Witness History

Ten years ago, Syrian government soldiers surrounded Darayya, a suburb of Damascus, bombing buildings and searching for people opposed to President Assad. Hundreds of people died over four days. Mohamad Zarda was there and has been speaking to Laura Jones. This episode contains descriptions of violence. (Image shows a Syrian government tank in Darayya in 2016 during the four year siege. Credit: Ge...

In 1997, Bulgaria was in financial meltdown with hyperinflation making money in the country worth a lot less. Bulgaria had emerged out of communism following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989. Like other post-Soviet regimes in eastern Europe, the country found the transition from communism to capitalism harder than expected. The President of Bulgaria, Petar Stoyanov, knew he had to do something...

In August 1941, one of the greatest poets India has ever produced died. Known as the "Bard of Bengal", Rabindranath Tagore was the first non-European to win a Nobel Prize for Literature. Farhana Haider spoke to Professor Bashabi Fraser, Director of the Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies, in 2017. Photo: June 1921, Indian poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore in London. Credit: Getty Images

In May 1964 India's first prime minister and the man who led India to independence, Jawaharlal Nehru, died. On the 50th anniversary of his death in 2014, Nehru's niece, the writer Nayantara Sahgal, shared memories of her famous uncle with Louise Hidalgo. Photo: Indira Gandhi paying her respects at the body of her father, Jawaharlal Nehru.(AFP/Getty Images)

The daughter of the last British Viceroy in India, Lord Mountbatten, remembers the transfer of power in 1947. Lady Pamela Hicks accompanied her father as he attended celebrations in both Karachi and Delhi. She remembers encounters both with Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founding father of Pakistan, and Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India. Lady Hicks spoke to Louise Hidalgo i...

The partition of India led to millions of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs fleeing their homes during horrific religious violence. This is the second of two programmes remembering that time. Lucy Williams spoke to Chandra Joashi, was only 12-years-old when his family was caught on the wrong side of the dividing line. This episode was first broadcast in 2010. Photo: Millions of families became refugees af...

The partition of India led to millions of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs fleeing their homes amid horrific violence. This is the first of two programmes remembering that time. Listen to the story of Saleem, who was only five-years-old when his family tried to escape to the new Muslim country of Pakistan. This programme was first broadcast in 2010. Photo: Wrecked buildings after communal riots in Amrits...

In June 1973, the nightclub Pacha opened in Ibiza. Other clubs with the capacity to fit thousands of people on the dancefloor opened in the years after, turning Ibiza into a destination for music and party lovers from around the world. Vicky Carter speaks to Carlos Martorell who organised Pacha’s opening party and Francis Van Orden, a Dutch hippy who danced all night on the opening night. (Photo:...

Hale Bopp is one of the most widely observed comets of the 20th century. Its discovery in 1995 resulted in huge advances in science. Russell Crewe spoke to astronomer Dr Alan Hale who discovered the comet alongside Tom Bopp. This is a Made in Manchester production for the BBC World Service. (Photo: Hale Bopp Comet in the night sky. Credit: Getty Images)

Twenty five years ago in Indonesia, some of the worst forest fires in history devastated the environment and resulted in a smog which engulfed South East Asia for months. The fires, which were set deliberately, burned out of control for months. Mesdiono Matali Samad, known as Memes, worked on the Indonesian Red Cross relief effort helping people in East Kalimantan, Borneo. He's been speaking to La...

Sweden has a long history of championing LGBTQ+ rights. But campaigners spent years battling to get the gender-neutral personal pronoun ‘hen’ included in Swedish dictionaries. The word was finally added in 2015. Maddy Savage spoke to Nasim Aghili from the "queer" art collective Ful, which rallied to get the word recognised. This is a Bespoken Media production for the BBC World Service. (Photo: Nas...

On 8 August 1974 Richard Nixon became the first US president in history to resign from office, following the Watergate scandal. In 2014, Farhana Haider spoke to journalist Tom DeFrank, who watched the drama unfold minute by minute. (Photo: Nixon announces his resignation on national television. Credit: Getty Images)

When President Yoweri Museveni came to power in 1986, he encouraged exiled Asians to return to Uganda and reclaim their homes and businesses to help rebuild the country. The economy had collapsed under the dictator Idi Amin after he expelled the Asian population in 1972. Dr Mumtaz Kassam went back to Uganda years after arriving in the UK as a refugee. She talks to Reena Stanton-Sharma about return...

