Witness History

The first commercial internet cafe opened in London on 1 September 1994. Eva Pascoe, from Poland, is one of the founders of Cyberia. She claims that Kylie Minogue was amongst the famous visitors and learnt how to use the internet at the cafe. Eva tells Gill Kearsley the story of how cakes, computers and Kylie came together to make this new venture a success. (Photo: Surfers at the Cyberia cafe. Cr...

In January 2008, seeds began arriving at the world's first global seed vault, buried deep in a mountain on an Arctic island, 1,000km north of the Norwegian coast. The vault was built to ensure the survival of the world's food supply and agricultural history in the event of a global catastrophe. In 2019, Louise Hidalgo spoke to the man whose idea it was, Dr Cary Fowler. (Photo: Journalists and came...

In 1980, poor rural workers set up camp on land owned by the rich at Encruzilhada Natalino in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Brazil's government sent in the army to evict them and violent clashes followed. It was a formative moment in the history of one of Latin America's biggest social movements, Brazil's Landless Workers Movement (MST). Maria Salete Campigotto was a teacher living in the camp w...

In September 1984, the Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff was summoned to Rome, facing accusations that his writing and teachings were "dangerous to the faith". He is a leading proponent of liberation theology, which says the Church should push for social equality. Leonardo was called to appear before the Roman Catholic Church’s highest tribunal. A year later, he was banned from writing, teaching...

During the 1970s, the US and Soviet Union were engaged in the Cold War. The US, along with other Western countries, was a member of Nato, while the Soviet Union joined forces with central and eastern European countries in the Warsaw Pact. After becoming frustrated with the way the Soviets controlled his country, Ryszard Kukliński, a Polish colonel, wrote to the US Embassy in Bonn, West Germany. Fo...

The Magnificent Magyars were Hungary’s golden football team of the 1950s. But behind their shine lay a dark secret. In 1951, defender Sándor Szűcs was executed for trying to defect from the communist regime. The married centre-back had wanted to leave Hungary with his lover, singer Erzsi Kovács, who was also married. The pair had been told to end their illicit relationship or face imprisonment. Th...

In 1937, Japan invaded China committing atrocities including the Nanjing Massacre. Wang Jingwei was a Chinese national hero and second-in-command of China’s ruling Nationalist Party. He wanted to negotiate with Japan but his colleagues wouldn’t listen. So he defected, and in 1940 he agreed to lead a Japanese-controlled puppet government in Nanjing. Many Chinese have hated him ever since – his name...

In 1949, Mildred Gillars – otherwise known as Axis Sally – became the first woman in American history to be convicted of treason. The former Broadway showgirl broadcast antisemitic Nazi propaganda on German State Radio during World War Two. Her weekly shows were heard by thousands of American servicemen who gave her the nickname Axis Sally. After her capture, she denied being a traitor, but a jury...

In December 1939, fascist Norwegian politician Vidkun Quisling travelled to Berlin from Oslo for a secret meeting with Adolf Hitler. Quisling suggested to Hitler that the British were planning to move into Norway for their own strategic needs. Norway hadn’t been a concern for the Nazis but the meeting alarmed Hitler and within months Germany started its invasion of Norway. From that moment, Quisli...

In the early 2000s, a woman called Jamuna Tudu set out on a mission to protect her home state of Jharkhand's forests from India's so-called timber mafia. She inspired thousands of people to care for their natural environment and established an army of women to fight back against the illegal cutting down of trees. Her conservation efforts have led to the country's media dubbing her 'Lady Tarzan', a...

British zoologist Bob Golding turned the University of Ibadan's zoo into one of Nigeria's biggest tourist attractions in the 1970s. The zoo was famous for two gorillas he rescued from traffickers. And Bob's animal kingdom even had its own TV show. His wife, Peaches Golding, tells Ben Henderson how he did it. (Photo: Bob Golding. Credit: bobgolding.co.uk)

In June 2009, millions of Iranians took to the streets to protest against what they considered a rigged presidential election. The hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won 62% of the vote. All three defeated candidates disputed the results. The protests gave rise to the 'Green Movement', named after its signature colour, which opposed Ahmadinejad. Journalist Maziar Bahari was accused of being a...

