Witness History

In October 1973, Arab nations protested the American support of Israel in its war against Egypt and Syria by slashing oil production, causing prices to sky rocket. Dr Fadhil Chalabi was deputy secretary general of Opec (Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries). In 2014 he spoke to Alex Last about the embargo. (Picture: Empty gas pump in 1973. Credit:Getty Images) HISTORICAL ARCHIVE &...

The world's first cat cafe opened in Taipei, Taiwan, in 1998. It started with just five street cats. For the first few months they hardly had any visitors. Then a film crew made a TV programme about the cafe, and it eventually became a global tourist destination. Cat cafes have become a worldwide phenomenon. Tracy Chang, founder and owner, tells her story to Gill Kearsley.(Photo: Inside the first...

On 3 October 2013, a fishing boat taking more than 500 migrants from Libya sank 800 metres off the coast of Lampedusa, Italy’s southernmost island. It was one of the worst migrant shipwrecks on the Mediterranean Sea. As it happened so close to the shore, hundreds of dead bodies were recovered and their coffins were put on show for the world to see. The tragedy led to a joint European effort to tac...

In the early 1990s, the soap opera or telenovela craze was sweeping the world. One of the most popular was Kassandra made in Venezuela, about a girl switched at birth and raised in a travelling circus. The show was broadcast all over the world, including Bosnia. In 1997, ravaged by war, people found escape in the make-believe world of Kassandra. When supporters of Washington-backed president Billi...

On 26 September 1973, Concorde, the supersonic passenger aircraft, made her first non-stop flight across the Atlantic. The droopy-nosed plane took to the skies for the first time four years earlier. Some campaigners believed that the speed of the aircraft might damage buildings. In 2012 André Turcat, the French pilot of Concorde's first flight, spoke to Mike Lanchin.(Photo: Concorde. Credit: Getty...

In 1975, during the final days of the Vietnam War, most of the world was unaware that the North Vietnamese were advancing a new breed of nuclear reactor, gifted to the South by the United States government. Not only was it technology the North's Russian allies did not yet have, it was also a source of weapons-grade nuclear fuel. As a last resort, the US discussed bombing the facility, risking nucl...

The vuvuzela was notorious during the 2010 football World Cup. It became the subject of debate when it was labelled as 'the world's most annoying instrument'. Freddie 'Saddam' Maake claims to have invented the horn. He became known as 'Mr Vuvuzela'. He tells Gill Kearsley his story.(Photo: Football fans play vuvuzelas during a World Cup match in 2010. Credit: Jung Yeon-Je/AFP via Getty Images) HIS...

In 2013, gunmen from a Somali Islamist group known as Al-Shabab attacked a shopping centre in Kenya’s capital Nairobi. They took hundreds of people hostage during the siege which lasted four days. More than 60 people were killed, with many more injured. In 2021, Rebecca Kesby spoke to Daniel Ouma who was a paramedic on duty at the time.(Photo: A Kenyan police officer deployed near the Westgate mal...

In November 2013 George Kourounis arrived in the Turkmenistan desert. He was determined to become the first person to enter the Darvaza Crater. The crater is a burning natural gas field that has been on fire for at least 50 years and has become known as the 'Gates of Hell.'On 6 November, George put on a giant silver aluminium suit and began his descent into the crater. He says he felt like a giant...

In 1978, campaigners won their long fight to legalise abortion in Italy. Emma Bonino and other members of the Radical Party went on hunger strike and were even jailed, after helping women access illegal abortions across the country. But they faced fierce opposition in the Catholic country, as the church was heavily integrated into Italian politics. Emma Bonino was so passionate about the cause tha...

In July 1933, the new German Chancellor, Adolf Hitler, passed 'The Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases'.It required the sterilisation of Germans with physical and mental disabilities. Helga Gross was one of those sterilised. Ben Henderson uncovers archive interviews from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, recorded in 2003.(Photo: Helga Gross as a child. Credit: U...

In August 2005, an unusual orchestra performed an extraordinary concert in the city of Ramallah. The West-Eastern Divan orchestra was founded in 1999 by Israeli conductor, Daniel Barenboim and Palestinian literary critic and philosopher, Edward Said. Their belief was that music has the power to bring people together. Violinists, Tyme Khelefi and Daniel Cohen tell their stories to Gill Kearsley.(Ph...

The Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is on the site believed by Christians to be the birthplace of Jesus Christ. But in 2002, it was at the centre of one of the most dramatic sieges of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For almost six weeks, Palestinian gunmen and civilians were holed up in the church. In 2015 Louise Hidalgo spoke to Father Amjad Sabbara, a Franciscan friar who lived in the comp...

Rioting broke out in 2000 after the Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon made a controversial visit to the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s old city. In 2012, Mike Lanchin spoke to an Israeli and a Palestinian who were there that day.(Photo: Ariel Sharon is flanked by security guards as he leaves the al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Credit: AWAD AWAD/AFP via Getty Images) HISTORICAL ARCHIVE &...

In 2000, President Bill Clinton led a major effort to end the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The two sides were brought together at the leafy presidential retreat in Maryland. The Israeli leader, Ehud Barak and the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, failed to reach any agreement and the summit ended in failure. In 2017, Farhana Haider spoke to senior American diplomatic interpreter and policy advise...

In September 1993, a peace agreement was signed between Israel and the Palestinians after months of secret negotiations. The historic handshake between Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin took place on the lawn of the White House. Mona Juul and her husband were part of the team that planned and orchestrated top-secret mee...

On 11 September 1973, General Augusto Pinochet deposed Chile's President Salvador Allende in a military coup. Thousands of people were tortured and killed in the months after the coup, including the folk singer Victor Jara. His widow, Joan Jara, spoke to Gideon Long in 2013.(Photo: Victor Jara. Credit: Gems/Redferns via Getty Images) HISTORICAL ARCHIVE & EVIDENCE The original photo gallery, un...

On 11 September 1973, General Augusto Pinochet deposed Chile's democratically elected president, Salvador Allende, in a violent military coup. Hermógenes Pérez de Arce was a politician and helped organise the coup. He speaks to Jane Chambers.(Photo: Hermógenes Pérez de Arce. Credit: sourced) HISTORICAL ARCHIVE & EVIDENCE The original photo gallery, unedited witness statements, and the private...

In 2003, Swedish Foreign Minister Anna Lindh was stabbed to death in a department store in the middle of Stockholm. The 46-year-old member of the ruling Social Democratic party, was tipped as successor to Swedish Prime Minister Göran Person, and an important international career was likely around the corner. Her murder caused national trauma in Sweden. Her press secretary and best friend, Eva Fran...

In the 1980s, Bi Kidude burst onto the international music scene, when she was in her 70s. She was one of the first women from Zanzibar to sing in public without wearing the veil, in the traditional Muslim country. She was born Fatuma binti Baraka, known as Bi Kidude or "little madame" in Swahili, and fondly referred to as the "golden grandmother of music". Maryam Hamdani was one of her oldest fri...

On 14 September 2013, the Arctic Sunrise - a ship belonging to the environmental group Greenpeace - embarked on an Arctic expedition. Its aim was to disrupt the first day of drilling on a newly built oil rig. This would be the first to drill for Arctic oil - something that had only been made possible in recent years by melting ice in the region. Frank Hewetson, a Greenpeace campaigner, was on boar...

Launched in 1966 by Communist leader Mao Zedong, the Cultural Revolution plunged China into a decade of chaos. The education of millions of young people was disrupted and China was cut off from the rest of the world. When students first started venturing out, it was still a country feeling the after effects of the Cultural Revolution. Farhana Haider spoke to writer Zha Jianying in 2021. She was on...

In 2000, an expedition to the Mexican island of Guadalupe launched a fight to save its ecosystem from being eaten by goats. Russian whalers had introduced the goats to the island in the 19th Century and the population exploded as they ate their way through Guadalupe’s plants, shrubs and trees. Several species of birds were already extinct when a group of scientists, from the San Diego Natural Hist...

On 14 August 2013, Egypt's army killed hundreds of protestors in Cairo's Rabaa al-Adawiya Square. They were protesting against a military coup that had taken place a month earlier, in which the democratically elected president, Mohamed Morsi, was ousted. Sameh Elbarky was in the square that day. He speaks to Ben Henderson.(Photo: A poster of Egypt's ousted president, Mohamed Morsi, among debris in...

In June 2000, a historic meeting took place between South Korean president Kim Dae-jung and North Korea's leader Kim Jong Il. This was the first inter-Korean summit since the Korean War, almost 50 years earlier. Professor Chung-in Moon from South Korea was a special delegate at the summit. He told Gill Kearsley about his experience in North Korea.(Photo: North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and South K...