Thousands of Asians who were expelled from Uganda in 1972, settled in the UK and many made Leicester their home. Their arrival in the East Midlands helped to shape its identity and now Leicester plays host to the largest Diwali celebrations outside of India. Nisha Popat was nine-years-old when she arrived in the city with her family who later opened up a restaurant in the area that became known as...

In 1972, the dictator Idi Amin announced that all Asians had just 90 days to leave Uganda. Teacher Nurdin Dawood, who had a young family, didn't at first believe that Amin was serious. But soon he was desperately searching for a new country to call home. Farhana Dawood spoke to her father Nurdin Dawood in 2011. This programme contains descriptions of racial discrimination. Caption: President of Ug...

Many South Asians migrated to Kenya in the early 20th century. They lived in a society divided by race and experienced discrimination from the white rulers, and after Independence, from black Kenyans too. Saleem Sheikh’s parents fled South Asia for Kenya to escape the violence of partition. His family joined a thriving Asian community there. But, they were forced to leave in 1967 after a rise in v...

In the early 20th century, South Asians migrated to Uganda in search of a better life. Jamie Govani’s grandparents married in Gujarat, India, in the 1920s. They were excited by the economic prospects in Uganda so they moved there with their young family. Jamie told Ben Henderson how it was a wonderful place to grow up, but racial segregation lingered in the background, and things began to change a...

In 1971, young communist Bob Newland left the UK and headed to South Africa to take part in a secret mission to support the African National Congress. Known as one of the London Recruits, he took gunpowder from the UK to make bombs that would scatter leaflets on the streets containing information that a post Apartheid South Africa was possible. Bob has been speaking to Alex Collins.

On 28 July 1976, one of the deadliest earthquakes in modern history hit the city of Tangshan in north-eastern China - killing hundreds of thousands of people. Lucy Burns spoke to eye-witness Yu Suyun in 2016. (Photo: A building in Tangshan after the earthquake. Credit: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)

By the 1990s, nicotine patches became commercially available all over the world but their origins go back to the early 1980s, when Dr Daniel Rose suggested to his brother Professor Jed Rose, to look into creating a nicotine patch. The idea turned into an invention with the help of Murray Jarvik. Professor Rose tells his story to Ashley Byrne. A Made in Manchester production for BBC World Service....

In 2016, Ukrainian hackers leaked thousands of emails belonging to Russian President Vladimir Putin's right hand man, Vladislav Surkov. They provided a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the Kremlin and fresh insight into the invasion in Ukraine. Rachel Naylor speaks to Alya Shandra, the journalist who read them all. (Photo: Vladislav Surkov in 2008. Credit: DMITRY ASTAKHOV/AFP/Getty Images)

In 1990, Ukrainian students went on a hunger strike that helped bring down the Soviet regime there. It took place in Kyiv’s central square and inspired later protests against Russian influence in Ukraine: the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2014 Maidan Revolution. The granite floor of the square provided its name: the ‘Revolution on Granite’. Ben Henderson spoke to Oksana Zabuzhko, an award-winning...

In 1996, sitcom Papa Ajasco first hit Nigerian TV screens. Following the ups and downs of the Ajasco family – it quickly became one of the most successful TV shows in Nigerian history. Alex Collins speaks to its creator Wale Adenuga ( photo - The cast of Papa Ajasco - credit Wale Adenuga.)

The most successful TV spy series ever to be broadcast in the USSR, went on air in 1973. The central character was a Soviet secret agent in Nazi Germany, Max Otto von Stierlitz. In 2017, Dina Newman spoke to actor Eleonora Shashkova who played Stierlitz's wife. (Photo: the script-writer Julian Semenov (l) and actor Vyacheslav Tikhonov, who played Stierlitz (r), on set in Moscow in 1972. Credit: co...

Dallas was already a hit American TV series in 1980. But when its leading man, JR, was shot, the reaction worldwide was extraordinary. Claire Bowes spoke to Larry Hagman, who played JR, in 2010. (Picture: Larry Hagman leaning out of a car window. Credit: Getty Images)