Thirty years since the first free elections in South Africa

A warning for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander listeners - this programme contains the names and voices of people who have died.Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes.We take a look at the Ice Bucket Challenge, the viral fundraising sensation that took over the internet in 2014. Our guest Professor Sander van der Linden breaks down the psychology behind virality and outlines the challenges facing those who conquered the algorithm. Plus, how one man smuggled punk rock over the Berlin Wall. Also, we meet the man who found a retirement home for Bulgaria's dancing bears.We hear the remarkable story of Australia's Freedom Riders who campaigned against indigenous discrimination.Finally, we relive the mountain top escape of the Yazidi's who were fleeing Islamic State Militants.Contributors: Nancy Frates – Pete Frates mother. Sander van der Linden - Professor of Social Psychology at Cambridge University. Mark Reeder - smuggled punk rock over the Berlin Wall. Dr Amir Khalil – founded the sanctuary for dancing bears. Darce Cassidy and Gary Williams – involved in the Freedom Rides. Mirza Dinnayi - helped evacuate the Yazidi's.(Photo: Ice Bucket Challenge. Credit:Getty Images)

2 Aug 202451min

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes.We go underground for a tour of the Moscow Metro, the subterranean transport network built by thousands of Russian workers in the 1930s.Our guest Mark Ovenden, author of Underground Cities, reveals how the Moscow system influenced many other countries around the world. Plus, more about a revolutionary new method for transporting medicines that was launched in Ghana in 1974. The cold chain system helped refrigerate vaccines aimed at tackling potentially deadly diseases.Also, as Paris lifts the curtain on the 2024 Olympics, we go back to the last time the French city hosted the Games - one hundred years ago.We hear the remarkable story of Somali 400m sprinter Zamzam Farah, and how she became a crowd favourite in the London 2012 Olympics after finishing last in her heat by 27 seconds.Finally, we meet Shuss - a French cartoon skier and the first Olympic mascot, designed for the 1968 Winter Games.Contributors: Tatiana Fedorova – a worker on the Moscow Metro. Mark Ovenden - author of Underground Cities. Patience Azuma – vaccinated as a child in Ghana. Dr Kofi Ahmed – chief medical officer. Harold Abrahams – Olympic medallist. Kitty Godfree – Olympic medallist. Zamzam Farah – Somali sprinter. André Thiennot - manufacturer of Shuss merchandise.(Photo: Underground train station ceiling in Moscow. Credit: Lorenzo Di Cola/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

26 Jul 202450min

We hear Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot perspectives on the island's 1974 coup and subsequent invasion. Bekir Azgun, a Turkish-Cypriot writer, remembers the events. On the 20 July 1974 Captain Adamos Marneros landed the final flight at Nicosia Airport.Nicoletta Demetriou talks about returning to her family home in 2003.Then, a Cypriot Olympic sailing hero Pavlos Kontides takes us back to the London 2012 Games. And finally the 'Godfather of Ayia Napa', DJ Nick Power, tells us how the island became a party destination.Max Pearson presents this week's Witness History interviews on the history of Cyprus. Our guest is Dr Antigone Heraclidou, senior research associate at CYENS Centre of Excellence in Cyprus.(Photo: Greek Cypriot soldier killed in the 1974 conflict. Credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

19 Jul 202451min

We hear about the law in Brazil which made it illegal for women and girls to play football for 40 years. Dilma Mendes shares her incredible experience of being arrested numerous times as a child, just for kicking a ball. Our guest, Alexandra Allred, herself a pioneering sportswomen, discusses the discrimination women have faced to break into competitive sport.Plus, the moment when the 'Queen of Salsa', banned from Cuba by Fidel Castro, was allowed to return to Cuban territory for one performance.We learn about the brutal crushing of a student movement in 1968 in Mexico City 10 days before the Olympic Games, which ended in dozens being killed.Also, the start of an environmental movement in Italy in 1988, and the invention of the air fryer. The prototype was nearly as big as a dog kennel and made of wood and aluminium.Contributors: Dilma Mendes - defied Brazil's ban on women playing football. Alexandra Allred - author of When Women Stood: The Untold History of Females Who Changed Sports and the World. Omer Pardillo Cid - manager and close friend of Celia Cruz. David Huerta - witness to the Mexico City massacre in 1968. Rosa Porcu - a protester against the 'poison ships' docked in Italy in 1988. Suus van der Weij - daughter of Fred van der Weij, inventor of the air fryer.

