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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 examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from how the Excel spreadsheet was developed, the creation of cartoon rabbit Miffy and how the sound barrier was broken.We look at the lives of some of the most...

Iraq War: Refugees escaping

10 mins; March 14, 2023

Iraq War: The beginning

10 mins; March 13, 2023

From a goddess to a graduate

8 mins; March 10, 2023

Monica McWilliams’ role in the Northern Ireland peace process

10 mins; March 09, 2023

First all-women peacekeeping unit

8 mins; March 08, 2023

Mexico's first female presidential hopeful

8 mins; March 07, 2023

Octavia E. Butler: Visionary black sci-fi writer

8 mins; March 06, 2023

Zoran Djindjic: The murder of Serbia's prime minister

10 mins; March 03, 2023

The museum at the end of the world

9 mins; March 02, 2023

Grenada's underwater sculpture park

8 mins; March 01, 2023

Pink Triangles: Gay men in Nazi concentration camps

8 mins; February 28, 2023

Wounded Knee siege

9 mins; February 27, 2023

When the Queen 'jumped out of a helicopter'

10 mins; February 24, 2023

Families interned in WW2 China

10 mins; February 23, 2023

The invention of Semtex

8 mins; February 22, 2023

Seggae riots in Mauritius

9 mins; February 21, 2023

Battle for the capital: Bonn v Berlin

9 mins; February 20, 2023

First winter ascent of Everest

8 mins; February 17, 2023

Discovering Tutankhamun’s tomb

9 mins; February 16, 2023

'I developed Pokémon'

9 mins; February 15, 2023

First Danish queen for 600 years

9 mins; February 14, 2023

'Hot Autumn': When Italy’s workers revolted

10 mins; February 13, 2023

'I told the world Pope Benedict XVI was resigning'

10 mins; February 10, 2023

The Pope and Jews

8 mins; February 09, 2023

Pope John Paul I’s sudden death

9 mins; February 08, 2023

Reforming the Catholic Church with Vatican II

9 mins; February 07, 2023

How a Pope is chosen

8 mins; February 06, 2023

The first black music station in Europe

9 mins; February 03, 2023

The assassination of Burundian President Melchior Ndadaye

13 mins; February 02, 2023

Columbia space shuttle disaster

8 mins; February 01, 2023

Czechoslovakia's 'Velvet Divorce'

9 mins; January 31, 2023

Palestine Post bombing

8 mins; January 30, 2023

Invention of the MP3

10 mins; January 27, 2023

Albert Pierrepoint: Britain's executioner

8 mins; January 26, 2023

Smolensk air disaster

9 mins; January 25, 2023

Japanese death row guard

8 mins; January 24, 2023

When Britain tried to censor the Troubles in Northern Ireland

9 mins; January 23, 2023

Swine flu vaccine and narcolepsy

9 mins; January 20, 2023

France's nuclear tests in Algeria

8 mins; January 19, 2023

Kosovo’s house schools

9 mins; January 18, 2023

Europe's horse meat scandal

9 mins; January 17, 2023

Miracle on the Hudson

9 mins; January 16, 2023

World’s first tidal power station

8 mins; January 13, 2023

Galápagos Islands’ sea cucumber dispute

8 mins; January 12, 2023

Paul Robeson and the transatlantic phone line

8 mins; January 11, 2023

Dutch North Sea flood

8 mins; January 10, 2023

Plastics in oceans

8 mins; January 09, 2023

Pussy Riot’s cathedral protest

8 mins; January 06, 2023

The man Pinochet wanted dead

9 mins; January 05, 2023

When America banned silicone breast implants

8 mins; January 04, 2023

Arctic African

8 mins; January 03, 2023

One team in Tallinn

9 mins; January 02, 2023

The birth of the Slow Food Movement

8 mins; December 30, 2022

Inventing instant noodles

9 mins; December 29, 2022

Malta's bread strike

8 mins; December 28, 2022

Inventing Chicken Manchurian

8 mins; December 27, 2022

Creating ciabatta bread

9 mins; December 26, 2022

Chile mine rescue

9 mins; December 23, 2022

Grozny siege

9 mins; December 22, 2022

Colombia's 'false positives' killings

9 mins; December 21, 2022

The BBC broadcasting through the Iron Curtain

9 mins; December 20, 2022

Una Marson and the BBC Caribbean Service

9 mins; December 19, 2022

Felix Baumgartner's huge leap

9 mins; December 16, 2022

Soviet fashionista

9 mins; December 15, 2022

Returning to District Six

10 mins; December 14, 2022

The Nazi occupation of Jersey

9 mins; December 13, 2022

Mongolian revolution

9 mins; December 12, 2022

Creating Teletubbies

9 mins; December 09, 2022

'The Dismissal' of Gough Whitlam

9 mins; December 08, 2022

The killing of Jean Charles de Menezes

8 mins; December 07, 2022

Demolishing the Babri Masjid

9 mins; December 06, 2022

Quebec’s 1995 referendum

9 mins; December 05, 2022

Miss World protest

8 mins; December 02, 2022

The woman who smuggled HIV into Bulgaria in her handbag

9 mins; December 01, 2022

The islands Japan and Russia can’t agree on

10 mins; November 30, 2022

CrossFit: The fitness phenomenon that changed the industry

9 mins; November 29, 2022

Mombasa terror attacks

9 mins; November 28, 2022

How cat's eyes were invented

9 mins; November 25, 2022

The corruption and sodomy trials of Anwar Ibrahim

10 mins; November 24, 2022

When Sweden’s roads went right

9 mins; November 23, 2022

First women’s minister in Iran

8 mins; November 22, 2022

The invention of the seat belt

9 mins; November 21, 2022

Qatar's first female published author

10 mins; November 18, 2022

First Emirati female teacher

10 mins; November 17, 2022

Inventing robot camel jockeys

10 mins; November 16, 2022

Burj Khalifa: Designing the world’s tallest building

8 mins; November 15, 2022

Formation of the United Arab Emirates

9 mins; November 14, 2022

The child evacuees of World War Two

10 mins; November 11, 2022

Māori protests stops South African rugby tour

8 mins; November 10, 2022

The assassination of Pim Fortuyn

9 mins; November 09, 2022

First rape crisis centres in the US

10 mins; November 08, 2022

Polynesian Panthers

8 mins; November 07, 2022

Umuganda: Rwanda's community work scheme

9 mins; November 04, 2022

Dame Carmen Callil: Feminist publisher

8 mins; November 03, 2022

Campaigning against sex-selection in India

9 mins; November 02, 2022

Albania’s Stalinist purges

12 mins; November 01, 2022

The Little Black Book survival guide

9 mins; October 31, 2022

Julia Gillard’s misogyny speech

8 mins; October 28, 2022

Arrested for wearing trousers in Sudan

11 mins; October 27, 2022

Theatre siege in Moscow

11 mins; October 26, 2022

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