Witness History

In August 2005, an unusual orchestra performed an extraordinary concert in the city of Ramallah. The West-Eastern Divan orchestra was founded in 1999 by Israeli conductor, Daniel Barenboim and Palestinian literary critic and philosopher, Edward Said. Their belief was that music has the power to bring people together. Violinists, Tyme Khelefi and Daniel Cohen tell their stories to Gill Kearsley. (P...

The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is on the site believed by Christians to be the birthplace of Jesus Christ. But in 2002, it was at the centre of one of the most dramatic sieges of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For almost six weeks, Palestinian gunmen and civilians were holed up in the church. In 2015 Louise Hidalgo spoke to Father Amjad Sabbara, a Franciscan friar who lived in the comp...

Rioting broke out in 2000 after the Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon made a controversial visit to the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s old city. In 2012, Mike Lanchin spoke to an Israeli and a Palestinian who were there that day. (Photo: Ariel Sharon is flanked by security guards as he leaves the al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Credit: AWAD AWAD/AFP via Getty Images)

In 2000, President Bill Clinton led a major effort to end the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The two sides were brought together at the leafy presidential retreat in Maryland. The Israeli leader, Ehud Barak and the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, failed to reach any agreement and the summit ended in failure. In 2017, Farhana Haider spoke to senior American diplomatic interpreter and policy advise...

In September 1993, a peace agreement was signed between Israel and the Palestinians after months of secret negotiations. The historic handshake between Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin took place on the lawn of the White House. Mona Juul and her husband were part of the team that planned and orchestrated top-secret mee...

On 11 September 1973, General Augusto Pinochet deposed Chile's President Salvador Allende in a military coup. Thousands of people were tortured and killed in the months after the coup, including the folk singer Victor Jara. His widow, Joan Jara, spoke to Gideon Long in 2013. (Photo: Victor Jara. Credit: Gems/Redferns via Getty Images)

On 11 September 1973, General Augusto Pinochet deposed Chile's democratically elected president, Salvador Allende, in a violent military coup. Hermógenes Pérez de Arce was a politician and helped organise the coup. He speaks to Jane Chambers. (Photo: Hermógenes Pérez de Arce. Credit: sourced)

In 2003, Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh was stabbed to death in a department store in the middle of Stockholm. The 46-year-old member of the ruling Social Democratic party, was tipped as successor to Swedish Prime Minister Göran Person, and an important international career was likely around the corner. Her murder caused national trauma in Sweden. Her press secretary and best friend, Eva Fran...

In the 1980s, Bi Kidude burst onto the international music scene, when she was in her 70s. She was one of the first women from Zanzibar to sing in public without wearing the veil, in the traditional Muslim country. She was born Fatuma binti Baraka, known as Bi Kidude or "little madame" in Swahili, and fondly referred to as the "golden grandmother of music". Maryam Hamdani was one of her oldest fri...

On 14 September 2013, the Arctic Sunrise - a ship belonging to the environmental group Greenpeace - embarked on an Arctic expedition. Its aim was to disrupt the first day of drilling on a newly built oil rig. This would be the first to drill for Arctic oil - something that had only been made possible in recent years by melting ice in the region. Frank Hewetson, a Greenpeace campaigner, was on boar...

Launched in 1966 by Communist leader Mao Zedong, the Cultural Revolution plunged China into a decade of chaos. The education of millions of young people was disrupted and China was cut off from the rest of the world. When students first started venturing out, it was still a country feeling the after effects of the Cultural Revolution. Farhana Haider spoke to writer Zha Jianying in 2021. She was on...

In 2000, an expedition to the Mexican island of Guadalupe launched a fight to save its ecosystem from being eaten by goats. Russian whalers had introduced the goats to the island in the 19th Century and the population exploded as they ate their way through Guadalupe’s plants, shrubs and trees. Several species of birds were already extinct when a group of scientists, from the San Diego Natural Hist...

On 14 August 2013, Egypt's army killed hundreds of protestors in Cairo's Rabaa al-Adawiya Square. They were protesting against a military coup that had taken place a month earlier, in which the democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, was ousted. Sameh Elbarky was in the square that day. He speaks to Ben Henderson. (Photo: A poster of Egypt's ousted president, Mohamed Morsi, among debris i...

