The History Hour

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. We hear from one of the Peruvian pilots who secretly flew fighter jets to help Argentina during the Falklands War in 1982. We discuss with our guest, Iberian and Latin American historian Stella Krepp from Bern University, about the stance Peru and other countries from the region took in the conflic...

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Dr. April Nowell, a paleolithic archaeologist and professor of anthropology at the University of Victoria in Canada. We start by hearing how in 2012, archaeologists on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi made a discovery that changed our understanding of early human history. Next, we'...

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. We dedicate this edition to Manchester, in England. We hear about the man who opened the city's first racially inclusive nightclub in 1962. This programme contains descriptions of racial discrimination. Our guest Kath McDermott, a Mancunian DJ and producer at BBC 6 Music, tells us about Manchester'...

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. We hear how Norwegian teachers resisted peddling Nazi propaganda during the German occupation of the Second World War and our guest, Dr Rachel Pistol, talks us through other examples of resistance around Europe. Plus, the Stardust nightclub fire in Dublin in 1981, the Iranian engineer who connected...

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. We hear how a French curator uncovered lost documents showing that the Nazis researched the Bayeux Tapestry during World War Two. Our guest, Professor Catherine Clarke, takes us through the finer details of the famous medieval tapestry. Plus, communist fighters struggling to survive while following...

Max Pearson presents a collection of science fiction themed Witness History stories from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Lisa Yaszek, Regents' Professor of Science Fiction Studies at Georgia Tech in the USA. Actor Peter Coyote looks back on the making of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, sharing memories from the set and reflecting on the film's enduring appeal. We hear the story of Octavia E. Butle...

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes. We learn why, in 2004, Uruguayans voted to enshrine water as a human right in their constitution - the first country in the world to do so. And environmental historian Ellen Arnold reveals how water has shaped human history. Also, we tell the story of the fatal hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73 in Pakistan, 40 years ago. And how...

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Dr Elisabeth Fondren, Associate Professor of Journalism at St John's University in New York, USA. We start by hearing some groundbreaking frontline reporting from the Battle of Mandalay in World War Two. Then, we hear how in 1950s Canada, a controversial government scheme saw the reloc...

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes focussing on Kenya. We hear about Muthoni Kirima, one of the last Mau Mau fighters to come out of hiding and lay down her arms. Caroline Elkins, Professor of History at Harvard University, discusses the brutality of the conflict between Kenya’s Land and Freedom Army, the British and Kenyan loyalists. Next, when Princess Eliza...

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes. This week, we hear about the end of decades-long martial law in Taiwan and discuss its impact on the country's literature with Ti-han Chang, the Deputy Director of Centre of Taiwan Studies at SOAS University of London. Next, the making of City of God, the film that showed the raw reality of children's gangs in Brazil's favel...

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. We hear how a comic book fan and his friends began the very first comic convention in New York in 1964. Our guest is comic book expert Dr Barbara Postema, from the University Groningen in the Netherlands. Next, we hear how Oasis 1995 hit Wonderwall was made with the man who was the sound engineer...

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes. This week, we hear about the first solar-powered flight around the world, and discuss other moments in the history of solar power with Prof Laura Herz, Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford, in the UK. Plus, the start of the largest mountain carving in the world in honour of Native American warrior Crazy Horse, Me...

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. This week, we mark 90 years since the start of the Spanish Civil War. Our guest is historian Professor Sir Paul Preston, who explains how the conflict transformed Spain and paved the way for the rise of General Francisco Franco. We hear the story of a young refugee who fled the fighting but late...

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Mateja Kurir, associate professor at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia and the editor of the book, On Power in Architecture. We start with Jackie Kennedy's 1962 renovation of the United States' White House and the immigrant workers who protested against rent hikes and living co...

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Jan English from the American Museum and Gardens in Bath in the UK. We start with the moment the remains of a Native American chief were returned to the US, more than a century after his death in England in 1892. Next we head to 1959 when Hawaii was brought into the United States of...

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Devi Sridhar, Professor of Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh in the UK. We start with the birth of an Australian campaign to get people to take care in the sun and Ireland's response to the UK Brexit vote. Next, the 110th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme and t...

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Professor Rachel E. Johnson, Professor of Modern African History at Durham University in the UK. We begin with the 50th anniversary of the Soweto Uprising, which became a defining symbol of youth resistance to apartheid. We hear from one of the students who took part in the protest,...

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. And today, we’re celebrating international archives week, set up to highlight the importance of protecting the world's historical records. Our guest is BBC curator Joe Schultz who talks about some of the jewels in the BBC radio collections. We find out why cellist Mstislav Rostropovich was stripp...

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Professor Giuliana Pieri, an expert in Italian noir from Royal Holloway, University of London. We start with the author Andrea Camilleri on the creation of his fictional detective Inspector Montalbano in 1994, and his influence on Italian noir. Then we explore the tapes recorded in t...

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Michelle Meinhart, a reader in musicology and cultural history at Trinity Laban Conservatoire in London. We start by hearing about a Mexican song that captivated lovers in World War Two. Then, a marketing strategist recalls how he worked on a Mexican election campaign in 2000 that sa...

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. First, the story of the Belgian teenager who exposed a scandal within the country’s Royal Family in 1999. Our guest, Professor Kate Williams takes us through some other royal scandals from history. We hear how a group of women set up an underground newspaper in communist Poland and how an E-Coli...

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. We start with the launch of Expedition Robinson in Sweden in 1997 and discuss how reality TV began around the world with our guest Misha Kavka, Professor of Cross-Media Culture at the University of Amsterdam. Plus, a Norwegian Sami protest song that made history in 1980, Canada’s Truth and Reconc...

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. We start with the broadcaster and naturalist, Sir David Attenborough. To mark his 100th birthday, we go back to the mid 1950s and the television programme that launched his career. Our guest is Dr Paula Kahumbu, a Kenyan conservationist and head of the conservation organisation, Wildlife Direct....

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. This week, we hear from a perfumer who in 1990 helped create the world’s first perfume archive in Versailles France. Our guest is Dr William Tullett, a Senior Lecturer in History at the University of York and author of Sniff, History of Smells. Then, we hear how in 1991 African journalists create...

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. On the 40th anniversary of the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, we hear from one man involved in the clean-up operation. Our guest is Jordan Dunbar, presenter of the BBC documentary ‘The Last Dance Floor in Chernobyl’. Next, we hear about the worst floods in 50 years that the Mexican state of Tabas...