Witness History

In 1948, the foundation was laid for a “utopian” community of houses designed by a man described as America’s greatest ever architect. Frank Lloyd Wright had been approached by a group who wanted to create a social collective of affordable homes, on land an hour north of New York city. The group of 47 flat-roofed, open-plan homes became known as Usonia. Roland Reisley, now aged 100, is the last fo...

On 9 January 1992, astronomers Alex Wolszczan and Dale Frail announced they had discovered the first two exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system, while working at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. The two planets orbit a pulsar, a neutron star, 2,300 light-years away, in the constellation Virgo. We now know of the existence of nearly 6,000 exoplanets, but Poltergeist and Phobetor wer...

Carolina Maria de Jesus was a poor, single mother-of-three who lived in a derelict shack and spent her days scavenging for food. Her diary, written between 1955 and 1960, brought to life the harsh realities faced by thousands of poor Brazilians who arrived in cities like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro looking for better opportunities. In 1960, her diary was published and became a bestseller, turning...

In 2000, nightclub owners and twins Frederik and Gerrit Braun went from the neon lights of a Hamburg nightclub to building the world’s largest model trainset. Miniatur Wunderland is now a top tourist destination and global attraction visited by millions, including celebrities like Adele and Sir Rod Stewart. Frederik and Gerrit Braun tell Megan Jones where this crazy idea came from. Eye-witness acc...

South Africa’s first feature film aimed at black audiences was released in 1949, launching Dolly Rathebe’s career. The actress and jazz musician was discovered by chance by two British film makers and with no previous acting experience, she was cast in Jim Comes to Jo’burg, also known as African Jim. She played Judy, a glamourous nightclub singer. Soon she was gracing magazine covers and proclaime...

On 1 June 1985, a convoy of New Age Travellers set off for the ancient stone circle of Stonehenge in the south of England. They were planning to hold a festival there for the summer solstice, but they were stopped by police blocking their access to the site. The authorities had heard the travellers were carrying chainsaws and petrol bombs. The police smashed the hippies’ vans and tents in what bec...

On 31 May 2006, police launched one of the largest raids in Swedish history, seizing servers from The Pirate Bay - a hugely popular but highly controversial file-sharing website. Co-founder Peter Sunde managed to copy a backup meaning the site could relaunch just days later. He became a folk hero among internet users who relied on the platform for free access to pirated films and music. Sunde and...

In 1958 Nigerian writer, Chinua Achebe, published his first book, Things Fall Apart. Set in pre-colonial rural Nigeria, it examines how the arrival of foreigners led to tensions within traditional Igbo society. The book revolutionised African writing, and began a whole new genre of world literature. In 2016, Rebecca Kesby spoke to Achebe's youngest daughter, Nwando Achebe. Eye-witness accounts bro...

In 2015, rockstar and Canadian icon Gord Downie was given months to live, after doctors found he had a terminal brain tumour. But instead of quietly exiting the stage, Gord and his band, the Tragically Hip, came up with a plan to play 15 shows across 10 of Canada’s major cities. Megan Lawton speaks to lead guitarist Rob Baker about the tour and the remarkable final gig that was watched by millions...

In 1992, European football was at a turning point. The European Cup was going to be replaced with a new format: The Champions League. European football’s governing body, Uefa wanted a classical theme to accompany the new competition, in an attempt to try and fix the image of football which was mired by hooliganism at the time. Tony Britten was the man tasked with writing such a piece of music. He...

It is only since Vivian Maier's death in 2009 that the 150,000 photographs she rarely showed to anyone have come to light. Working as a nanny in the suburbs of Chicago in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, she captured extraordinary street scenes on a Rolleiflex camera. But she did not always develop the photos. With no permanent home of her own, she paid for storage units where her life’s...

In the aftermath of World War Two, a group of famous photographers brought their individual styles into one powerful collaboration, over a celebratory bottle of champagne. On 22 May 1947 the agency, Magnum Photos was founded, going on to represent some of the world’s best photographers. In 2017, Louise Hidalgo spoke to Jinx Rodger, the widow of one of the founders, and Inge Bondi one of the very f...