13 Jul 202450min

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes.We hear about the era-defining book Subway Art and how Fight the Power became a protest anthem. Artist curator Marianne Vosloo explains how both street art and hip-hop are linked.Plus, two stories from Georgia. Firstly, how Stalin carried out his most severe purge in Georgia in 1937, killing thousands of people, and then how after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the newly independent state was thrown into a political and economic crisis.Finally, we hear from a former Canadian prime minister, on how her party was left with just two seats after the election in 1993.Contributors: Martha Cooper and Henry Chalfant – authors of Subway Art. Marianne Vosloo - artist curator who works within the field of street art and urban art intervention. Chuck D – Public Enemy frontman. Levan Pesvianidze – Georgian whose grandfather and uncle were both executed. Lamara Vashakidze - a survivor of Georgia’s crisis in 1991. Kim Campbell – former Canadian prime minister. Preston Manning – founder and former leader of Reform.(Photo: People queing to buy Subway Art. Credit: Jemal Countess/Getty Images)

5 Jul 202450min

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes.We hear the story of the largest unfinished Catholic church in the world and the creation of one of the most recognisable characters on the planet.Plus, an amazing first hand account of the expulsion of German-speakers from Czechoslovakia at the end of the Second World War, the man behind Dignitas, the assisted dying organisation in Switzerland, and the son of a Guatemalan president who was overthrown in an American-backed coup in the 1950s.Contributors: Mark Burry - architect, who was part of a team trying to piece together Gaudí's vision for the Sagrada Família. Madeleine Kessler - architect from Madeleine Kessler Architecture. Yuko Shimizu - the artist who designed Hello Kitty. Helmut Scholz - a Sudeten German, who was expelled from Czechoslovakia after the Second World War. Ludwig Minelli - the lawyer behind Dignitas, the assisted dying organisation. Juan Jacobo - the son of the former Guatemalan president Jacobo Árbenz.(Photo: The Sagrada Família, in Barcelona. Credit: Getty Images)

28 Jun 202450min

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service on the history of travel. Our guest is Dr. Susan Houge Mackenzie, Associate Professor in the Department of Tourism at the University of Otago in New Zealand. First, we'll hear from the man responsible for the first commercial bungee jump. Then, the pioneers of low-cost transatlantic flights and luxury cruises describe how they revolutionised travel. Finally, we hear the remarkable stories of how Cancún and Benidorm transformed into holiday hotspots, involving General Franco, bikinis and excommunication.Contributors: Dr. Susan Houge Mackenzie - Associate Professor in the Department of Tourism at the University of Otago in New Zealand. AJ Hackett - pioneer of the world's first commercial bungee jump. Edda Helgason - daughter of Sigurdur Helgason who launched Loftleioir Icelandic, the first budget transatlantic airline. Hans Indridason - ran Loftleioir Icelandic's sales and marketing department. Tor Stangeland - Captain of Sovereign of the Seas cruise ship. Juan Enríquez - son of Antonio Enríquez Savignac, who turned Cancún into a world-beating tourist destination. Pedro Zaragoza - former Mayor of Benidorm.(Photo: Bungee jumping. Credit: Getty Images)

21 Jun 202450min

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.First, we hear about Boko Haram militants driving into Gwoza in north-east Nigeria in 2014, to begin an assault which left hundreds dead. Next, the Irish shopworkers who went on strike after refusing to handle South African goods.Then, it’s 25 years since Nato bombed the Serbian state TV station in Belgrade. Plus, Norway’s biggest industrial disaster.And, Brazil’s iconic egg-shaped telephone booth. Contributors: Ruoyah who lived through the Boko Haram massacre.Makena Micheni - Associate Lecturer at St Andrews University.Irish shopworker Mary Manning.TV technician Dragan Šuković.Harry Vike and his wife Greta. Chu Ming Silveira’s son Alan Chu. (Photo: A woman from Gwoza displaced by the violence. Credit: Reuters/Stringer)

14 Jun 202450min