Main content

Witness History Episodes

  1.

    Festival in the Desert

    In 2001 a festival held in the Sahara desert launched Tuareg music on the world scene

  2. Tito on Vis

    In 1944 the Yugoslav partisan leader found sanctuary on a tiny island in the Adriatic.

  3. Johnny Cash plays Folsom Prison

    It is 45 years since the Country and Western star played his first gig in a jail.

  4. Operation No Living Thing

    In January 1999, a combined rebel force invaded the capital of Sierra Leone, Freetown.

  5. Fighting in the Iran-Iraq War.

    An Iraqi doctor remembers serving in one of the longest wars of the 20th Century.

  6. Donald Campbell's Fatal Crash

    In January 1967 the record-breaking driver was killed at the helm of his jetboat Bluebird

  7. Waiting for Godot

    How Samuel Beckett's existentialist masterpiece revolutionised the theatre 60 years ago.

  8. The Keeling Curve

    Meticulously recorded levels of CO2 in the atmosphere show how our climate is changing

  9. Donald Woods flees South Africa

    It is 35 years since the South African newspaper editor was forced into exile.

  10. Pong and the birth of the computer game

    It is 40 years since a video game was invented which would change the way we play.

  11. Big Brother - the beginning of reality TV

    In December 1999 a young Dutch man won the first ever Big Brother reality TV show.

  12. Maitatsine

    In 1980 thousands died in the Nigerian city of Kano in an uprising by an Islamic sect.

  13. Vietnam War - Christmas bombing campaign

    40 years ago the US launched its heaviest aerial bombardment of the Vietnam War.

  14. The Execution of the Ceauşescus

    On December 25th 1989, Nicolae and Elena Ceauşescu were executed by firing squad.

  15. Dusty Plays South Africa

    The British popstar Dusty Springfield went on tour in apartheid South Africa in 1964

  16. Mad cow disease - CJD

    In the 1990s it became clear that a brain disease could be passed from cows to humans.

  17. Libya and Weapons of Mass Destruction

    In December 2003 Colonel Gaddafi announced Libya was giving up trying to make WMD

  18. The last men on the moon

    The story of the last US space mission to the moon 40 years ago

  19. Piltdown Man

    In 1912, Britain's top palaeontologists were hoaxed by a "missing link" in human evolution

  20. The M Room

    How exiles from the Nazis helped British intelligence listen in on German prisoners-of-war

  21. Discovering Cleopatra's Palace

    Twenty years ago underwater excavations began which unearthed a 2000 year old palace.

  22. Marsha Hunt and the 1960s

    In the late 1960s a young black American woman rolled up in 'Swinging' London.

  23. Archive of Terror

    How a huge cache of papers showed the true extent of torture across 1970s South America.

  24. Operation Restore Hope

    In December 1992 US Marines landed on the beaches of Somalia.

  25. The Origin of Nollywood

    The story of the 1992 film which launched Nigeria's hugely successful movie industry

  26. Landing in Red Square

    A German teenager managed to evade Soviet defences to land in Moscow's Red Square.

  27. The Montreal massacre

    On 6 December 1989, a college shooting in Canada left 14 women dead.

  28. Great London Smog of 1952

    How the worst smog in living memory lasted five days and killed thousands of Londoners.

  29. The Bodyline Tour

    How a cricket row between England and Australia sparked a diplomatic incident.

  30. The Bhopal gas disaster

    In December 1984 thousands of people in the Indian city were killed by a chemical leak.

  2. 1
  3. …
  4. 122
  5. 123
  6. 124
  7. 125
  8. 126
  9. …
  10. 155