Witness History

In 1898, the British founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale, invited the Muslim leader Aga Khan III around to her London home for tea. They were two of the most famous figures of the 20th century and their discussion was wide-ranging, touching on faith, healthcare and even Queen Victoria. The Aga Khan, Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah, spoke to the BBC about the meeting in 1950. This programme wa...

In February 1981, armed Civil Guards tried to take control of the Spanish parliament. A total of 350 politicians were held hostage for 18 hours in the debating chamber including Joaquin Almunia, a young Socialist MP.In 2021, he spoke to Claire Bowes. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by and curious about the past. We take you to the events tha...

During the 1940s, a playboy spy became one of wartime’s most successful double agents, as well as the reported inspiration behind James Bond. A gambler and womanizer who spoke several languages, Dusko Popov was approached by a friend working for the Abwehr, Germany’s military intelligence. But Dusko was vehemently anti-Nazi. He went straight to the British and volunteered his services, adopting th...

In 1944, two Austrian mountaineers fled into the forbidden land of Tibet to escape from a prisoner-of-war camp in India. Heinrich Harrer and his friend Peter Aufschnaiter spent seven years there. Harrer became a tutor to the young Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader. He later wrote a famous account of his visit called Seven Years in Tibet. Simon Watts presented and produced this episode in 2016,...

Adriana Lestido, an Argentinian newspaper photographer, captured a mother and her young daughter raising their arms in protest in 1982. With clenched fists and anguished faces, they were wearing white handkerchiefs tied around their heads representing the struggle for justice for the disappeared during Argentina's military dictatorship. The photo became a symbol of the resistance and is still used...

In 1980, toxic shock syndrome (TSS) emerged as a public health crisis among women who used tampons. There were hundreds of cases, and The Centers for Disease Control linked deaths from TSS to super-absorbent tampons. The Food and Drug Administration responded by assembling a ‘Tampon Task Force’ in 1982 to develop safety standards. A researcher called Nancy King Reame was recruited to run the indep...

During World War Two, whilst Norway was occupied by Nazi Germany, a group of Norwegian sailors set up a base on the Shetland Islands and began aiding their country’s resistance. Named “The Shetland Bus” they made perilous journeys across the North Sea in fishing boats - smuggling agents, equipment and ammunition into Norway. Their most famous skipper was Leif Larsen. He made more than 50 journeys...

In November, 1966, Florence suffered one of the worst floods in its history after heavy rainfall caused the River Arno to burst. The Italian city was submerged under tons of mud, rubble and sewage, leaving thousands homeless and destroying around 14,000 art treasures, and millions of books and manuscripts. Among those who came to the rescue were the so-called ‘mud angels’ – young people from aroun...

In July 1965, a 12km tunnel dug deep beneath the Alps was opened to traffic, making it the longest vehicular tunnel in the world. Linking France and Italy, the Mont Blanc Tunnel was a remarkable feat of engineering. Franco Cuaz, a consultant on the project and the tunnel's first operations manager, spoke to Mike Lanchin in 2017 about the risks and challenges of the ambitious project. Eye-witness a...

Gina Lollobrigida was one of the biggest stars of European cinema in the 1950s and 1960s. Often described as "the most beautiful woman in the world", her films included Beat the Devil, the Hunchback of Notre Dame and Crossed Swords. She was fawned over by Howard Hughes, one of the world's richest men, and co-starred alongside the likes of Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, Rock Hudson and Errol Flynn...

In July 1989, Pink Floyd played a free concert to 200,000 people in Venice, Italy. The British rock band took to a stage made of floating barges as crowds of fans watched from boats, gondolas and rooftops. The show was also broadcast worldwide to an estimated 100 million viewers in over 20 countries. But, behind the scenes, the gig was marred by controversy. Concerns about crowd numbers and the po...

During World War Two, Italian scientist Dr Rita Levi-Montalcini was forced to do experiments in her bedroom after being banned from universities because she was Jewish. Her experiments in that bedroom laboratory on chicken embryos led to the discovery of nerve cell death. Whilst working in the United States after the war, she worked out that a protein factor was required for the growth of our nerv...

