Witness History

In Canada's 1993 election, the governing Progressive Conservative Party was routed, ending up with just two seats. In the 1980s, the party won the largest majority in Canadian history. But by 1993, it was in crisis and the new Prime Minister, Kim Campbell, called an election. But she didn’t bank on the emergence of a new populist party called Reform, which stormed Canada’s traditionally two-party...

It's 35 years since the release of one of the most provocative songs in music history. Fight the Power by hip-hop group, Public Enemy, was radical both politically and sonically. The song was written at the request of filmmaker, Spike Lee, who needed an anthem for his 1989 movie, Do the Right Thing. The film became a box office smash and - despite controversy surrounding Public Enemy's image - the...

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the newly independent state Georgia found itself on the verge of a civil war. Rebel groups in Tbilisi came together to overthrow the newly elected President Zviad Gamsakhurdia, who was forced into hiding. Gunmen took to the streets and hospitals were overwhelmed. In 2010, Tom Esslemont spoke to Lamara Vashakidze, a survivor of Georgia’s...

Between 1937 and 1938, Soviet leader Josef Stalin carried out his most severe purge in Georgia. Known as the Great Terror, thousands of political rivals, intellectuals and ordinary citizens were executed without trial and buried in mass graves. Dan Hardoon speaks to Levan Pesvianidze in Tbilisi, Georgia, whose grandfather Viktor and uncle Giorgi were both executed. Eye-witness accounts brought to...

In 1984, urban photographers Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant came together to publish an era-defining book about the early graffiti movement. They had been documenting the work of graffiti arts on the subways system of New York for many years. The colourful book was called Subway Art and it quickly became known as the graffiti bible. Forty years on from its release, Martha and Henry explore its e...

In 1974 an unknown Japanese artist put pen to paper and created a character that would go on to be worth more than $80 billion. The illustration was titled ‘Unknown White Cat’ but you will probably know it better as Hello Kitty. The artist, Yuko Shimizu, designed Hello Kitty while she was working for the firm Sanrio. Fast forward 50 years and Yuko’s friendly feline has been on a fair few adventure...

In June 1954, the first CIA-backed coup took place in Guatemala, when President Jacobo Arbenz was overthrown in a operation organised by the US government. The Administration of Dwight D Eisenhower feared his policies - which included a land reform - could threaten the interests of one of the most powerful firms in the US at the time – the United Fruit Company. Arbenz was labelled a communist, and...

In 1998, the assisted dying society, Dignitas was set up in Switzerland by lawyer Ludwig Minelli. It was the first end-of-life organisation in the world to help foreigners - non-Swiss citizens - to die. Since then around 4,000 people from 65 different countries have ended their lives with help from the group, which operates under the full name 'Dignitas - To live with dignity. To die with dignity....

When visionary architect Antoni Gaudi died unexpectedly in 1926, his followers were left with incredible plaster of Paris models showing how to complete his famous church, La Sagrada Familia. The only problem was they were smashed “to smithereens” during the Spanish Civil War. New Zealand architect Mark Burry was part of a small team trying to piece together Gaudi’s vision for the Barcelona basili...

At the end of World War Two, the Czechoslovak government expelled up to three million German speakers, known as the Sudeten Germans. They were accused of being loyal to Nazi Germany and collaborating in war crimes. By 1946 the expulsions were in full swing, and Helmut Scholz, who was a six-years-old at the time, was caught up in the turmoil. Helmut tells Phil Jones about the traumatic train journe...

On 12 November 1988, the world’s first commercial bungee jumping site was opened near Queenstown, New Zealand. AJ Hackett and Henry Van Asch started out bungee jumping as a hobby with friends. They developed the bungee ropes and rigging system and found the perfect site – the historic Kawarau Suspension Bridge – which would give paying customers the chance to safely fall 43 metres. It helped make...

On 16 January 1988, the world’s largest passenger ship, Sovereign of the Seas, set sail on her maiden voyage around the Caribbean. She carried more than 2,600 passengers and had five restaurants, nine bars, four pools and a casino. Rachel Naylor speaks to her captain, Tor Stangeland. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you t...

