The first space shuttle mission
On 12th April 1981, the space shuttle Columbia made history becoming the first ever reusable space craft to fly into orbit. It marked the start of a 30-year shuttle programme which revolutionised the ...
23 Apr 202110min
How the NRA became a US political lobbying giant
The National Rifle Association represents gun owners in the USA. In 1977 it faced a turning point when its members revolted against the organisation’s leadership to concentrate on political lobbying...
22 Apr 20218min
The Raymond Davis Incident
In 2011, an American man shot dead two people in the streets of Lahore. The crisis that ensued saw accusations of espionage and US-Pakistani relations brought to the brink. For Witness History, Jose...
21 Apr 20219min
The return of Blue Lake
In 1970, the Republican president Richard Nixon signed a bill returning a sacred lake to the people of Taos Pueblo in New Mexico. The lake, and surrounding land, had been taken from the Taos people in...
20 Apr 20219min
The Eichmann trial
In April 1961, Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi official in charge of concentration camps, was put on trial in Israel.The trial helped reveal the full details of the holocaust in which millions of European je...
19 Apr 202110min
China's 'Kingdom of women'
The Mosuo community in China’s Himalayan foothills is matrilineal, so a family’s ‘bloodline’, inheritance and power is passed down through the female side. There is no such thing as marriage and mono...
16 Apr 202111min
The vultures saved from extinction
South Asian vultures started dying in huge numbers in the 1990s but no one knew why. They were on the verge of extinction before scientists worked out what was killing them. Bob Howard has been heari...
15 Apr 20218min
Fighting for Castro at the Bay of Pigs
On April 17 1961 a group of Cuban exiles launched an invasion of communist-ruled Cuba in a failed attempt to topple Fidel Castro. After 72 hours of fighting many of the invaders were captured or kill...
14 Apr 20218min
