Witness History

Irena Sendler was a Polish social worker who risked her life to save 2,500 Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto during World War Two. Irena, a Catholic, was able to enter the ghetto because of her job. She was soon smuggling in food, medicine and clothing; and smuggling out children. And, as a member of the Zegota underground resistance movement, she recruited others to help. Some children were...

In 1971, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, celebrated 2,500 years of the Persian Empire by throwing a huge three-day party. Trees were planted, birds imported, and a runway built in the middle of the desert with royalty from across the world attending. But the event united opposition parties against the Shah and lost him public credibility. Author and journalist Sally Quinn was “party repor...

On 16 January 1979, the Shah of Iran and his wife, Farah Pahlavi, left Iran for the last time. There had been increasingly violent protests against Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's regime. Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran on 1 February after 14 years of exile. Following a referendum, he declared an Islamic Republic on 1 April 1979. In 1985, social scientist Rouhi Shafi, also left Iran and chose London a...

One of the most dramatic moments from the Iranian revolution took place in November 1979. Young insurgents stormed the US embassy in the Iranian capital Tehran, taking 52 Americans captive. Barry Rosen was held hostage for 444 days. He told his story to Alex Last in 2009. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events...

For nearly 40 years, the magicians Roy Horn and Siegfried Fischbacher wowed audiences in Las Vegas with their death-defying tricks involving white lions and tigers. But in 2003, their show at the Mirage casino came to a dramatic end when Roy was left partially paralysed after being attacked by a seven-year old tiger called Mantacore live on stage. Animal trainer Chris Lawrence was backstage at the...

In 1996, Brazil introduced a pioneering electronic voting system, revolutionising its election process. Carlos Velozo, an electoral lawyer and judge, played a pivotal role in implementing this system, which aimed to enhance security, integrity and accessibility in voting. The electronic voting machines were developed to make it easier for illiterate and semi-literate voters to participate in elect...

In 2002, filmmaker Ken Burns received an intriguing proposition from Apple CEO, Steve Jobs. He wanted Burns’ signature filming style to be inserted into the video editing software of every Macintosh computer. He would call it ‘the Ken Burns effect.’ Burns first shot to fame in 1981, when his documentary Brooklyn Bridge was nominated for an Academy Award. He is perhaps best known for his 1990 docum...

New Zealander Jean Batten was nicknamed the ‘Queen of the Skies’ for her record breaking flights of the 1930s. After abandoning a career in music, Jean learnt to fly at the age of 21. She soon joined other female pilots, such as the American, Amelia Earhart, in making international headlines. They were flying across the world, in planes made of wood and canvas, during the so-called golden age of a...

In 1676, Astronomer Royal John Flamsteed was looking to find a way to determine longitude at sea, so ships could know their position and hazards. Feuds with Sir Isaac Newton, dirty rivers and a missing key are just some of the obstacles he contended with and overcame. His labours ultimately paved the way to Greenwich Mean Time. Emily Akkermans, Curator of Time at Royal Museums Greenwich, and Keith...

In 1970, father of five Gary Gygax was fired from his job as an insurance underwriter in Chicago, in the United States of America. It may sound like a mundane event to read about but, believe it or not, this moment actually changed the gaming industry forever. Gary is the creator of table-top roleplay game, Dungeons & Dragons. In the 50 years since its release, D&D has generated billions o...

Star athlete, Jose Adelino Barceló de Carvalho, abandoned his career in 1972 to follow his one true passion, music. After growing up under Portuguese colonial rule, he became an outspoken supporter of Angolan independence, and used the pseudonym, Bonga Kwenda. He was later forced into exile in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, where he recorded his first album. He went on to become a famous Angolan m...

In 1984, Ethiopia suffered one of its worst ever famines. A BBC news report from the area shocked the world - and led to a huge global fundraising campaign. In 2014, Lucy Burns spoke to Dawit Giorgis, who was in charge of Ethiopia's internal relief effort during the crisis. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the even...

