Witness History

In 2012, archaeologists from the University of Leicester discovered the lost grave of King Richard III under a car park in Leicester in the English East Midlands. Richard was the King of England more than 500 years ago and for centuries was portrayed as one of the great villains of English history. He was killed in 1485 leading his army in battle against a rival claimant to the throne, Henry Tudor...

Queen Elizabeth II's Coronation in 1953 was a watershed moment for television as millions watched the ceremony live. But it nearly never happened as the UK Government initially refused to allow TV cameras inside Westminster Abbey. The late Peter Dimmock, the BBC’s former head of outside broadcasts, looks back on the challenges the corporation faced. Former maid of honour Lady Jane Rayne Lacey also...

The Met Gala takes place annually on the first Monday in May. In 1995, Vogue’s editor-in-chief Anna Wintour chaired the huge fashion celebration for the first time that takes place at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Anna changed the date of the celebrity bash from December to May and is the driving force that transformed the event from a society dinner to the star-studded affair labelled “f...

On 26 April 1998 leading human rights campaigner, Bishop Juan Gerardi, was attacked and killed in his home, just two days after presenting the conclusions of a major investigation into abuses committed during Guatemala’s civil war. Bishop Gerardi’s report blamed the country’s military and paramilitary forces for the deaths of most of the 50,000 civilians killed during the conflict. Ronalth Ochaeta...

James Watson and Francis Crick first published their discoveries about the structure of DNA on 25 April 1953.Their findings were to revolutionise our understanding of life. We hear archive recordings of their memories, 70 years on. This programme, presented by Louise Hidalgo, was first broadcast in 2010.(Photo: James Watson and Francis Crick. Credit: Getty Images) HISTORICAL ARCHIVE & EVIDENCE...

In 1966, the artist Althea McNish designed fabrics for the Queen's tour of the West Indies when she visited Trinidad and Tobago. Althea, who was born in Trinidad and moved to England in 1950, had her vibrant designs turned into the Queen's dresses and they were even used for curtains and cushions for the royal residence. Rose Sinclair, a lecturer in textile design at Goldsmiths, University of Lond...

In 1994, Russian conceptual artist Oleg Kulik posed naked, pretending to be a guard dog, attacking passers by in Moscow. He was protesting conditions in post-Soviet Russia. He claimed Russians had lost their ability to relate to each other, and were reduced to living like animals. In this programme, first broadcast in 2014, Dina Newman speaks to Kulik about his protest performance, which made him...

In 1944, Bill Wynne who was serving with the U.S. Army during World War II, adopted a tiny Yorkshire terrier called Smoky. When Bill caught dengue fever and was sent to hospital, his friends brought Smoky to see him. Soon the nurses were taking Smoky to visit other patients who had been wounded in the Biak Island invasion. She had a powerful healing effect on the soldiers and is believed to be one...

After the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001, a New York guide dog called Roselle was hailed as a hero for helping her owner safely down 78 flights of stairs and away from the Twin Towers before they collapsed. In this programme, first broadcast in 2017, Simon Watts speaks to Roselle's owner, Michael Hingson. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the...

In 1989, Australian dog breeder Wally Conron was tasked with finding a suitable dog for a blind woman in Hawaii whose husband was allergic to pet hair. By breeding together a poodle and a Labrador, he inadvertently created the world’s first ever labradoodle. More than three decades on, Wally believes he created Frankenstein’s monster. He has been sharing his memories of Sultan the labradoodle with...

Laika the Russian stray was the first dog to orbit the Earth. She was sent into space on a flight in 1957 which had been timed to mark the anniversary of the Russian Revolution. She died after orbiting Earth four times. Professor Victor Yazdovsky's father was in charge of the dogs in the Russian space programme. In 2017, Professor Yazdovsky spoke to Olga Smirnova about playing with Laika, before h...

The BBC’s Richard Dimbleby was the first reporter to enter the liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. His report describing the unimaginable horror he found was for many listeners around the world the first time they had heard the truth of what it was like to have endured life and death under the Nazis. An estimated 70,000 people died in the camp. The broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby reflects on...

On 15 April 2013, brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev set off two bombs at the Boston Marathon and killed three people. After the attack they disappeared, only to resurface three days later in the quiet city of Watertown, Massachusetts. The local police force were dispatched to catch the terrorists. An eight-minute gun fight followed, and pressure cooker bombs were hurled down the street at of...