In 1971, advertising writer Roger Hargreaves's eight-year-old son Adam asked him an unusual question: 'What does a tickle look like?'Inspired, Roger got out his marker pens and created an orange character with a round body, long stretchy arms and a blue bowler hat. That character would become Mr Tickle, one of the first Mr Men books. Adam Hargreaves tells Megan Jones how his late father's children...

In 1985, government scientists discovered anti-freeze in bottles of fine Austrian wine. No one died or fell ill from drinking the poisoned wine, but the scandal nearly destroyed the country's wine-making industry. In 2015, Susan Hulme spoke to Heidi Schroek, a young Austrian wine-maker at the time. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past...

In May 2002, former US President Jimmy Carter paid a controversial visit to Cuba, which had been subject to a US trade embargo for more than 40 years. The trip culminated in a speech, broadcast live on Cuban radio and television, in which Carter called for the US to lift economic sanctions, while he encouraged President Fidel Castro to embrace democracy and uphold Cubans' civil liberties. Jennifer...

In April 1980, thousands of Cubans tried to escape the country by claiming asylum at the Peruvian embassy in Havana. In response, Cuban President Fidel Castro opened the port of Mariel to anyone who wanted to leave, including criminals. From April until October more than 100,000 Cubans left for the US. Mirta Ojito was one of them. She spoke to Simon Watts in 2011.Eye-witness accounts brought to li...

In 2007, four British servicemen perched on the wings of an Apache helicopter in Afghanistan, in an audacious mission to rescue a fallen comrade. Lance Corporal Mathew Ford was part of a unit which had attacked Jugroom Fort - a major Taliban command and control centre in Helmand Province, but he was left behind after a frantic withdrawal. Volunteers put themselves forward for a risky rescue attemp...

In September 1991, two German hikers found a dead body while walking through Europe’s Ötzal Alps. It turned out to be a perfectly preserved 5,000-year-old mummy. The archaeologist Konrad Spindler inspected the body along with the assemblage of items recovered from the gravesite. A person of this age had never been found before in such exceptional condition. They’d lived during the transition betwe...

On 10 December 1979, pro-democracy activists clashed with police in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The incident, which happened during Taiwan's martial law period, paved the way for the transition to democracy. Rachel Naylor speaks to Yao Chia-wen, who was jailed for 12 years for his involvement. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you...

In 2006, hundreds of thousands of school children in Chile took over their schools and marched in the streets, in a protest about inequality in education. It was known as the "Penguin Revolution" because of their black and white school uniforms. The students were demanding good quality education for all children, regardless of whether they were rich or poor. Grace Livingstone speaks to Karina Delf...

On 27 January 1945, prisoners at the Nazis’ largest death camp were freed by the Soviet Union’s Red Army. General Vasily Petrenko commanded one of the four units that liberated Auschwitz. The Nazis murdered 1.1 million people at Auschwitz-Birkenau between 1941 and 1945. Almost a million were Jews, 70,000 were Polish prisoners, 21,000 Roma, 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war and an unknown number of ga...

On 26 January 1926, John Logie Baird first demonstrated his 'televisor' in public. It was the prototype for television. Many people couldn't believe what they were seeing whilst others thought it was a pointless invention. In 2010, Iain Logie Baird, the inventor's grandson, spoke to Claire Bowes. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past....

On 12 January 1976, author Agatha Christie died peacefully, aged 85.She created the detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. By the time of her death, Christie had written more than 80 books. Most of her works were detective novels but she also wrote romances, short stories, poetry and plays. In 2015, Louise Hidalgo spoke to her grandson, Mathew Prichard. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by...

On 28 January 1986, a space shuttle launch went wrong. Six astronauts and a teacher, Christa McAuliffe, were killed. In 1984, US President Ronald Reagan had announced that Nasa would search for a member of the public to accompany experienced astronauts on the space shuttle Challenger. Barbara Morgan was chosen as the teacher backup and had trained alongside the Challenger team. She watched as the...

In the early hours of 30 April, 1943, the most audacious hoax of World War Two has just got underway. Its code-name - Operation Mincemeat. The body of a British Royal Marines officer, Major William Martin, has been washed up on a Spanish beach. The dead man is carrying top-secret papers revealing details of a planned Allied invasion, and it’s not long before they fall into enemy hands. But the pla...