Witness History

The story of a scientist who helped solve a Cold War mystery involving flatulent fish and Soviet submarines. During the Cold War, foreign submarines infiltrated neutral Sweden's territorial waters. In response, the Swedish navy built up a secret database of tell-tale signs to detect the presence of lurking subs and conducted high profile submarine hunts. But the country's submarine scare continued...

Over a period of four years before his death in December 2004, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, the consort and husband of former Queen Juliana, gave a series of secret interviews to two Dutch journalists, on condition that nothing was published until after his funeral. In his conversations with the reporters, the German-born Prince sought to justify a string of extra-marital affairs and a mill...

After decades of campaigning in Japan, the pill was finally legalised in 1999. In contrast the male impotency drug Viagra was approved for use in just six months, and legalised before the contraceptive pill for women. Politician Yoriko Madoka pushed hard for the right to take the pill and told Rebecca Kesby that sexism and male dominance in Parliament is why it took so long. (Photo: A collection o...

How a group of broadcasters and social workers in the UK set up the world’s first 24-hour telephone counselling service for children. It revealed just how widespread child abuse was in Britain. Esther Rantzen was the TV presenter behind Childline, and she has been speaking to Laura FitzPatrick about how it got started. Photo: Esther Rantzen on the day Childline was launched in 1986. Credit: Childl...

The only part of the British Isles to be occupied during World War Two was liberated when the German army surrendered in May 1945. The Channel Islands are situated just off the coast of France, and yet even after the Allies had invaded the French coast, they remained under German occupation. Barbara Frost was 17 years old when liberation came. She has been telling Robbie Wojciechowski about life u...

On the 8th of May 1945, hundreds of thousands of Londoners took to the streets to celebrate the end of the Second World War in Europe. BBC correspondents captured the scenes of joy across the city - from the East End to Piccadilly Circus. This programme is made up of material from the BBC Archives recorded on VE Day in 1945. Producer: Simon Watts Photo: Londoners dancing on VE Day (Getty Images)

After Germany's surrender to Allied forces in May 1945 Soviet soldiers occupied the German capital Berlin. For ordinary German citizens it was a time of fear and uncertainty. The city had been reduced to rubble and for women in particular, the presence of Soviet troops was terrifying. In 2011 one German woman told her story of rape by a Red Army soldier to Steve Evans. This programme is a rebroadc...

Hear the eyewitness account of a female Russian soldier and a German schoolboy who fought on opposing sides in the final, brutal battle for the capital of Nazi Germany. The fall of the city to Soviet forces led to the end of the Second World War in Europe in May 1945. Photo: A Soviet soldier running during a street battle in Berlin, late April 1945 (Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty I...

The German leader Adolf Hitler killed himself on April 30th 1945. He had taken shelter in a bunker beneath his government headquarters as the Red Army closed in on Berlin. Louise Hidalgo has gathered firsthand accounts of his death from the BBC's archives.

An exhibition about the role of the German army the Wehrmacht during the Second World War caused a scandal when it launched in Hamburg in March 1995. “War of Annihilation: Crimes of the Wehrmacht 1941-1944” was a key moment in Germany’s reassessment of its Nazi past – but it was highly controversial. Lucy Burns speaks to curator Hannes Heer. Picture: Jewish forced labourers serving the Wehrmacht i...

When an atomic bomb was detonated over the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945, hundreds of thousands of people were killed and injured. Despite many survivors believing nothing would grow in the city for decades, 170 trees survived close to the epicentre and are still growing 75 years later. Green Legacy Hiroshima is a project which sends seedlings from those trees around the world, spreading a me...

A boom in demand for sea cucumbers in Asia in the 1990s set off a confrontation between fishermen and conservationists in the waters off the Galapagos islands, where the protein-rich sea creature was found in abundance. The high price being paid for the sea cucumbers led to a gold rush on the South American archipelago, a chain of 21 islands home to many unique wild-life species. Mike Lanchin has...

The UN's first Middle East mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte, was assassinated in Jerusalem in 1948. A Swedish diplomat and member of the Swedish royal family, Count Bernadotte was killed by Jewish extremists four months after being appointed to try to bring peace to what was already proving to be one of the most intractable conflicts in the world. Louise Hidalgo has been talking to his son, Bertil...

