Witness History

In October 1975, 90% of women in Iceland took part in a nationwide protest over inequality. Factories and banks were forced to close and men were left holding the children as 25,000 women took to the streets. In 2015, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, later Iceland's first female president, told Kirstie Brewer about the impact of that day.(Photo: Women take to the streets. Credit: The Icelandic Women's Histo...

In the 1950s, Soviet scientist Dr Vladimir Demikhov shocks the world with his two-headed dog experiments. He grafts the head and paws of one dog onto the body of another. One of his creations lives for 29 days. He wants to prove the possibilities of transplant surgery, which was a new field of medicine at the time. Consultant cardiothoracic surgeon, Igor Konstantinov, tells Vicky Farncombe about t...

In 1972, a food supplement used by soldiers during the Nigerian civil war was turned into a popular malt drink by a brewery in the Danish town of Faxe. It was called Supermalt and it became so popular that the Nigerian government decided to ban all imports of malt into the country. Peter Rasmussen created the drink and he has been sharing his memories with Matt Pintus.(Photo: Supermalt. Credit: Ro...

Gort in the west of Ireland is known by the nickname ‘Little Brazil’ because it’s home to so many Brazilians. They first came to Ireland in the late 1990s to work in the town’s meat factory. Lucimeire Trindade was just 24-years-old when she and three friends arrived in the town, unable to speak a word of English or Irish. Nearly 25 years later, Lucimeire considers Gort her true home. She tells Vic...

The Juliet Club is in Verona, Italy, a place known throughout the world as being the city of love. The club has been replying to mail addressed to Shakespeare’s tragic heroine, Juliet since the early 1990s. The story of the Juliet letters started in the 1930s when the guardian of what is known as Juliet’s tomb began gathering the first letters people left at the grave and answering them. The task...

When wealthy newspaper heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped by far-left militants in February 1974, America saw her as a victim. But two months later, she announced she had decided to join the group. Soon, she was accompanying it on an attempted bank robbery. In 2010, Louise Hidalgo spoke to Carol Pogash, a journalist who followed the story.(Photo: Patty being led to her trial. Credit: Bettmann/Gett...

In 1940 a daring rescue operation began to help Allied servicemen escape from Nazi-occupied France. French resistance fighter Roland Lepers was among those who guided stranded Allied soldiers and airmen to neutral Spain during World War Two. The 1,000 km route became known as the Pat O’Leary Escape Line - or the Pat Line. It’s estimated 7,000 Allied personnel escaped through this route and similar...

In 1973, a fashion show was held in France which became known as the Battle of Versailles, a duel between designs from modern America and the capital of couture, Paris. Five American designers, including Oscar de la Renta and Halston, were invited to show their work alongside five of France’s biggest names, including Yves Saint Laurent and Hubert de Givenchy. The aim was to raise money to help res...

Rosa Parks was brought up in Alabama during the Jim Crow era, when state laws enforced segregation in practically all aspects of daily life. Public schools, water fountains, trains and buses all had to have separate facilities for white people and black people. As a passionate civil rights activist, Rosa was determined to change this. In December 1955, she was travelling home from the department s...

Lucha Reyes was one of Peru’s greatest singers. She was born into poverty in 1936 and fought terrible health problems and racism throughout her life. But it didn’t stop her becoming a star of Peruvian Creole music - a fusion of waltzes, Andean and Afro-Peruvian styles. In the early 1970s she recorded hits including Regresa and Tu Voz. One of the few black Peruvian celebrities of her era, she was a...

In March 2002, a young Nigerian Muslim woman was sentenced to death by stoning for adultery and conceiving a child out of wedlock. Amina Lawal’s case attracted huge international attention and highlighted divisions between the Christian and Muslim regions in the country. Hauwa Ibrahim, one of the first female lawyers from northern Nigeria, defended Amina and helped her secure an acquittal. The cas...

In May 1986, 16-year-old Charlotte Mensah went to work in the UK’s first luxury Afro-Caribbean hair salon, Splinters. In London’s glamorous Mayfair, Splinters had earned a world-class reputation and hosted the likes of Diana Ross. Charlotte says it looked more like a five-star hotel than a salon and that its owner, Winston Isaacs expected no less than perfection from all his staff. Now a giant of...