Martín Chambi is regarded as one of the most important indigenous Peruvian photographers of the 20th century. Famous for his black and white images of local Andean people and the surrounding countryside, Chambi’s work challenged preconceptions of Peruvian culture and traditions. In 1924 he was among the first to photograph Machu Picchu – his work helping to shape the way Peru is seen around the wo...

J. D. 'Okhai Ojeikere, who was known as Nigeria’s top photographer, started documenting women’s hairstyles in 1968. He built up a portfolio of around 2,000 negatives revealing the elaborate ways African women styled their hair through his series of black and white photos. A selection of his 'Hairstyles' prints was displayed at the Venice Biennale in 2013. Reena Stanton-Sharma speaks to his son Ama...

In 1932, a photo was taken showing 11 New York ironworkers casually eating their lunch while sitting on a steel beam at the top of a skyscraper. No safety harnesses, no helmets. Their legs dangled freely over the death-defying drop. 'Lunch atop a Skyscraper' is now one of the most famous pictures in the world but it's an image surrounded in mystery. For years, the identity of its photographer and...

In the 1940s, some vulnerable Swedish hospital patients were fed large amounts of sugary sweets as part of an experiment to see what it would do to their teeth. Researchers considered the study a success as it led to new recommendations for children to eat sweets just once a week. In the 1990s, the unethical aspects of the experiment emerged when Elin Bommenel became the first researcher to gain a...

In 2013, Mexico’s government approved a tax on sugary soft drinks. The country has one of the highest rates of fizzy drink consumption in the world. Some rural homes do not have access to safe drinking water and a third of schools do not have drinking water. Consequently, carbonated drinks would be sold in schools across the country. Grace Livingstone speaks to Dr Simon Barquera, director of healt...

On 14 May 1955, the leader of the Soviet Union and leaders from seven European countries met to sign the Warsaw Pact. In the years following World War Two, the Soviet Union and the United States started the worldwide Cold War. While Western powers feared the spread of communism, the Soviets worried about US atomic bombs. What resulted was the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NA...

By 1915, the two great rivals, Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison, had brought electricity to the world. It was reported that they were set to share the Nobel Prize for Physics, but it never happened. In 2011, Claire Bowes spoke to Tesla’s biographer Mark Seifer and relative William Terbo. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you...

In 1980, Finnish singer Marion Rung won the Intervision Song Contest. Born in the 1960s, Intervision was the Eastern Bloc’s answer to Eurovision. It ran until 1980, although in 2025 Russia’s President Vladimir Putin ordered its revival. Finland, which maintained neutrality during the Cold War, was one of the few countries to participate in both competitions. Marion Rung achieved top 10 Eurovision...

In May 2015, when the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria was about to fall to jihadist fighters, a group of men risked their lives to load centuries-old artefacts from the city’s museum onto trucks and drive them to safety. Before their advance to Palmyra, members of the group that called itself Islamic State had already been filmed for social media smashing statues that dated back to religious life...

The end of the Second World War in Europe came on 8 May 1945, after more than five years of conflict. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced that people could allow themselves "a brief period of rejoicing". Crowds in their thousands gathered outside Whitehall and Buckingham Palace. BBC correspondents, including Richard Dimbleby, capture the scenes of joy across the city - from the East...

On 7 May 1915, the British ocean liner, the Lusitania, was sunk by a German submarine off the Irish coast, as it sailed from New York to Liverpool. Thousands of passengers were onboard and 1,200 people died. The attack helped turn American opinion against Germany. In 2015, Alex Last used BBC archives to tell the story. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those f...

In 1955, entrepreneur and engineer Yoshitada Minami came up with a way to liberate women from two to three hours of housework a day. When his water-heating business started losing sales, he was tasked with inventing an automatic rice cooker – something which the men in the home appliances industry didn’t take seriously. With little knowledge of how to make the perfect rice, he turned to the unsung...

In April 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI following the death of Pope John Paul II. The new leader of the Catholic Church was elected after four ballots of the papal conclave. The late Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor was one of 115 cardinals who took part. He spoke to Rebecca Kesby in 2013. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascin...