set up, the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, has now raised over 200 orphaned elephants in Kenya.. Photo: ...
Plane spotters arrested in Greece
November 22, 2016 08:58 - 9 minutes - 4.13 MBIn November 2001 a group of British tourists was arrested and put on trial for spying in Greece. But they were not spies, they were aeroplane enthusiasts. Chloe Hadjimatheou hears from Paul Coppin, one of the men detained and later jailed. Photo: Paul Coppin with Greek police (AP News)
The Musical Cabaret
November 21, 2016 09:00 - 9 minutes - 4.17 MBIn November 1966 the hit musical opened on Broadway. Set in 1930s Berlin as the Nazis are rising to power, the show chronicles the love story between a cabaret singer Sally Bowles and an American writer amid the city's decadent cafe society. The Broadway production was a huge hit, inspiring numerous subsequent productions as well as the Oscar winning 1972 film. Farhana Haider has been speaking to Cabaret's legendary director, Hal Prince. (Photo: Jill Haworth, playing Sally Bowles from Cabar...
Smuggling Endangered Birds
November 18, 2016 08:58 - 8 minutes - 4.06 MBIn November 1996 the renowned international ornithologist Tony Silva was convicted of smuggling endangered birds into the US. Some of the animals had been stuffed into cardboard containers for the journey from South America; others were hidden in false-bottom suitcases. Silva argued that he was trying to protect the birds from extinction. Ashley Byrne has been speaking to federal prosecutor Sergio Acosta, who worked on the high-profile case. Photo: A pair of Hyacinth Macaws groom each other...
The Madagascar Palace Fire
November 17, 2016 08:50 - 8 minutes - 4.1 MBIn 1995 one of Madagascar's most historic sites was destroyed by fire. The palace complex, which contains the stone clad Queen's Palace, dominates the capital Antananarivo. It is the burial site for Madagascar's kings and queens and is considered sacred by many. The destruction of the site caused widespread grief and anger in Madagascar. We hear from Simon Peers, who witnessed the devastating fire. Photo: Workers restoring the Queen's Palace which was almost entirely destroyed by a fire in ...
East Timor Massacre
November 16, 2016 08:51 - 8 minutes - 4.11 MBOn 12 November 1991, Indonesian troops opened fire on independence activists in East Timor's capital, Dili. Marco Silva has spoken to the British cameraman Max Stahl, who filmed the attack on unarmed demonstrators in the Santa Cruz graveyard. (Photo: East Timorese activists preparing for the demonstration. Copyright: Max Stahl)
The Burning of the Satanic Verses
November 15, 2016 09:00 - 9 minutes - 4.13 MBThe publication of Salman Rushdie's book in the autumn of 1988 outraged many Muslims who believed the book was blasphemous. There were protests against the book around the world, including Britain. Ishtiaq Ahmed took part in the demonstrations and the public burning of The Satanic Verses in the UK. He tells Farhana Haider that this provocative decision was not just about grievances over the Satanic Verses, it was also to do with feelings about Muslims not being fully accepted in Britain. (...
The James Bond Theme Tune
November 14, 2016 00:10 - 9 minutes - 4.14 MBIn 1962 Monty Norman wrote the music for the first James Bond film, Dr No, including the theme tune which has featured in all the 24 Bond films since. As he tells Rebecca Kesby, the iconic tune was born out of a melody he'd originally composed for an Asian/Caribbean theatre production. But a few important changes made it the world's best known spy-thriller theme. (Photo credit: EON / MGM)
Kurdish Singer Ahmet Kaya
November 11, 2016 09:00 - 8 minutes - 4.09 MBIn 1999 the famous folk singer was awarded one of Turkey's most prestigious musical awards. But his announcement at the ceremony that he would record a song in his native Kurdish spelt the end of his career. Cagil Kasapoglu speaks to his widow, Gulten Kaya, about the night that changed their lives. Photo: Ahmet Kaya on stage (credit: GAM Productions)
Rolling Stone Magazine
November 10, 2016 08:58 - 8 minutes - 4.07 MBIn November 1967 an iconic popular culture magazine was launched in the US. It quickly became known for its music coverage, interviews with stars and in depth political reporting. Ashley Byrne has been speaking to Michael Lydon, the first managing editor of 'Rolling Stone' Magazine. Photo: Front page of the first issue of "Rolling Stone" magazine, 9 November 1967 (Credit: Alamy)
The First Loebner Prize
November 07, 2016 10:20 - 8 minutes - 4.08 MBIn 1991, the first Loebner Prize was held. The judges at the competition had to determine whether they were communicating with humans or computer programmes. The winner of the prize was the computer programme that most fooled the judges. Rachael Gillman has been speaking to Dr Robert Epstein, who was the organiser of the first competition. Photo Credit: Digital Equipment Corporation