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Witness History Episodes

  1.

    Abolishing the army

    Costa Rica dissolved its Armed Forces after a brief civil war in 1948

  2. The warship lost for more than 300 years

    The discovery of a 17th century Swedish warship, the Vasa, in near perfect condition

  3. EMDR: the eye-movement therapy

    A therapy which seems to work for post-traumatic stress was developed in the late 1980s

  4. Patty Hearst the rebel heiress

    In April 1974 the heiress announced she supported her kidnappers' beliefs

  5. Mindfulness for the masses

    Scientist Jon Kabat-Zinn pioneered a meditative approach to treat pain and depression.

  6. The secret Nazi past of Kurt Waldheim

    How former UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim's secret Nazi past was exposed

  7. Around the world in 20 days

    The record-breaking balloon flight

  8. Drama in the British parliament

    Prime Minister Jim Callaghan's desperate attempts to survive a no-confidence vote in 1979

  9. The first home pregnancy test

    A female designer working for a pharmaceutical company came up with the idea in the 1960s

  10. The rise of Viktor Orban

    Viktor Orban, now the populist Hungarian Prime Minister led a democratic movement in 1988

  11. Autism and the MMR vaccine

    How a British doctor misled the world by linking the MMR vaccine with autism.

  12. The discovery of the Aztec Moon Goddess

    How an accidental discovery in Mexico led to the uncovering of the Aztecs´ Great Temple.

  13. The first democratic elections in the USSR

    Soviet citizens voted in democratic elections for the first time in March 1989.

  14. The millionaire Nazi war criminal

    How the Dutch art collector Pieter Menten was exposed as a war criminal in the 1970s

  15. How Little America was built in Afghanistan

    In the 1950s, US engineers were sent to Afghanistan to build a dam.

  16. Slaughterhouse-Five

    In March 1969, American author Kurt Vonnegut published his cult anti-war novel.

  17. China's breakthrough malaria cure

    Chinese scientists used ancient traditional medicine to find a cure for malaria.

  18. Lenin and the deadly mushrooms

    A spoof TV show persuaded some Russians that Lenin took too many hallucinogenic mushrooms

  19. The fall of Singapore

    Life under Japanese occupation in Singapore during World War Two.

  20. Britain's first female black headteacher

    Yvonne Conolly was appointed head of Ringcross Primary school in North London in 1969

  21. The woman who asked Britain to return the Parthenon marbles

    Melina Mercouri asked Britain to return the Parthenon marbles removed by Lord Elgin.

  22. Speaking out against my abuser: Daniel Ortega

    How Nicaragua's president was accused of sexual abuse by his step-daughter

  23. The creation of the Barbie doll

    Hear from the woman who created the most famous doll in the world.

  24. Britain's first Muslim woman in government

    Sayeeda Warsi was appointed to the coalition government's Cabinet in May 2010

  25. Happy Beer Day!

    On March 1st 1989 Icelanders were allowed to buy beer for the first time in decades

  26. Asama Sanso: Japanese hostage crisis

    Armed left-wing extremists fought off Japanese police in the mountains in February 1972

  27. Sucked out of a plane

    Nine people died when a cargo door opened mid-flight over the Pacific in February 1989

  28. Swine flu shuts down Mexico City

    A highly infectious virus appeared in Mexico in 2009 and rapidly spread round the world

  29. Venezuela's oil bonanza

    The boom and bust years of "Saudi" Venezuela in the 1970s

  30. How science ended the search for Josef Mengele

    A panel of scientists went to Brazil to identify the remains of the infamous Nazi in 1985

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