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Witness History Episodes

  1.

    Charleston church shooting

    Polly Sheppard, a survivor of the 2015 Charleston shooting, describes how it unfolded

  2. The Schengen Agreement

    In 1985, five European politicians agreed to scrap border checks between their countries

  3. Ronald Reagan’s ‘Tear down this wall’ speech

    In 1987 the US President called on the Soviet Union leader to take down the Berlin Wall

  4. Lonesome George: The celebrity tortoise

    In 2012, Lonesome George, the last tortoise of his species died

  5. The woman born in a prisoner of war camp

    The Sino-Indian war in 1962, left a lasting legacy on Indian families of Chinese descent

  6. World War Two’s Rome escape line

    How an Irish priest saved thousands of allied prisoners of war and Jews in Rome in WW2

  7. Usonia: Frank Lloyd Wright’s ‘utopian’ town

    1948 saw the start of a “utopian” town of houses designed by America’s greatest architect

  8. The discovery of the first exoplanets

    In 1992, astronomer Alex Wolszczan discovered the first planets outside our solar system

  9. Favela life: The diary of Carolina Maria de Jesus

    In 1960, the diary of a poor Brazilian mum became an international bestseller.

  10. The world’s largest model train set

    In 2000, twins Frederik and Gerrit started building Miniatur Wunderland

  11. Dolly Rathebe: South Africa’s first international film star

    Jim Comes to Jo’burg, also known as African Jim, launched Dolly Rathebe’s career in 1949

  12. The Battle of the Beanfield

    In 1985, police and hippies clashed at the ancient stone circle of Stonehenge, in England

  13. The legacy of The Pirate Bay

    In 2006 police raided the popular but controversial file-sharing website The Pirate Bay

  14. Chinua Achebe’s revolutionary book Things Fall Apart

    Achebe's English language novel from 1958 about life in Nigeria before colonialism

  15. The Tragically Hip's final gig

    In 2015 Canadian rockstar Gord Downie was given months to live, he went on one last tour

  16. 'I wrote the Champions League anthem'

    The story of how one of the most iconic tunes in sport was created in 1992

  17. Vivian Maier: Secret street photographer

    The secret street photography of a US nanny in the 1950s and 1960s

  18. The founding of Magnum Photos

    On 22 April 1947, a group of famous war photographers founded the agency.

  19. Martín Chambi: Peru's pioneering documentary photographer

    Chambi's dramatic black and white photographs showed indigenous people in a new light.

  20. Nigerian photographer’s iconic 'Hairstyles' series

    J. D. 'Okhai Ojeikere, known as Nigeria’s top photographer gained international acclaim

  21. Lunch atop a Skyscraper

    In 1932, a photo of ironworkers eating lunch at the top of a skyscraper was taken

  22. Sweden’s shocking sugar experiment

    In the 1940s, vulnerable hospital patients were fed sugar to see if their teeth decayed.

  23. Mexico’s soda tax: Confronting soft drink giants

    In 2013 a new tax was approved in one of the world’s biggest consumers of fizzy drinks

  24. The founding of the Warsaw Pact

    On 14 May 1955, eight Soviet countries met to sign the Warsaw Pact.

  25. Tesla and Edison: Electricity rivals

    In 1915, two rival electricity pioneers were told they would share a Nobel Prize

  26. Intervision Song Contest

    In 1980, Finnish singer Marion Rung won Intervision, the USSR's answer to Eurovision

  27. Rescuing Palmyra’s treasures from the Islamic State group

    In 2015, Khalil Hariri risked his life to save centuries-old archaeology in Syria.

  28. VE Day celebrations

    The scenes of celebration in London on VE Day 1945

  29. Sinking of the Lusitania

    During World War One, the British ocean liner was sunk by a German submarine

  30. The invention of the automatic electric rice cooker

    In 1955, entrepreneur and engineer Yoshitada Minami, revolutionised rice cooking

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