The first commercial internet cafe opened in London on 1 September 1994. Eva Pascoe, from Poland, is one of the founders of Cyberia. She claims that Kylie Minogue was amongst the famous visitors and learnt how to use the internet at the cafe. Eva tells Gill Kearsley the story of how cakes, computers and Kylie came together to make this new venture a success.(Photo: Surfers at the Cyberia cafe. Cre...

In January 2008, seeds began arriving at the world's first global seed vault, buried deep in a mountain on an Arctic island, 1,000km north of the Norwegian coast. The vault was built to ensure the survival of the world's food supply and agricultural history in the event of a global catastrophe. In 2019, Louise Hidalgo spoke to the man whose idea it was, Dr Cary Fowler.(Photo: Journalists and camer...

In 1980, poor rural workers set up camp on land owned by the rich at Encruzilhada Natalino in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Brazil's government sent in the army to evict them and violent clashes followed. It was a formative moment in the history of one of Latin America's biggest social movements, Brazil's Landless Workers Movement (MST). Maria Salete Campigotto was a teacher living in the camp w...

In September 1984, the Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff was summoned to Rome, facing accusations that his writing and teachings were "dangerous to the faith".He is a leading proponent of liberation theology, which says the Church should push for social equality. Leonardo was called to appear before the Roman Catholic Church’s highest tribunal. A year later, he was banned from writing, teaching o...

During the 1970s, the US and Soviet Union were engaged in the Cold War. The US, along with other Western countries, was a member of Nato, while the Soviet Union joined forces with central and eastern European countries in the Warsaw Pact. After becoming frustrated with the way the Soviets controlled his country, Ryszard Kukliński, a Polish colonel, wrote to the US Embassy in Bonn, West Germany. Fo...

The Magnificent Magyars were Hungary’s golden football team of the 1950s. But behind their shine lay a dark secret. In 1951, defender Sándor Szűcs was executed for trying to defect from the communist regime. The married centre-back had wanted to leave Hungary with his lover, singer Erzsi Kovács, who was also married. The pair had been told to end their illicit relationship or face imprisonment. Th...

In 1937, Japan invaded China committing atrocities including the Nanjing Massacre. Wang Jingwei was a Chinese national hero and second-in-command of China’s ruling Nationalist Party. He wanted to negotiate with Japan but his colleagues wouldn’t listen. So he defected, and in 1940 he agreed to lead a Japanese-controlled puppet government in Nanjing. Many Chinese have hated him ever since – his name...

In 1949, Mildred Gillars – otherwise known as Axis Sally – became the first woman in American history to be convicted of treason. The former Broadway showgirl broadcast antisemitic Nazi propaganda on German State Radio during World War Two. Her weekly shows were heard by thousands of American servicemen who gave her the nickname Axis Sally. After her capture, she denied being a traitor, but a jury...

In December 1939, fascist Norwegian politician Vidkun Quisling travelled to Berlin from Oslo for a secret meeting with Adolf Hitler. Quisling suggested to Hitler that the British were planning to move into Norway for their own strategic needs. Norway hadn’t been a concern for the Nazis but the meeting alarmed Hitler and within months Germany started its invasion of Norway. From that moment, Quisli...

In the early 2000s, a woman called Jamuna Tudu set out on a mission to protect her home state of Jharkhand's forests from India's so-called timber mafia. She inspired thousands of people to care for their natural environment and established an army of women to fight back against the illegal cutting down of trees. Her conservation efforts have led to the country's media dubbing her 'Lady Tarzan', a...

British zoologist Bob Golding turned the University of Ibadan's zoo into one of Nigeria's biggest tourist attractions in the 1970s. The zoo was famous for two gorillas he rescued from traffickers. And Bob's animal kingdom even had its own TV show. His wife, Peaches Golding, tells Ben Henderson how he did it. (Photo: Bob Golding. Credit: bobgolding.co.uk) HISTORICAL ARCHIVE & EVIDENCE The origi...

In June 2009, millions of Iranians took to the streets to protest against what they considered a rigged presidential election. The hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won 62% of the vote. All three defeated candidates disputed the results. The protests gave rise to the 'Green Movement', named after its signature colour, which opposed Ahmadinejad. Journalist Maziar Bahari was accused of being a...

On 6 November 1975, tens of thousands of Moroccans poured into Spanish Sahara in a bid to claim it for their own. They danced, waved flags and played music as they faced off, unarmed, against gun-carrying Spanish soldiers. The so-called Green March led to a diplomatic victory for Morocco's King Hassan, but sparked a guerrilla war and decades of instability. In 2013, TV cameraman Seddik Maaninou an...