In the 1950s, the transformation of the sleepy little town of Benidorm began when Pedro Zaragoza was appointed mayor. He started by getting pipes built to allow running water, then went on to pass a decree which allowed women to wear bikinis. Now, every year millions of tourists arrive in Benidorm, on Spain’s Costa Blanca. This episode was produced by Simon Watts in 2018, using recordings of Pedro...

In 1969, Antonio Enríquez Savignac was given the go-ahead to transform a secluded Mexican island into a world-beating tourist destination. The technocrat believed tourism was a cost effective solution for fixing the country's faltering economy. He was given funding from the Mexican federal government to create infrastructure on the island, including an airport. The resort would be called Cancún. M...

In 1955, a small Icelandic airline, Loftleioir Icelandic, slashed the cost of flying across the Atlantic. For the first time, thousands of young Americans were able to afford air travel to Europe on what became known as the 'Hippie Express.' In 2017, Mike Lanchin spoke to Edda Helgason, whose father, Sigurdur Helgason, launched the ambitious scheme, and Hans Indridason, who ran the company's sales...

In 1971, an architect called Chu Ming Silveira created Brazil's iconic egg-shaped telephone booth, Orelhão. More than 50,000 of the booths were installed across Brazil and the design was so successful that other countries decided to use it. Chu Ming was born in China and moved over to Brazil with her family in 1949, following the end of the Chinese Civil War. At a time when not many architects wer...

In 1980, 123 men were killed when the Alexander L. Kielland platform capsized in the North Sea oil fields. It was Norway's biggest industrial disaster and led to a range of safety improvements for those working in the country’s oil and gas sector. Lars Bevanger speaks to survivor Harry Vike, who spent 10 hours in a lifeboat waiting to be rescued, and his wife Grete, who was waiting for a call to f...

In 1984, a 21-year-old Irish shopworker refused to serve a customer buying two South African grapefruits. Mary Manning was suspended from the Dunnes store in Dublin, and ten of her colleagues walked out alongside her in protest. It was the start of a strike that lasted almost three years, and ended when Ireland became the first western country to impose a complete ban of South African imports. Why...

In 2014, Boko Haram militants drove into Gwoza in north-east Nigeria and began an assault that would leave hundreds of people dead. Ruoyah, who was just 14, hid in her house for eight hours under continuous fire. She says when she finally opened the door to leave her house she says: "There were corpses everywhere, we even saw the corpse of our neighbour in our front door." Ruoyah managed to escape...

In April 1999 Nato bombed the Serbian state TV station in Belgrade, killing 16 people. It was part of a military campaign to force Serbia to withdraw from Kosovo. Mike Lanchin has been speaking to one of the survivors, Dragan Šuković, a TV technician, who was working at the station that night. This programme was first broadcast in 2015. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness Hist...

In 2008, Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest at America's occupation of Iraq. George W Bush had been giving a joint press conference in Baghdad with Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki at the time. He was in his final months as president as Barack Obama was due to take over. As he threw the first shoe, Muntadhar yelled: “Here is yo...

Charles Norman Shay was a field medic in the United States Army when he landed on the Normandy beach codenamed Omaha on D-Day. On June 6, 1944, the US 1st Infantry Division faced a bombardment of machine gun fire from the German soldiers on surrounding cliffs. More than 1,700 men died on Omaha alone. Aged just 19, Charles risked his own life to save his comrades from drowning, for which he was awa...

In 1944, a young Irishwoman called Maureen Flavin drew up a weather report that helped change the course of World War Two. Maureen was working at a post office in Blacksod on the far west coast of Ireland. Her duties included recording rainfall, wind speeds, temperature and air pressure. On 3 June, she sent one of her hourly reports to Dublin, unaware that the figures were being passed on to the A...

In 1984, Russian engineer Alexey Pajitnov invented the popular computer game Tetris. But it was not until American businessman Henk Rogers joined him that the game became an all-time favourite in video game consoles across the world. Chloe Hadjimatheou spoke to both of them about how the idea of the game originated and the challenges of exporting it from the Soviet Union. This programme was first...

In 2008, panda-mania hit Taiwan when China gifted the country two giant pandas. This practice known as ‘panda diplomacy’ is thought to date back as far as the 7th Century. Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan flew into Taiwan and became instant celebrities. Eve Chen, curator of the Giant Panda House at Taipei Zoo says: “They were extremely cute and adorable. You could call them like the handsome and the beauty...