Main content

Witness History Episodes

  1.

    Freeing American prisoners from Iran

    The diplomacy behind the release of three US citizens who unknowingly hiked into Iran.

  2. The last smallpox outbreak

    Thousands of people died in the world's last major smallpox epidemic in India in 1974.

  3. The rebel nuns who left their convent behind

    A group of Californian nuns left their convent and set up their own community in 1970

  4. The first mobile phone call

    The American inventor who made the first mobile phone and the first mobile phone call

  5. An Antarctic mystery

    Human remains were found on a remote island in Antarctica in 1985 but whose were they?

  6. Saving Antarctica

    A 1980s campaign to preserve Antarctica for science.

  7. Saddam Hussein's 'Supergun'

    Building the largest gun in the world for Saddam Hussein's Iraq

  8. Fighting oil pollution with art in Nigeria

    "Battle Bus" was a sculpture in memory of Nigerian environmentalist Ken Saro Wiwa

  9. How meditation changes your brain

    In 2002, a landmark study on Buddhist monks showed that meditation can alter the brain.

  10. The Pale Blue Dot

    How the Voyager space probe captured a famous image of Earth as it left the Solar System.

  11. The Rules: A dating handbook

    The best-selling dating handbook was published on Valentine's Day 1995

  12. The best-seller Fear of Flying

    Erica Jong's best-selling book about sex, creativity and love, published in 1973

  13. Diary of life in a favela

    A shocking account of the realities of the slums of São Paulo

  14. The man who first published Harry Potter

    The man who spotted the potential of the boy wizard books in 1996

  15. Chairman Mao's Little Red Book

    The collected thoughts of China's communist leader that became an unexpected best-seller

  16. The release of Nelson Mandela

    The day that South Africa's anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela was freed

  17. The Native American casino boom in the US

    How a small Californian tribe won the right for Indian communities to host gambling.

  18. Witnessing the birth of a new language

    In the 1980s deaf children in Nicaragua invented a completely new sign language

  19. Cixi: China's most powerful woman

    The Empress Dowager Cixi ruled for 47 years until her death in 1908.

  20. London's first black policeman

    Norwell Roberts endured years of racist abuse within the Metropolitan police

  21. The Treaty of Rome

    The document which formed the basis for what is now the European Union was signed in 1957

  22. The first self-made female millionaire

    Madam C. J. Walker was born to former slaves and created a black beauty business.

  23. The ancient oak tree that taught the world a lesson

    A tree in Kew Gardens survived the storm of 1987 and revolutionised gardening.

  24. Reforming India's rape laws

    The overhaul of India's rape laws followed the fatal gang rape of a student in Delhi.

  25. The Way Ahead group: Modernising the Royal Family

    The Way Ahead group was set up in the 1990s to make Britain’s monarchy more relevant

  26. The frozen zoo

    Since 1975, San Diego Zoo has been deep-freezing cell samples from rare species

  27. The discovery of whalesong

    In the 1960s whales were being hunted to extinction.

  28. Silent Spring: A book that changed the world

    Silent Spring examined the effect of pesticides on the environment

  29. How the dodo died out

    A flightless bird, the dodo was extinct just decades after being discovered by Europeans

  30. The mystery of the disappearing frogs

    How scientists discovered that a deadly fungus was killing off amphibians.

  2. 1
  3. …
  4. 56
  5. 57
  6. 58
  7. 59
  8. 60
  9. …
  10. 155