Surviving Saddam
Zainab Salbi grew up in the inner social circle of the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, in the 1980s because her father worked as Saddam’s personal pilot. It was a world of apparently glamorous parties...
17 Elo 20209min
The invention of the modern ventilator
In August 1952, the Blegdam Hospital in the Danish capital Copenhagen was overwhelmed by hundreds of seriously ill polio patients. During the first weeks of the epidemic over 80 percent of the patient...
14 Elo 202013min
Scoring a victory for women's rights in Turkey
In 2004 feminist campaigners in Turkey forced a radical change in the law on crimes against women. The overhaul of the country's 80-year-old penal code meant a redefinition of crimes such as rape and ...
13 Elo 20209min
Beirut's Hotel War
At the start of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975, Beirut’s luxury hotel district was turned into a battlefield, with rival groups of gunmen holed up in some of the most expensive accommodation in the Mi...
12 Elo 20208min
Bremen’s Elephant Statue
Amid the ongoing debate about how to handle historical monuments which commemorate colonialism and slavery, Witness History hears the story of a giant statue of an elephant in the German city of Breme...
11 Elo 202010min
Radar and World War Two
During World War Two, British women were employed as operators of a top-secret radar system for detecting aircraft. The new technology had helped shift the balance of power in the air war with Nazi Ge...
10 Elo 20208min
The atomic bombs dropped on Japan
The USA dropped its first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6th 1945. Three days later a second atomic bomb was detonated over Nagasaki. The explosion was bigger than the blast a...
6 Elo 20208min
The battle of Midway
On 4th June 1942, aircraft carriers of the Japanese and American fleets fought a huge naval battle near Midway Atoll in the Pacific. The outcome marked a turning point in the war. Using archive record...
5 Elo 20209min