Argentinian geologist Eduardo Olivero became the first scientist to find the remains of a dinosaur in Antarctica in 1986. But digging in frozen ground is not easy, so recovering them took several trips over a decade. Eduardo had to work with discretion and hide the fossils a couple of times to prevent other scientists from taking away his discovery. It was later proven the dinosaur is a new kind o...

In 2013, Emami, an Indian beauty and wellness company, put out an advert for their skin lightening product 'Fair and Handsome'. It features billionaire blockbuster actor Shah Rukh Khan telling a young man that he can get more attention and live a better life if he uses the product. Kavitha Emmanuel who was campaigning to end colourism in India, saw the advert and decided to petition against it. Sh...

After the Six Day War in June 1967, the Suez Canal in Egypt was closed. It meant 14 ships from eight different countries, including the United States, Bulgaria and France, were trapped in an area called the Great Bitter Lake. They would remain there for eight years, and would become known as the ‘yellow fleet’. Two of the ships were the MS Melampus and MS Agapenor. Former assistant steward, Phil S...

In 1969, a new sound began to dominate the airwaves in the UK, reggae. This was terrible news for two Jamaican men, Len Dyke and Dudley Dryden who were making their money selling 'slices of home' records on market stalls in London. They had been pushed out by big labels but being true businessmen, they established themselves in an area with little-to-no commercial competition - black women’s hairc...

In 1999, Waheed Arian left his family in Afghanistan to seek refuge in the UK. He was just 15. He was escaping violence, poverty and the threat of being recruited as a child soldier. He tells Vicky Farncombe about how a dream of one day becoming a doctor sustained him. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events th...

In November 2003, the people of Georgia ousted veteran president Eduard Shevardnadze. Protestors stormed the parliament building in the capital Tbilisi, holding flowers in their hands. It would become known as the Rose Revolution. In 2011, Nino Zuriashvili, who was one of the protestors, spoke to Damien McGuinness. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fasci...

Between 18 March and 10 April 2014, more than 500,000 people in Taipei, Taiwan, protested against a new trade deal with China. It was one of the largest social movements in Taiwanese history. Rachel Naylor speaks to Brian Hioe, one of the demonstrators, who stormed Parliament and occupied it for 23 days. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by th...

After the death of her brother, engineer Thérèse Izay Kirongozi got to work handmaking huge robots to direct traffic and save lives. In 2013 they were installed on the streets of Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They have green lights on their hands, a red light in their chest, can turn around and live stream to a police control centre, they also sing when children cross the road. Yo...

In 1994, bar codes were in widespread use in businesses around the world, but the Japanese car component company, Denso Wave, wanted something quicker. So they asked one of their engineers, Masahiro Hara, to come up with a solution. After playing his favourite board game, Go, he came back with an idea. He designed a black and white square of data that was fast, practical, and could handle more tha...

In 1946, one of the world’s first electronic computers was unveiled in Philadelphia, in the USA. It was called the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, or ENIAC, and was initially designed to do calculations for ballistics trajectories. It was programmed by six female mathematicians. Rachel Naylor speaks to Gini Mauchly Calcerano, whose dad John Mauchly co-designed it, and whose mum, Kay...

Scientists at Waseda University in Japan built the world's first humanoid robot in 1973. They called it the 'WABOT', the Waseda robot. It could see, walk and even talk. It was a huge leap forward in the history of artificial intelligence and robotics. Dr Hiromichi Fujisawa tells Ben Henderson how he was tasked with making the robot speak. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness Hi...

Eliza is the name of a 1966 invention by German born scientist, Joseph Weizenbaum, that is said to be the first chatbot. Eliza worked by someone typing their feelings into a computer keyboard, and then the programme repeated it back to them, often as a question. Joseph’s daughter, Miriam tells Gill Kearsley about Eliza. We also hear from Joseph through archive interviews from Carnegie Mellon Unive...

In 1973, two men pretending to be Colombian guerrillas took a plane and flew across Latin America for 60 hours. It was the longest hijacking of an aircraft in the region. The SAM Airlines plane stopped in countries that included Aruba, Peru, and Paraguay, making its last landing in Argentina, where local authorities were surprised to see the hijackers had vanished. Former flight attendant Edilma P...