Magic, illusion and tigers

Magic, illusion and tigers

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes.

For nearly 40 years, Siegfried and Roy wowed audiences in Las Vegas with death-defying tricks involving white lions and tigers. But in 2003, their magic show came to a dramatic end when a tiger attacked Roy live on stage.

We find out what went wrong, and speak to magician and author Margaret Steele about the - sometimes dangerous - history of illusion and magic.

Plus, we learn more about the so-called ‘Ken Burns effect’; the technique of making still photographs that appear to be moving. In 2002, the method came to the attention of one of the biggest names in the field of technology, Steve Jobs.

Also, the New Zealand woman who was nicknamed ‘the Queen of the Skies’ for her record breaking flights of the 1930s. Jean Batten flew planes made of wood and canvas during the golden age of aviation.

And we go back to 1996 for Brazil's early adoption of electronic voting, and discover more about the experiments behind the creation of Greenwich Mean Time.

Contributors: Ken Burns - film maker Chris Lawrence - animal trainer Margaret Steele - magic historian, magician and author Carlos Velozo - lawyer Jean Batten – aviator Emily Akkermans - Curator of Time, Royal Museums Greenwich Keith Moore - the Royal Society of London

(Photo: Siegfried and Roy with a white lion cub, Las Vegas, 1997. Credit: Barry King/WireImage)

Episoder(467)

The Dili Massacre

The Dili Massacre

It is 25 years since Indonesian troops attacked protestors in the East Timorese capital, plus the impact of The Satanic Verses on British society, smuggling endangered birds out of the jungles of South America, a palace burns in Madagascar and the inspiration behind James Bond's theme tune.(Photo: East Timorese activists preparing for the protest that ended in tragedy. Copyright: Max Stahl)

19 Nov 201650min

The Pitcairn Sex Abuse Trial

The Pitcairn Sex Abuse Trial

A mass child sex abuse trial on a remote island in the Pacific that shocked the world, a controversial Kurdish song, the birth of Rolling Stone magazine, men versus computers, and street fighting in San Salvador in the 1980sPhoto: Adamstown, seen in this June 2003 photo of Pitcairn Island (AP)

13 Nov 201650min

Dickey Chapelle - War Reporter

Dickey Chapelle - War Reporter

On this week's programme, how pioneering American woman war reporter, Dickey Chapelle, was killed in Vietnam; plus two very different perspectives on Mao's China, Mexican writer Octavio Paz and the escape which made Harry Houdini's name.PHOTO: Dickey Chapelle during a US Marines operation in 1958 (Credit: US Marine Corps / Associated Press)

5 Nov 201650min

Shell Shock

Shell Shock

World War One veterans describe Shell Shock and Prof. Edgar Jones of Kings College on the psychiatric cost of war; plus Hungary's 1956 uprising, how French intelligence was rocked by the abduction of activist Mehdi Ben Barka, the history of Marvel Comics and London's Big Bang. Photo: French troops shelter during bombardment, 1918. (General Photographic Agency/Getty Images)

29 Okt 201655min

The Mayak Nuclear Disaster

The Mayak Nuclear Disaster

One of the world's worst nuclear disasters, the most notorious prison riot in America, Second World War internment in Australia, resistance in apartheid South Africa, and one of Britain's most celebrated artists, Stanley Spencer, through the eyes of his daughters.Photo: The Mayak nuclear reprocessing plant in 2010. Credit: European Pressphoto Agency

30 Sep 201650min

The University of Texas Shooting

The University of Texas Shooting

On 1 August 1966, student Charles Whitman shot dead 14 people and injured another 32 in America's first mass shooting at a university. Plus, the oldest arts festival in the Middle East; how President Reagan smashed the power of the trade unions; and meeting JD Salinger, the reclusive author of "The Catcher in the Rye".PHOTO: Associated Press.

8 Aug 201650min

First CIA coup in Latin America

First CIA coup in Latin America

In this week's programme, we hear personal accounts of two fronts in America's Cold War fight against communism: Guatemala and Russia itself. Plus, the earthquake in China that killed a quarter of a million; riots in the English city of Liverpool; and remembering Picasso in his prime.PHOTO: Army officers opposed to President Arbenz go over a map of the territory on their push to Zacapa and then to Guatemala City, July 1954. (AP Photo)

30 Jul 201650min

Tanzania's Ujamaa

Tanzania's Ujamaa

Socialism in Tanzania, the man who assassinated the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, the crash of the Soviet supersonic jet Concordski, 20 years to build a road and Date Rape(Photo: Tanzanian women cultivating the soil. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

4 Jun 201650min

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