Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway

Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway

In 1995, an obscure Japanese religion launched a chemical attack on the Tokyo metro.

Members of the doomsday cult, which called itself Aum Shinrikyo, dropped plastic bags containing sarin liquid on the floors of five different trains and then pierced them. As the liquid evaporated, passengers began inhaling the deadly fumes. Thirteen people were killed and thousands more injured.

One of the passengers affected that day was Atsushi Asakahara. He spoke to Chloe Hadjimatheou in 2012.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic’ and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they’ve had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America’s occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.

(Photo: Sarin attack. Credit: Getty Images)

Episoder(2000)

Surviving The My Lai Massacre

Surviving The My Lai Massacre

US troops went on the rampage through a Vietnamese village in March 1968, killing men, women and children in cold blood. 11-year old Pham Thanh Cong survived, but the rest of his family was killed. In 2012 he spoke to Neal Razzell about his memories of the bloodbath.Photo: Pham Thanh Cong now.Credit Hoang Dinh Nam/AFP/Getty Images.

13 Mar 20188min

The Moscow Show Trials

The Moscow Show Trials

An eyewitness account of Stalin's purge of top Soviet leaders during the 1930s, when millions of Soviet citizens were executed or sent to labour camps.British diplomat Sir Fitzroy Maclean, spoke to the BBC in the 1980s about his memories of Moscow during the Great Terror, when Stalin's repression was at its height. Maclean attended the show trial of one of the foremost Soviet leaders, Nikolai Bukharin who was accused of conspiracy and was later executed. Photo: Portrait of Russian Communist leader and theoretician Nikolai Bukharin ,a former editor of Pravda and a member of the Central Organization of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, circa 1920. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

12 Mar 201810min

Changing the Alphabet in Azerbaijan

Changing the Alphabet in Azerbaijan

Independent Azerbaijan changed its alphabet from Russian Cyrillic script to the Latin alphabet in 2001. The new letters symbolised a break with the country's Soviet past, but presented a difficult challenge for publishers and journalists and schoolchildren. Olga Smirnova has been talking to Elchin Shixli and Shahbaz Xuduoglu.Photo: Staff members of Azerbaijan's Ustarat newspaper prepare copy July 31, 2001 in their Baku headquarters for the following day, August 1, when all newspapers, according to government decree, had to switch the alphabet of their Azeri text from Cyrillic to Latin. (Photo by Yola Monakhov/Getty Images)

9 Mar 20188min

Marie Stopes: Birth Control Pioneer

Marie Stopes: Birth Control Pioneer

In March 1921, Marie Stopes opened Britain's first birth control clinic in London. The Mother's Clinic in Holloway offered advice to married mothers on how to avoid having any more children. Hear testimonies on the early days of birth control in Britain from the BBC archive. This programme was first broadcast in 2013.(Photo: Dr Marie Stopes, photographed in 1953. Credit: Baron/Getty Images)

8 Mar 20189min

The Life and Thought of Hannah Arendt

The Life and Thought of Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt was one of the most influential political thinkers of the 20th-century. Born into a German-Jewish family, she fled Germany in 1933 as the Nazis consolidated their power, eventually reaching America, where she published her seminal works on totalitarianism and the human condition She is also remembered for her phrase, the banality of evil, to describe the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann at his trial in Jerusalem in 1961. Louise Hidalgo talks to Hannah Arendt's former assistant, Jerome Kohn, and listens through the archives to those who knew her.Picture: Hannah Arendt in 1966. (Credit: Fred Stein/DPA/PA)

7 Mar 20189min

Deaf Rights Protest

Deaf Rights Protest

Students at deaf-only Gallaudet University in Washington DC shut-down the campus in protest when the board of trustees appointed a hearing President in March 1988. They barricaded the campus with buses, marched to the White House and made the front page of the New York Times. Claire Bowes has been speaking to Dr I King Jordan, who was eventually appointed the first ever deaf President in the University's long history.(Photo: Student protestors, courtesy of Gallaudet University)

6 Mar 201812min

World War One: Russia at War

World War One: Russia at War

Russia's disastrous war on the Eastern Front became a catalyst for revolution at home. In 1914, Russia went to war against Germany and the Austro-Hungarian empire. But Russia was unprepared for a conflict on such a scale. Millions were killed or wounded at the front. There were chronic shortages at home. Popular anger led to the fall of the Tsar and the start of the Russian revolution. Using archive recordings we tell the story of the war in the East. Photo: Russian soldiers flee through a village after a provocateur announced that the German cavalry had broken through circa 1916. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

2 Mar 201810min

China's Barefoot Doctors

China's Barefoot Doctors

In March 1968, Chairman Mao officially launched a scheme to improve healthcare in rural China, by giving thousands of people basic medical training and sending them out to work in villages. They were known as the “barefoot doctors”.Gordon Liu is a Professor of Economics at Peking University. He tells Lucy Burns about his memories of working as a barefoot doctor.Picture: Gordon Liu

1 Mar 20188min

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