Zambia celebrates independence and the invention of bubble tea
The History Hour25 Nov 2023

Zambia celebrates independence and the invention of bubble tea

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.

This week, we’re looking at the birth of a new African nation – Zambia - in 1964, and find out how the country got its name. We also learn more about life after independence with our guest Dr Alfred Tembo, head of history of the University of Zambia.

Elsewhere, two survivors of a series of terrifying gun attacks in Mumbai talk about their experiences. And there’s a look back to 2003, when the worst heatwave in centuries caused thousands of deaths across Europe, and led to a health crisis in Paris.

Plus, we hear extracts from the lost memoirs of Manchester United goalkeeper Les Sealey. He recorded them before his death and the tapes were discovered years later.

And finally, the invention of bubble tea, a creation that would change the tea drinking world. The first cup was sold in a tea shop in Taiwan in 1987.

Contributors:

Mulenga Kapwepwe – daughter of Simon Kapwepwe, fighter for Zambia’s independence Dr Alfred Tembo – head of history, University of Zambia Devika Rotawan – survivor of gun attack in Mumbai Arun Jadhav – policeman and survivor of gun attack in Mumbai Dr Patrick Pelloux - emergency doctor at St Antoine Hospital in Paris Les Sealey – former Manchester United goalkeeper Liu Han-Chieh – tea leaf seller and shop owner Lin Xiuhu – developer of bubble tea

(Photo: Celebrations after Zambian election, 1991. Credit: Walter Dhladhla/AFP via Getty Images)

Episoder(469)

Walking the Great Wall of China

Walking the Great Wall of China

Walking the Great Wall of China; the death of Pope John Paul 1 after just a month in the job; turning against a colonial power - how Guinea gained independence from France; the life and times of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, and the British Land Girls of World War Two.(Picture: Yaohui Dong, Wu Deyu and Zhang Yuanhua on the Great Wall of China. Courtesy of Yaohui Dong)

29 Sep 201750min

When Animals Make History

When Animals Make History

Five remarkable stories of animals in recent history - from the guide dog who led her owner out of the World Trade Center on 9/11 to a ferocious shark attack to the locust swarm that flew more than 5000 miles across the Atlantic ocean.Photo: a Great White Shark - Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

24 Sep 201749min

The Collapse of Northern Rock

The Collapse of Northern Rock

The run on a British bank which signalled the coming global financial crisis, a schoolboy arrested in East Germany for writing a letter, a doctor remembers the Sabra Shatila massacre in Beirut, and a Nigerian archaeological treasure trove.Photo: Northern Rock customers queuing outside the Kingston branch, in order to take their money out on September 17th 2007. Credit: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

16 Sep 201750min

The Fairy Photos

The Fairy Photos

The search for a spirit world after WW1 that led people to believe that photographs of fairies were real. Plus Jamaica's worst train crash, France's last execution by guillotine, the man who saved the Proms and life in a giant greenhouse in Arizona - Biosphere 2.Photo: Frances Griffiths and the "Cottingley Fairies" in a photograph made in 1917 by her cousin Elsie Wright with paper cut-outs and hatpins. Credit: Alamy

9 Sep 201750min

The Death of Princess Diana

The Death of Princess Diana

Princess Diana's brother remembers the passionate speech he gave at her funeral, and one of the doctors who treated her at the scene of her fatal car crash remembers her death.Plus, how George Orwell wrote Animal Farm, the development of a revolutionary new 3D medical scanning technique, and the birth of the online auction site eBay.Picture: Earl Spencer and Prince William at Princess Diana's funeral. Credit: Getty/AFP

2 Sep 201749min

Medicine in World War One

Medicine in World War One

In BBC archive recordings, veterans tell the story of how medical care dealt with the horrors of WW1. Plus when Germany put Nazis on trial, race riots in London's Notting Hill in 1958, and in East Germany in 1992. And the inventors of Botox.Photo: Australian wounded on the Menin Road on the Western Front, 1917 (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

26 Aug 201749min

Nike and the Sweatshop Problem

Nike and the Sweatshop Problem

On this week's programme, how campaigners took on Nike in the 1990s, plus the Turkish invasion of Cyprus and the newspaper which defied Argentine's military dictatorship. We also find out more about nudism in East Germany and the great Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore.PHOTO: Nike worker Cicih Sukaesih telling her story in America in 1996 (courtesy of Jeff Ballinger)

19 Aug 201750min

Reagan's Bombing Joke

Reagan's Bombing Joke

Ronald Reagan's joke about bombing Russia in the 1980s, the murder of a Palestinian cartoonist in London, communal violence in India a year before partition, the man who discovered the Great Pacific Garbage patch, and Florence Nightingale, in her own words and those of people who knew her.Photo: American president Ronald Reagan in the 1980s at his desk in the White House, Washington DC. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

11 Aug 201752min

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