Witness History

In September 1956, a telephone cable called TAT-1 was laid under the Atlantic Ocean. This made high-quality transatlantic phone calls possible for the first time. Eight months later in May 1957, 1,000 people squeezed into St Pancras Town Hall in London to listen to a transatlantic concert. The person performing, Paul Robeson, was a globally renowned singer, but he’d been banned from travelling out...

In 1953, a winter storm combined with high tides breached sea defences in the Netherlands, more than 1,800 people drowned. Ria Geluk, remembers the once-in-a-lifetime flood. In this programme first broadcast in 2011, Ria tells Trish Flanaghan what happened when water overwhelmed the farm she lived on. (Photo: A man walking a flooded street. Credit: Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Imag...

In 1971, marine biologist Edward Carpenter made a shocking discovery finding small bits of plastics floating thousands of miles of the east coast of America in the Atlantic Ocean. More than 50 years later he tells the story of how he had to fight hard to get the scientific world to take notice of his discovery. He also tells Alex Collins about when plastics in oceans went viral. (Photo: Plastic fl...

In February 2012, Diana Burkot and other members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot protested inside Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour against the church and its support for Russian president Vladimir Putin. Some members were arrested and put on a trial which made the news inside Russia and around the world. Diana kept her participation in the protest secret and avoided going to prison. S...

After the 1973 military coup in Chile, Miguel Enriquez led resistance against the dictatorship. The secret police were ordered to track him down and assassinate him. His wife Carmen Castillo remembers the day in October 1974 when she was six months pregnant and the military finally caught up with one of Chile’s most wanted men. Carmen tells her story to Jane Chambers. (Picture: Admiral Toribio Mer...

On 6 January 1992, the US Government ordered a suspension of all procedures involving silicone breast implants. More than 2,000 women had complained of poor health and pain after receiving implants. Among the issues were ruptures of the implants, connective tissue diseases, and even fears of a possible link with cancer. The story raised concerns around the world. Iain Mackness talks to plastic sur...

Tété-Michel Kpomassie grew up in West Africa but he was obsessed with the Arctic. When he was 16 years old he ran away from his village in Togo determined to reach Greenland. It took him eight years but in 1965, he finally arrived. He then went north to fulfil his dream of living among the indigenous people. Years later, he wrote an award-winning account of his odyssey, An African in Greenland, wh...

In 1996, Scotland took to the field for a football World Cup qualifying tie in the Estonian capital city of Tallinn. The only problem was that there was no opposition on the other side. Paul Lambert was one of the Scottish players who had to take part in the so-called match. He has been sharing his memories of that time with Matt Pintus. (Photo: Scotland kick off the match. Credit: Getty Images)

In 1986, thousands of people gathered in the middle of Rome to protest against the opening of Italy’s first McDonalds fast food restaurant. One of the opponents to the opening of McDonalds was journalist Carlo Petrini. Soon after, he founded a new organisation called the Slow Food Movement. Its main aim was to protect traditional foods and cooking. He has been sharing his story with Matt Pintus. (...

In August 1958, the Japanese entrepreneur, Momofuku Ando, came up with the idea of a brand new food product that would change the eating habits of people across the world. In 2018, Ashley Byrne spoke to Yukitaka Tsutsui, an executive for the company founded by Ando, about the birth of the Instant Noodle. A Made in Manchester production for BBC World Service. (Photo: Momofuko Ando holding noodles....

In February 1977 the bakers of Malta went on an unprecedented strike. It sent shock waves through the Maltese people who couldn’t imagine life without their favourite food… bread. Before long the military was guarding bakeries, the panicked population had created a bread black market and local prisoners were enlisted to bake for the public. Forty-five years later Maltese cultural historian Noel Bu...

Chef Nelson Wang created his signature dish Chicken Manchurian in 1975. It was the birth of modern Indo-Chinese cuisine which went on to become hugely popular around the world. He went on to open China Garden, a Chinese restaurant in Mumbai that would draw in Bollywood's glitterati. Nelson's son Edward Wang, who is also a chef, speaks to Reena Stanton-Sharma. (Photo: Chicken Manchurian. Credit: Pa...