In 1990, archaeologist Richard Wright flew half way around the world to unearth a mass grave in Sernyky, Ukraine as part of an Australian Nazi war crimes investigation. The site contained more than 500 bodies of Jewish people who had been killed in a mass execution. Richard's findings were used in the war crimes trial of Ivan Polyukhovich. He had fled to Australia after World War Two. Decades late...

In 1970, American architecture student Gary Anderson won a competition, to mark the first Earth Day on 22 April, to design a logo for recycled paper products. His design of three arrows in a triangle shape remains in the public domain and is now used to mean recycling around the world. He spoke to Rachel Naylor.(Photo: Rubbish for recycling on a doorstep for collection. Credit: Getty Images) HISTO...

Emperor Tewodros II is one of the towering figures of modern Ethiopian history. He tried to unify and modernise Ethiopia but his reign was also marked by brutality. He faced a rising tide of rebellion inside the country and then in 1868 a British military expedition marched into the Ethiopian highlands. Its aim was to free British diplomatic envoys the Emperor had imprisoned. Tewodros II made a la...

On 22 May 1998, a referendum was held in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland asking voters if they supported the Good Friday Agreement. In both, the majority of the electorate voted in favour of adopting the peace deal. Rachel Naylor speaks to Jane Morrice, from the Yes campaign, and Lee Reynolds, from the No campaign.(Photo: A poster in Belfast ahead of the referendum. Credit: Gerry Penn...

In 2001, Colombian born choreographer Beto Perez created Zumba, a fitness craze which would go on to become a global phenomenon. The aerobic workout was inspired by Latin dance moves including Merengue and Salsa, and it was all created by accident. Now classes are held in 185 countries from Indonesia to Iceland, and 15 million people take part each week according to the company. Beto Perez shares...

In 1982, a Japanese businessman unveiled one of the tallest statues in the world called the World Peace Giant Kannon in Awaji Island, Japan. At 100 metres tall, the statue was visible from all across the island. Despite healthy visitor numbers when it first opened, the statue fell into disrepair and locals believed it was haunted. Emily Finch speaks to local resident Yusuke Natsukawa about the imp...

In 1989, a picnic was held on the border between Austria and Hungary, as a demonstration for peace and European integration. It prefigured the end of the Cold War and the Soviet Union and finished with hundreds of East Germans escaping to the West through the Iron Curtain. In 2011, Rob Walker spoke to one of the organisers, Walburga Habsburg Douglas.(Picture: A leaflet from the Pan European picnic...

In 2002, the Eritrean government extended its programme of compulsory national service to make it open-ended. Instead of serving 18 months as the government had originally decreed, most students finishing secondary school would be conscripted and forced to remain in government service indefinitely - either serving in the army or in civilian jobs. The Eritrean government said conscription was neces...

A Brief History of Time, the best-selling book written by the renowned theoretical physicist Prof Stephen Hawking, was published in March 1988.In this programme first broadcast in 2018, Louise Hidalgo talks about physics, existence and the universe that made the book so popular. The editor who published it, Peter Guzzardi, is her guest. (Picture: Prof Stephen Hawking. Credit: Getty Images) HISTORI...

On 11 June 1997, French software engineer Philippe Kahn shared the first ever photo from a mobile phone. It was of his newborn daughter, Sophie. He created a prototype of a camera phone by connecting his digital camera to his flip phone and his laptop. He speaks to Rachel Naylor.(Photo: Baby Sophie. Credit: Philippe Kahn) HISTORICAL ARCHIVE & EVIDENCE The original photo gallery, unedited witne...

In November 1975, Vietnamese Navy commander Minh Nguyen, left behind his macho military life and retrained as a manicurist. He migrated from Vietnam to the United States during the fall of Saigon. He went on to open a beauty school in Little Saigon, California and encouraged thousands of Vietnamese refugees to become nail technicians. Today, more than 40,000 students have graduated from Minh’s bea...

The city of Bengaluru in southern India, previously called Bangalore, is renowned for its huge technology companies and buzzy start-up culture. But, 50 years ago it was a technological backwater. Entrepreneurs like Narayana Murthy, the founder of Infosys, which is one of India’s biggest tech companies, were right at the heart of the city’s remarkable transformation into India’s Silicon Valley. He...