In 1957 a new strain of flu emerged in East Asia and quickly spread around the world, killing a million people. It was dubbed the "Asian flu" but it spread to Europe and North and South America. Gabriela Jones has been listening to archive news reports from the time and speaking to Sumi Krishna who was nine years old when she caught the virus in India in 1957. Photo: Americans worried about "Asian...

Nancy Iskandar is a magician, snake dancer, former sex worker, committed Muslim and long-time campaigner for transgender women’s rights in Indonesia. Josephine Casserly talks to her about the fight for transgender women to be accepted into Indonesian society in the 1970s and 1980s. Photo: Nancy Iskandar. Credit: BBC

The great American playwright gave several interviews to the BBC over the years and some of them provide revealing insights into his personal life. He spoke about loneliness, mental illness and even touched on his own homosexuality at a time when very few people were open about those things in public. Vincent Dowd has been delving through the BBC archive. Photo: Tennessee Williams in London in 196...

In 1970 a modern portable ventilator system was designed for use in intensive care units. The Brompton Manley’s designer was Dr Ian English a gifted anaesthetist who worked at the Royal Brompton, a specialist London hospital that treated patients with heart and lung disorders. Farhana Haider has been speaking to Margaret Branthwaite, a doctor who worked with Dr English, about how innovative the ne...

Abdul Sattar Edhi built one of the biggest welfare charities in the world. He started with a small pharmacy in Karachi dispensing free medication to the poor in the 1950s. His wife Bilquis Edhi shared his passion for charity and together they built more than 300 health clinics, trained thousands of nurses, took care of tens of thousands of orphans and set up a nationwide ambulance service. Bilquis...

The last surviving person to be captured in Africa in the 19th century and brought to United States on a slave ship, has been identified as a woman called Matilda McCrear, who died in Alabama in 1940. Sean Coughlan has spoken to the historian Hannah Durkin who uncovered Matilda's extraordinary life story and to Matilda's grandson, Johnny Crear. Photo: Matilda McCrear in later years. Copyright: Joh...

On 20th April 2010, a deadly explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico left 11 people dead. As the rig sank, the riser pipe connecting the platform to the oil well ruptured and began spewing vast amounts of crude oil into the sea. The broken pipe lay near the sea bed, 5000ft down. The well's operators, BP, tried and failed to stem the flow of oil. Soon a huge oil slick...

Michael Foale was on board the Mir space station when a resupply vessel crashed into it in June 1997. It was the worst collision in the history of space flight and it sent Mir spinning out of control. Michael was one of the three astronauts who had to try to repair the damage and get the space station back on course. In 2016 he told Alex Last about their ordeal. This programme is a rebroadcast. Ph...

In 1979 the world held its breath as the American space station Skylab, re-entered the Earth's atmosphere. NASA tried desperately to control Skylab's descent, but large fragments hit south-west Australia instead of falling into the sea. Simon Watts heard from two residents of Esperance, a remote coastal town which bore the brunt of the impact. (Image: Saturn V giant booster used for all the Apollo...

In 1972 the American space agency NASA carried out its final Moon mission. One of the three astronauts on board was geologist Harrison Schmitt. In 2012 he spoke to Louise Hidalgo about those moonwalks, and the discoveries they made. Photo credit: Harrison Schmitt/Science Photo Library.

The touchscreen smartphone changed mobile technology for ever. It was unveiled on January 9th 2007 by the Apple boss Steve Jobs. Within a few years smartphones had changed the way billions of people lived their lives. Ashley Byrne has been speaking to Andy Grignon a senior developer on the project. (Photo: Steve Jobs at the iPhone launch in San Francisco in 2007. Credit: David Paul Morris/Getty Im...

Five 'aquanauts' became the first women to front a mission for America's space agency, Nasa, in 1970. But their mission was underwater rather than in space. They spent two weeks being continuously monitored on camera in an undersea habitat. When they emerged from the experiment they were given a ticker tape parade and invited to the White House. Laura FitzPatrick has been speaking to Alina Szmant...