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Witness History Episodes

  1.

    Cyprus 1974: The Greek coup

    How a coup in Cyprus led to the division of the island’s communities

  2. Arrested for playing football in Brazil

    For nearly 40 years, women in Brazil were banned from playing football

  3. Italy's 'poison ships'

    In 1988, a ship carrying toxic waste arrived in Manfredonia, Italy

  4. The 1968 Mexico City massacre

    The massacre in Mexico City in October 1968, 10 days before the Olympics

  5. The day Celia Cruz returned to Cuba

    Cuban salsa singer Celia Cruz's only return to the island in 43 years of exile.

  6. How the air fryer was invented

    In 2006, Dutch inventor Fred van der Weij cooked up an idea for a new kitchen device

  7. Conservative wipe-out in Canada

    In Canada's 1993 election, the governing party was routed, ending up with just two seats

  8. Fight the Power: The song that became an anthem of protest

    In 1989, Public Enemy provided the soundtrack for Spike Lee's movie, Do The Right Thing

  9. Georgia’s political crisis

    In 1991, the newly independent country found itself on the verge of a civil war

  10. Executed in Stalin’s Great Terror in Georgia

    In the 1930s, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin executed hundreds of thousands without trial

  11. Subway Art: The graffiti bible

    In 1984, Henry Chalfant and Martha Cooper released an iconic photography book

  12. I designed Hello Kitty

    In 1974, a Japanese artist created a character who is now worth more than $80 billion

  13. The first CIA-backed coup in Latin America

    President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala was overthrown in a revolt sponsored by the US

  14. Dignitas: Founding an assisted dying society

    In 1998, Swiss lawyer Ludwig Minelli set up the controversial organisation Dignitas

  15. Sagrada Familia: Completing Gaudi’s vision

    How architects carried on building Barcelona's basilica after the death of designer Gaudi

  16. The expulsion of the Sudeten Germans

    Sudeten Germans were expelled by the Czechoslovak government after World War Two

  17. Japan’s last WWII soldier to surrender

    Hiroo Onoda spent 30 years fighting in the jungle, believing the war was still going on.

  18. Kawarau Bridge: The first bungee jumping site in New Zealand

    In 1988, AJ Hackett brought bungee jumping to paying customers.

  19. The first mega cruise ship

    In 1988, the world’s largest passenger ship set sail on her maiden voyage from the USA

  20. The beginning of Benidorm

    How one man grew a sleepy Spanish town into one of the world’s biggest holiday resorts

  21. How Cancún became a tourist destination

    In 1969, Antonio Enríquez Savignac started building Cancún

  22. The first budget transatlantic flights

    In 1955, an Icelandic airline slashed the cost of flying across the Atlantic

  23. Orelhão: Brazil's iconic egg-shaped telephone booth

    In 1971, a Chinese architect called Chu Ming Silveira created Orelhão

  24. Kielland disaster

    In 1980, 123 men died when a platform capsized in Norway's biggest industrial disaster

  25. The Irish shopworkers strike against apartheid

    In 1984, 11 Dunnes store workers walked out after refusing to handle South African goods

  26. Boko Haram massacre in Gwoza

    In 2014, Boko Haram drove into Gwoza in Nigeria and began an assault that killed hundreds

  27. Nato bombs Serbian state television headquarters

    It's 25 years since Nato bombed the Serbian television headquarters in Belgrade

  28. The Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at George Bush

    Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi threw his shoes at the President of the United States.

  29. Saving lives on D-Day

    Charles Norman Shay was honoured for saving men from drowning on Omaha Beach on D-Day

  30. The woman whose weather report changed the date of D-Day

    Maureen Flavin’s weather report forecast a storm and changed the course of WW2 history

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