Witness History

Martín Chambi is regarded as one of the most important indigenous Peruvian photographers of the 20th century. Famous for his black and white images of local Andean people and the surrounding countryside, Chambi’s work challenged preconceptions of Peruvian culture and traditions. In 1924 he was among the first to photograph Machu Picchu – his work helping to shape the way Peru is seen around the wo...

J. D. 'Okhai Ojeikere, who was known as Nigeria’s top photographer, started documenting women’s hairstyles in 1968. He built up a portfolio of around 2,000 negatives revealing the elaborate ways African women styled their hair through his series of black and white photos. A selection of his 'Hairstyles' prints was displayed at the Venice Biennale in 2013. Reena Stanton-Sharma speaks to his son Ama...

In 1932, a photo was taken showing 11 New York ironworkers casually eating their lunch while sitting on a steel beam at the top of a skyscraper. No safety harnesses, no helmets. Their legs dangled freely over the death-defying drop. 'Lunch atop a Skyscraper' is now one of the most famous pictures in the world but it's an image surrounded in mystery. For years, the identity of its photographer and...

In the 1940s, some vulnerable Swedish hospital patients were fed large amounts of sugary sweets as part of an experiment to see what it would do to their teeth. Researchers considered the study a success as it led to new recommendations for children to eat sweets just once a week. In the 1990s, the unethical aspects of the experiment emerged when Elin Bommenel became the first researcher to gain a...

In 2013, Mexico’s government approved a tax on sugary soft drinks. The country has one of the highest rates of fizzy drink consumption in the world. Some rural homes do not have access to safe drinking water and a third of schools do not have drinking water. Consequently, carbonated drinks would be sold in schools across the country. Grace Livingstone speaks to Dr Simon Barquera, director of healt...

On 14 May 1955, the leader of the Soviet Union and leaders from seven European countries met to sign the Warsaw Pact. In the years following World War Two, the Soviet Union and the United States started the worldwide Cold War. While Western powers feared the spread of communism, the Soviets worried about US atomic bombs. What resulted was the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NA...

By 1915, the two great rivals, Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison, had brought electricity to the world. It was reported that they were set to share the Nobel Prize for Physics, but it never happened. In 2011, Claire Bowes spoke to Tesla’s biographer Mark Seifer and relative William Terbo. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you...

In 1980, Finnish singer Marion Rung won the Intervision Song Contest. Born in the 1960s, Intervision was the Eastern Bloc’s answer to Eurovision. It ran until 1980, although in 2025 Russia’s President Vladimir Putin ordered its revival. Finland, which maintained neutrality during the Cold War, was one of the few countries to participate in both competitions. Marion Rung achieved top 10 Eurovision...

In May 2015, when the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria was about to fall to jihadist fighters, a group of men risked their lives to load centuries-old artefacts from the city’s museum onto trucks and drive them to safety. Before their advance to Palmyra, members of the group that called itself Islamic State had already been filmed for social media smashing statues that dated back to religious life...

The end of the Second World War in Europe came on 8 May 1945, after more than five years of conflict. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill announced that people could allow themselves "a brief period of rejoicing". Crowds in their thousands gathered outside Whitehall and Buckingham Palace. BBC correspondents, including Richard Dimbleby, capture the scenes of joy across the city - from the East...

On 7 May 1915, the British ocean liner, the Lusitania, was sunk by a German submarine off the Irish coast, as it sailed from New York to Liverpool. Thousands of passengers were onboard and 1,200 people died. The attack helped turn American opinion against Germany. In 2015, Alex Last used BBC archives to tell the story. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those f...

In 1955, entrepreneur and engineer Yoshitada Minami came up with a way to liberate women from two to three hours of housework a day. When his water-heating business started losing sales, he was tasked with inventing an automatic rice cooker – something which the men in the home appliances industry didn’t take seriously. With little knowledge of how to make the perfect rice, he turned to the unsung...

In April 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI following the death of Pope John Paul II.The new leader of the Catholic Church was elected after four ballots of the papal conclave. The late Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor was one of 115 cardinals who took part. He spoke to Rebecca Kesby in 2013.Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinat...