In 1982, rally driver Arnaldo Cavallari created ciabatta bread in Adria, in northern Italy. His family owned a flour mill and he wanted to invent a loaf to rival the French baguette. Rachel Naylor speaks to his close friend and fellow baker, Marco Vianello. (Photo: Ciabatta. Credit: Getty Images)

On 5 August 2010, 33 miners were trapped underground after a rockfall in the San José copper and gold mine in Chile. They were rescued 69 days later. Rachel Naylor speaks to one of the miners, Mario Sepúlveda, who was nicknamed Super Mario by the media. (Photo: Mario Sepúlveda, in the centre, celebrates being rescued from the mine on 13 October 2010. Credit: Rodrigo Arangua / AFP via Getty Images)

In December 1994, Russian forces began the siege of Chechnya’s capital Grozny. Dr Aslan Doukaev was a university teacher when the first Chechen war started. In this programme first broadcast in 2010 he tells Ed Butler about surviving months of conflict. (Photo: Russian soldier during the siege of Grozny. Credit: Getty Images)

In 2008, it was revealed that Colombia’s army had been executing civilians and pretending they were rebels killed in the country’s ongoing civil war. At least 4,600 innocent people were murdered in this way. They became known as the ‘false positives’. Ben Henderson speaks to Jacqueline Castillo, whose brother was one of the victims, and Carlos Mora, who was ordered to execute civilians when he was...

It is the 90th anniversary of the BBC World Service. Broadcasting to countries behind the Iron Curtain without a free or independent media between 1947 and 1991 was arguably the service’s finest hour. The corporation was on the front line of the information war as the BBC’s former Moscow correspondent Bridget Kendall recalls. Programmes such as the German Service’s Letters Without Signatures creat...

To mark the 90th anniversary of the BBC World Service, we trace the development of the Caribbean Service. Its beginnings go back to the early 1940s when the BBC’s first black producer, Una Marson was employed. She created Caribbean Voices, which gave future Nobel laureates such as Derek Walcott their first international platform. In 1969, one of the UK’s best known newsreaders, Sir Trevor McDonald...

In 2012, former Austrian paratrooper Felix Baumgartner was watched live by millions as he ascended into the stratosphere in a helium balloon. He then jumped an estimated 38km from space back to earth. In doing so, he broke the speed of sound and the highest skydive record that had lasted more than 50 years. Felix spoke to Dan Hardoon about his big leap in 2022. A Whistledown production for BBC Wor...

Slava Zaitsev was the first designer to create high fashion collections in the Soviet Union. He tells Dina Newman about the challenges he faced working under communism. This programme was first broadcast in 2018. (Photo: A sketch of a dress designed by Slava Zaitsev. Credit: Slava Zaitsev)

When Zahra Nordien was forced out of District Six in Cape Town in 1977, she vowed to one day return. She was one of the 60,000 people who were forcibly removed from the neighbourhood because of the racist South African apartheid government. What seemed like a pipe dream became a reality when Zahra set up the District Six Working Committee campaigning to get former residents into newly rebuilt home...

Shopkeeper Louisa Gould risked her life to hide a Russian prisoner who had escaped from the Nazis during the German occupation of Jersey in World War Two. She was later betrayed and died in Ravensbrück, a concentration camp, in 1945. Vicky Carter speaks to her great-niece Jenny Lecoat. (Photo: Louisa Gould. Credit: Courtesy of the Channel Islands Occupation Society (Jersey) Collection held at Jers...

In 1990, a peaceful revolution brought democracy to Mongolia after almost 70 years of Soviet backed rule. University lecturer Ganbold Davaadorj was one of the lead figures in bringing together the Mongolian people. He went on to be the first deputy prime minister of Mongolia. He shares his story with Matt Pintus. (Photo: Protestors occupy Sükhbaatar Square in 1990. Credit: Getty Images)

It’s 1994 and the BBC is looking for a brand-new children’s TV series. TV producer Anne Wood decides she’s going to make a show aimed at an audience that’s never had programmes made for it before – two and three-year-olds. She tells Melanie Stewart-Smith the fascinating story of how spacemen and technology inspired the creation of one of the most popular kids TV shows of all time, Teletubbies. (Ph...

In November 1975, the Australian Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam, was controversially sacked by an unelected official in the country's biggest constitutional crisis. Many Australians were outraged and rumours spread that Buckingham Palace was involved. It became known simply as 'The Dismissal'. Paul Kelly was a political correspondent in the Australian parliament that day. He shares his memories wit...