Witness History
A podcast by BBC World Service
1500 Episodes
-
Discovering Tutankhamun’s tomb
Published: 16/02/2023 -
'I developed Pokémon'
Published: 15/02/2023 -
First Danish queen for 600 years
Published: 14/02/2023 -
'Hot Autumn': When Italy’s workers revolted
Published: 13/02/2023 -
'I told the world Pope Benedict XVI was resigning'
Published: 10/02/2023 -
The Pope and Jews
Published: 9/02/2023 -
Pope John Paul I’s sudden death
Published: 8/02/2023 -
Reforming the Catholic Church with Vatican II
Published: 7/02/2023 -
How a Pope is chosen
Published: 6/02/2023 -
The first black music station in Europe
Published: 3/02/2023 -
The assassination of Burundian President Melchior Ndadaye
Published: 2/02/2023 -
Columbia space shuttle disaster
Published: 1/02/2023 -
Czechoslovakia's 'Velvet Divorce'
Published: 31/01/2023 -
Palestine Post bombing
Published: 30/01/2023 -
Invention of the MP3
Published: 27/01/2023 -
Albert Pierrepoint: Britain's executioner
Published: 26/01/2023 -
Smolensk air disaster
Published: 25/01/2023 -
Japanese death row guard
Published: 24/01/2023 -
When Britain tried to censor the Troubles in Northern Ireland
Published: 23/01/2023 -
Swine flu vaccine and narcolepsy
Published: 20/01/2023
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.