On 6 November 1975, tens of thousands of Moroccans poured into Spanish Sahara in a bid to claim it for their own. They danced, waved flags and played music as they faced off, unarmed, against gun-carrying Spanish soldiers. The so-called Green March led to a diplomatic victory for Morocco's King Hassan, but sparked a guerrilla war and decades of instability. In 2013, TV cameraman Seddik Maaninou an...

In Bolivia, on 25 October 1984, President Hernán Siles Zuazo announced he was going on hunger strike. He was trying to stop the booming cocaine industry in his country. It was the second time he had taken the job of president and he had been on hunger strike several times before. His daughter Marcela Siles, tells Laura Jones about her father. (Photo: President Zuazo. Credit: Getty Images)

For two years, José Luis Peñas risked his life making secret recordings that revealed one of Spain's biggest corruption scandals. It forced the ruling party from power and brought down Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy in 2018. José Luis Peñas speaks to Ben Henderson. (Photo: Mariano Rajoy (right) moments after resigning. Credit: Pierre-Philippe Marcou/Pool via Getty Images)

On the 11 January 1998 in Mumbai, India, the first World Laughter Day took place. It was the idea of Dr Madan Kataria, a medical doctor who wanted to test the theory that laughter is the best medicine. He tells Gill Kearsley how this unusual event started. (Photo: World Laughter Day in Mumbai in 2016. Credit: Arijit Sen/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)

In 1970, Natalia Makarova became the first female ballet star to defect to the West from Russia. The dancer claimed asylum during a UK tour, nine years after another Russian dancer, Rudolf Nureyev, had defected. Natalia later joined the American Ballet Theatre in New York. She wouldn’t return to her home country for almost 20 years. Jane Wilkinson has been looking through the archive to discover t...

The fate of Louis-Charles, son of the last king of France, was for years shrouded in rumour. The little boy was said to have died in prison in 1795. But for years, rumours spread that he had been swapped with an imposter. It wasn't until a team of scientists took DNA samples from the heart of the imprisoned boy in 2000 that the mystery could be laid to rest. In 2021, Prof Jean Jacques Cassiman and...

On 1 April 2001, the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalise gay marriage. Four couples were chosen to take part in a collective wedding at midnight which was broadcast on TV. Hélène Faasen and Anne-Marie Thus tell Dan Hardoon about the wedding they thought they'd never have. (Photo: The four happy couples cut the cake. Credit: Marcel Antonisse/ANP/AFP/Getty Images)

On 13 March 1989, the Canadian province of Quebec suffered a nine-hour electricity blackout. Much of the state's infrastructure was damaged, but the power companies couldn't find any obvious cause. Physicist Aja Hruska was one of the only people in the country that knew the answer to Quebec's problem. A solar flare ejected by the sun had hit the earth's magnetic field, creating electrical havoc. A...

In 1937, the Hindenburg airship burst into flames during its mooring in New Jersey, in the US, killing 35 of the 97 passengers and crew.

The wingsuit is the ultimate in extreme sports clothing. The aerodynamic outfit allows base jumpers and skydivers to free-fall for longer before opening a parachute. The road to creating it was littered with casualties, but in 1999 skydivers Jari Kuosma and Robert Pecnik developed the first commercial wingsuits. In 2019, Jari told Jonathan Coates how exciting, but also how dangerous they can be. (...

In 1985, British scientists made what would turn out to be one of the most important environmental discoveries of the 20th century - finding a hole in the earth’s ozone layer. The British Antarctic Survey, based in Cambridge, had been monitoring ozone levels for more than 30 years using the Dobson Ozone Spectrophotometer. But it was only when they compared previously uncharted figures from the 198...

In February 1990, Nasa space probe Voyager took a famous photo of Earth as it left the Solar System. Seen from six billion kilometres away, our planet appears as a mere dot lit up by the sun, giving a sense of humanity's small place in the universe. In 2020, Darryl Morris spoke to Nasa planetary scientist Candice Hansen, who worked on the Voyager programme. A Made in Manchester production for BBC...

In 1982, after a two-year global search, the BBC auditioned Ken Hom to be the star of a new Chinese cookery TV series. In the show, called Ken Hom's Chinese Cookery, he introduced viewers to dishes like dim sum and spicy braised aubergine. He also gave advice on choosing and using a wok. He tells Josephine McDermott about his sudden rise to celebrity and how he brought Chinese dishes to new audien...