In June 2000, a historic meeting took place between South Korean president Kim Dae-jung and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Il. This was the first inter-Korean summit since the Korean War, almost 50 years earlier. Professor Chung-in Moon from South Korea was a special delegate at the summit. He told Gill Kearsley about his experience in North Korea. (Photo: North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and South...

Sixty years ago, there was a boycott of local bus services in the English city of Bristol. The bus company had specified that it did not want to employ black bus drivers. The boycott ended on 28 August 1963 and the campaign helped to bring about Britain's first laws against racial discrimination. In 2013, Louise Hidalgo heard from Paul Stephenson and Roy Hackett, who died in 2022. This programme c...

The Forty Foot is a famous sea swimming spot in Ireland’s capital city of Dublin. For hundreds of years, only men had the privilege of bathing in its deep, icy waters – naked if they chose. That was until one day in the summer of 1974, when a group of women decided to plot an invasion. At a time when Irish women couldn’t even access contraception, why did this group of hardy feminists decide to fi...

In 2006, Michele Burke and her fiancé William were looking forward to moving into their dream home in the picturesque town of Killaloe, in Ireland. But when Ireland's economic boom - known as the Celtic Tiger - ended and the global financial crisis of 2008 hit, construction on Michele and William's new house abruptly stopped. The couple were stuck paying a mortgage on a home they couldn't move int...

In 1959, Tralee, in Ireland, hosted a festival to promote the town and build Irish connections around the world. It became known as the Rose of Tralee and is now one of Ireland’s oldest and largest festivals, as well as one of the most watched TV programmes. Last year, more than 30 international ‘roses’ or contestants took part, including representatives from Toronto, Sydney and Dubai. Rachel Nayl...

In May 1948, Canon John Hayes flicked a switch and brought electricity to the parish of Bansha, in Ireland. The village was the first in County Tipperary to be connected to the grid, under the Rural Electrification Scheme. The ambitious programme ran from 1946 to 1964 and saw 300,000 homes powered up. Vicky Farncombe produced this episode of Witness History using archives from Irish electricity bo...

At Easter 1916, a small army of Irish rebels attempted to start a revolution against British rule. They held out for more than a week against a massive British military response. Simon Watts brings together eye-witness accounts of the Easter Rising. (Photo: Irish rebels lying in wait on a roof getting ready to fire during the Easter Rising. Credit: Mondadori via Getty Images)

The ruby slippers from the 1939 movie 'The Wizard of Oz' are some of the most treasured film memorabilia of all time. There are thought to be four pairs from the film that have survived. This is the story of the slippers that were stolen from the Judy Garland Museum in Minnesota, USA in 2005. John Kelsch is one of the people who started the museum. He tells Gill Kearsley the story of the stolen sl...

Judy Garland ended her long and glitzy stage and screen career at a London theatre club in January 1969. She was booked for five weeks of nightly shows at the 'Talk of the Town', but by that time, the former child star of the 'Wizard of Oz' was struggling with a drug and drink addiction. In 2019, Mike Lanchin heard the memories of Rosalyn Wilder, then a young production assistant, whose job was to...

In 2004, a chance encounter in Nigeria led to the return of two of the country’s ancient artworks, the looted Benin Bronzes. The treasures were among thousands stolen from Benin City by the British Army in 1897, and acquired by museums around the world. More than a century later, Tim Awoyemi and Steve Dunstone were on a charity trip when they were approached by campaigners demanding the bronzes re...

The coup of 1953 changed the course of Iranian history. The USA - with British help - overthrew a nationalist prime minister and installed the Shah in power. In 2010, Alan Johnston heard archive recordings of the CIA officer who played a part and spoke to Hedayat Matine-Daftary, the grandson of Mohammed Mossadeq, the deposed prime minister. (Photo: crowds of people protest against the Iran coup in...

On 15 August 2008, nine-year-old Matt Berger tripped over a fossil that would lead to one of the most important discoveries in the history of human evolution. The young adventurer had been exploring the Cradle of Humankind, in South Africa, with his father Lee, a paleoanthropologist. "I didn't really know what was happening. I was just there for fun. But my dad was so excited. So obviously that ma...