In 1998, the Snake game made its debut on mobile phones. It is known for its simple yet addictive gameplay and played a major role in popularising mobile gaming. Taneli Armanto is the man responsible for bringing it to our phones, but he only got the task because of mistaken identity. He tells Gill Kearsley the story behind the game that made millions of people not want to put down their phones. E...

On 1 May 2004, the European Union went through its biggest ever enlargement. 10 countries joined including eight from the former Soviet Union’s sphere of influence. For some, it was the moment the Eastern Bloc threw off the shackles of the Cold War and embraced a prosperous future in the EU. For others, it was the moment European countries lost control of their borders, leading to mass migration....

During the Vietnam War, North Vietnamese VietCong guerrillas built a vast network of tunnels in the south of the country as part of the insurgency against the South Vietnamese government and their American allies. The tunnel network was a key base and shelter for the North Vietnamese army in their victory in the war in 1975. In 2017 Alex Last spoke to Le Van Lang, a Viet Cong veteran who helped co...

When South Vietnam fell to communist forces in 1975, most could not escape. In the last days, the United States airlifted its remaining personnel and some high-ranking Vietnamese officials - but millions were left behind to await their fate. In 2021 Alex Last spoke to one South Vietnamese veteran who remained in Saigon as North Vietnamese forces took the city. Dr Tran Xuan Dung served as a doctor...

In the late 1970s, Vietnam was one of the poorest countries in the world. Its economy had been destroyed by war with the USA, a trade embargo, and the communist government's restriction of private enterprise. So, at the Vietnam Communist Party’s 6th National Congress in December 1986, radical economic reforms were introduced, known as Doi Moi, meaning ‘renovation’. The reforms transformed the coun...

On 30 April 1945 Adolf Hitler killed himself in a bunker in the German capital Berlin as Soviet Red Army soldiers closed in. But first he married his lover Eva Braun, and dictated his will. In 1989, Traudl Junge, one of Hitler’s secretaries who was in the bunker when he died, shared her testimony with Zina Rohan. This episode was first broadcast in 2013.Eye-witness accounts brought to life by arch...

In September 1987, Othello was staged at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg during the apartheid regime in South Africa. The Immorality Act, which banned sexual relationships between white people and non-white people, had been repealed in 1985. But the Shakespeare play was controversial, especially the scene where the black actor, John Kani, kissed the white actress playing his wife. The play was...

Forty years ago, on 23 April 1985, Coca-Cola decided to change the secret formula of its fizzy drink, in a bid to be market leaders. They launched a new flavour called ‘New Coke’. But, after a public backlash and thousands of angry calls, bosses were forced to act and bring back the old recipe. In 2011, author Mark Pendergrast spoke to Alan Johnston about the change. Eye-witness accounts brought t...

An 18-second clip of a young man standing in front of an elephant enclosure at San Diego Zoo in California, describing their “really long trunks” was the first video to be posted onto YouTube in April 2005.It was uploaded by co-founder Jawed Karim, who with friends Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, cooked up the idea for the video-sharing service while working together at PayPal. Twenty years later, it...

In April 1944, the Allies planned Exercise Tiger to practise their landing on France's Normandy beaches ahead of D-Day. During the rehearsal, a German fleet attacked, sinking two allied ships. Around 749 US servicemen died. The Allies’ military leaders ordered troops not to discuss the disaster because they didn’t want to damage morale or give away the D-Day plans. So, Exercise Tiger was largely f...

In November 1995, a proposal of having an annual day focused on celebrating books was put forward at the UNESCO conference in Paris. The idea came from a long-established Spanish celebration ‘The Day of Books and Roses’.The first World Book Day was on 23 April 1996.Although some countries now celebrate World Book Day on different dates, it’s marked on 23 April in the majority of countries. Pere Vi...

Fifty years after the start of the genocide that wiped out a quarter of its eight million population, Cambodia remains one of the most heavily landmined countries in the world. More than 65,000 people have been killed or injured by explosive devices since the end of the conflict – and almost one million still live in areas affected by the remnants of war. Aki Ra was one of thousands of child soldi...