Witness History
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Witness History
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 that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to...
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2106 قسمت
Hussein of Jordan: The survivor king
In 1970, King Hussein of Jordan survived after gunmen opened fire on his motorcade close to his summer palace. The king remained unharmed, but his dri...
The inspiration for Chekhov's Three Sisters
In 1897, Paul Shishkoff was 10 years old and living with his family in rural Russia.
It was there he met the great Russian playwright, Anton Che...
Picasso and the Surrealist summer
In the summer of 1937, some of the 20th Century's most famous artists, writers and photographers were holidaying in the south of France.
They i...
Mstislav Rostropovich: Virtuoso cellist
In 1978, Mstislav Rostropovich, one of the greatest cellists in history, was stripped of his Soviet citizenship for engaging in 'unpatriotic activity'...
The creation of Inspector Montalbano
On 10 March 1994, Italian author Andrea Camilleri's The Shape of Water was published.
It features Inspector Montalbano in the fictional Sicilian...
The protests that sparked the Tiananmen Square massacre
One month before the bloodshed in Beijing, a 10km line of protestors snaked through the city.
For over a decade China had been opening up to gl...
Australia's first Big Thing
In 1963, a giant Scotsman sculpture appeared outside the Scotty Motel in Adelaide, in South Australia. A banana, a koala, and even a potato soon follo...
The first Irish language television channel
In 1996, Ireland launched its first television channel broadcasting exclusively in the Irish language.
Teilifís na Gaeilge, later renamed TG4,...
Recording the Eichmann interviews
In the 1950s, Dutch journalist Willem Sassen recorded hours of interview with the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann about his involvement in the Holoca...
Filming Titanic in Mexico
In 1997, Titanic, one of the most successful films in movie history, and one of the most expensive, was made in Mexico.
The director James Cam...
I escaped Mexico's deadly gas explosion
Just before dawn, on 19 November 1984, an explosion at a gas plant in San Juanico, Mexico killed hundreds of people, injured thousands and destroyed b...
I fought for Mexico’s indigenous women to get political equality
In October 2014, indigenous women in Mexico won a landmark victory in their struggle for political rights.
It came after years of campaigning b...
Mexico: The election that ended one‑party rule
In July 2000 an historic election in Mexico saw a change of government for the first time in 71 years.
Vicente Fox of the National Action Party...
The Mexican song that captivated lovers during World War II
In 1944, as World War II was drawing to a close, the Mexican love song Besame Mucho crossed the Atlantic and became one of the most recognisable melod...
Canada's worst E.coli outbreak
In 2000, contaminated drinking water in the small Canadian town of Walkerton triggered one of the country’s worst public health disasters.
Heavy...
Montenegro votes for independence
Montenegro achieving independence from Serbia in 2006 was the final part of the break-up of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
When Krishna Menon met Stalin
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 that...
Exposing King Albert II's secret child
In 1999, a teenager's debut book unintentionally caused a royal scandal in Belgium that wouldn't be resolved for more than 20 years.
Each evenin...
Poland’s underground newspaper
In 1981, Poland's communist regime imposed martial law and the dissident Solidarity movement was suppressed.
In response, Helena Luczywo helped...
The Sami protest song that made Eurovision history
In 1980, Norway’s entry to the Eurovision Song Contest included a traditional Sami joik song from the country’s indigenous community.
It was th...
When Sweden invented the reality game show
In 1997, Sweden changed television history. That year saw the launch of Expedition Robinson, widely regarded as the world’s first reality-based compet...
Uncovering a lost burial ground in Rio
In 1996, the bricklayer renovating Merced dos Anjos’ home in Rio de Janeiro told her something strange had happened. Bones appeared as he was breaking...
The fossil that revealed the first dinosaur feathers
In 1996, a fossil unearthed in China became the first confirmed record of a dinosaur covered in feathers.
Before this discovery, some palaeontol...
Sir David Attenborough's first Zoo Quest
In 1954, the BBC broadcast a new television programme in the United Kingdom.
It was called Zoo Quest and it launched the career of a man who ha...
Africa's worst stadium disaster
On 9 May 2001, 127 people died and dozens more were injured at the Accra Stadium in Ghana.
It is Africa's worst football stadium tragedy.
...
Nuns killed in Algeria
In the early 1990s, Algeria was engulfed by a brutal civil conflict, as armed Islamist groups fought the state and civilians lived in fear. Foreigners...
The origins of World Press Freedom Day
In April 1991, journalists from 38 African countries came together in Namibia for a week-long seminar to discuss the need for a free, independent and...
The clean-up of Chernobyl
The disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, in Ukraine, on 26 April 1986, was the world’s worst nuclear accident.
The explosion in react...
Canada's war in the woods
In 1993, plans to log one of Canada’s ancient rainforests sparked the country’s largest act of civil disobedience.
It was known as the war in t...
Europe’s long drought of 2011
In 2011, after months of little or no rain in central and eastern Europe, water levels on some parts of the Danube River fell to their lowest level in...
Discovering Hans Christian Andersen's 'lost fairytale'
In October 2012, a local historian stumbled upon a misplaced pamphlet in the Danish Archives.
It was a story called the Tallow Candle and is be...
The introduction of Sharia law in Aceh, Indonesia
Aceh in Sumatra is the only Indonesian province where Sharia Law, Islamic religious law, is in force. It followed years of conflict between Aceh and t...
The creation of My Little Pony
My Little Pony first appeared in shops in the United States in 1983 and in that decade alone more than 100 million would be sold.
But American t...
Khula Manch, the victory rally
On 9 April 1990, people gathered at Khula Manch, an open stage in Kathmandu. They were celebrating the end of Nepal’s party-less Panchayat system and...
Casablanca: Making one of Hollywood’s greatest movies
When Warner Bros assigned twin brothers and screenwriters Julius Epstein and Philip Epstein to adapt a stage play for the big screen in 1942, no one c...
I starred in Pan’s Labyrinth
In 2006, Ivana Baquero starred in Guillermo del Toro’s Spanish-language film Pan’s Labyrinth.
The film tells the story of an 11-year-old girl...
Charles Taylor and the blood diamond trial
In 2008, the former President of Liberia, Charles Taylor, faced a courtroom in the Hague accused of war crimes.
His trial would last more than t...
The Japanese invasion of Malaya
On 8 December 1941, Japanese troops landed in northern Malaya marking the start of the second world war in the Pacific.
Invasion forces moved qu...
The flooding of Florence
In November, 1966, Florence suffered one of the worst floods in its history after heavy rainfall caused the River Arno to burst.
The Italian cit...
My dad created Mr Men and Little Miss
In 1971, advertising writer Roger Hargreaves's eight-year-old son Adam asked him an unusual question: 'What does a tickle look like?'
Inspired,...