The first silicone breast implants
30-year-old Texan Timmie Jean Lindsey was the first woman in the world to have silicone breast implants. In 1962, she was offered the operation free of charge by two pioneering surgeons. It's gone on ...
14 Jan 20229min
Costa Concordia
Costa Concordia hit submerged rocks off the Italian island of Giglio in January 2012, leaving a fifty-metre-long gash in the hull. More than four thousand passengers and crew were on board. Ian and Ja...
13 Jan 20228min
Malick Sidibé: Mali's superstar photographer
The Malian photographer, Malick Sidibé, is one of Africa’s most celebrated artists. His most famous photographs show black and white scenes of young people partying in the capital Bamako in the joyful...
12 Jan 20228min
Kazakhstan's nuclear legacy
After its independence, Kazakhstan had to deal with the legacy of being one of the centres of the Soviet Union's huge nuclear arsenal and nuclear weapons industry. There were particular concerns about...
11 Jan 20229min
India's freedom fighter: Subhas Chandra Bose
In 2022, India is holding a series of events to celebrate the 125th anniversary of the birth of the independence campaigner, Subhas Chandra Bose. Unlike Mahatama Ghandi, Bose believed violence against...
10 Jan 202210min
Mozambique's Eduardo Mondlane: From professor to freedom fighter
On February 3rd 1969, Eduardo Mondlane - the founder of FRELIMO, Mozambique’s Liberation Front against Portuguese colonial rule - was assassinated in a bomb attack in Tanzania. Mondlane started out ...
6 Jan 202212min
Marcel Proust
In 2022, France is marking the centenary of the death of the novelist Marcel Proust, the author of the 20th century masterpiece Remembrance of Things Past. In this archive edition of Witness History, ...
5 Jan 20229min
The end of Stalinist rule in Albania
In 1990 Albania’s communist government agreed to allow independent political parties following a wave of protests. Lea Ypi was an 11 year old schoolgirl at the time and watched events with consternati...
4 Jan 20228min
