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Witness History Episodes

  1.

    Tunisia’s legal brothels

    For decades, Tunisia has had a system of legal brothels.

  2. When Israel destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor

    Israeli warplanes launched a surprise attack on the Osirak nuclear reactor in June 1981

  3. How Switzerland defeated its heroin epidemic

    In the 1990s, the Swiss tried radical new policy ideas, including heroin on prescription

  4. Afghanistan's poppy problem

    Laila Haidari set up Kabul's first independent drug rehab centre in 2010

  5. When Peru mistook missionaries for drug traffickers

    The Peruvian Air Force shot down a light plane carrying American missionaries in 2001

  6. The killing of Pablo Escobar

    The Colombian drug lord was shot dead by police in December 1993

  7. The war on drugs

    President Richard Nixon was the first US President to try to wipe out illegal drug use

  8. The Tulsa Race Massacre

    In 1921, a white mob destroyed an affluent African-American neighbourhood.

  9. Rock concert for Chernobyl

    The first charity rock concert ever held in the USSR raised money for Chernobyl survivors

  10. Amilcar Cabral: An African liberation legend

    Amilcar Cabral led the armed struggle against Portuguese colonial rule in West Africa

  11. The first Arab woman pilot

    Egyptian Lotfia Elnadi made history when she gained her pilot licence in 1933

  12. The strike that shocked India

    The Indian railway workers’ strike of 1974 prompted mass arrests and a state of emergency

  13. Fighting forced marriage in war

    Why a court in Sierra Leone ruled that forced marriage was a crime against humanity.

  14. Saving the world's wetlands

    Iran hosted the first convention to save the world's wetlands in1971.

  15. When Egypt said 'enough'

    Years before the Arab Spring swept the Middle East Egyptians were protesting in Cairo

  16. Striking in South Korea in 1980

    Strikes and protests against South Korea's military government came to a head in May 1980

  17. When Ariel Sharon visited the Al-Aqsa compound

    The Israeli politician visited the compound containing one of Islam's holiest sites

  18. China's Democracy Wall

    How a brick wall in Beijing became a beacon for those calling for change

  19. The trial of South Africa’s 'Dr Death'

    The trial of a South African doctor accused of multiple murders under Apartheid.

  20. The Jewish exodus from Iraq

    How two thousand Jews fled persecution in the summer of 1971, helped by Iraqi Kurds

  21. Legalising contraception in Ireland

    Contraception wasn't easily accessible in traditionally Roman Catholic Ireland until 1985

  22. Why a British MP was filmed taking mescaline

    In 1955 Christopher Mayhew MP took the hallucinogenic drug mescaline for a TV experiment

  23. Surviving Guantanamo

    Mohamedou Ould Slahi was detained by the USA without charge for 15 years

  24. The Great Wine Fraud

    The story of wine fraudster Rudy Kurniawan and the French winemaker who exposed him

  25. Ursula Le Guin

    The pioneer of feminist science fiction and creator of the Earthsea fantasy series

  26. The IRA hunger strikes

    Republican prisoner Bobby Sands died in the Maze prison in Northern Ireland on May 5 1981

  27. How Amsterdam became the cannabis smoking capital of Europe

    How Amsterdam became the home of cannabis coffee shops.

  28. The killing of Osama Bin Laden

    The man behind the 9/11 attacks was killed by US special forces on 2 May 2011

  29. The battle of Tora Bora

    How US special forces lost bin Laden in the mountains of Afghanistan in December 2001

  30. The Nairobi US Embassy bombing

    A survivor's account of the al-Qaeda attacks in East Africa in 1998 which killed hundreds

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