The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and World Book Day

The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and World Book Day

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service.

It’s 50 years since soldiers of the communist Khmer Rouge party stormed into the capital, Phnom Penh. It was the start of a four year reign of terror which resulted in up to two million people being killed. We hear two stories from people affected by the regime.

Our guest is journalist and author, Elizabeth Becker. She is one of the foremost authorities on the history of Cambodia, and one of the few westerners to have interviewed Pol Pot.

The scientist who invented the white LED lightbulb in 1993 tells his story.

Plus, the Bali Nine: young Australians facing the death penalty for drug smuggling and, Spain’s historic link to World Book Day.

Contributors:

Youk Chang – lived through the Khmer Rouge regime Aki Ra - child soldier of Cambodia Elizabeth Becker – journalist and author Professor Shuji Nakamura – inventor of the white LED lightbulb Bishop Tim Harris – friend of one of the Bali Nine families Pere Vicens - book publisher and one of the creators of World Book Day

(Photo: The fall of Phnom Penh in 1975. Credit: Roland Neveu/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Episoder(467)

The 'Braceros' - America's Mexican Guest Workers

The 'Braceros' - America's Mexican Guest Workers

From 1942 to 1964 the US actively encouraged American farmers to hire tens of thousands of migrant workers to come to work legally from Mexico - they were known as 'braceros'; also, when Moscow invited thousands of foreign students to attend an International Youth Festival in the former USSR; a witness to the funeral of the Duke of Wellington; plus Arafat's final weeks and why was JKF's killer allowed to defect to the Soviets?Photo: A group of Mexican Braceros picking strawberries in a field in the Salinas Valley, California in June 1963 (Getty Images)

24 Nov 201850min

Japanese Murders in Brazil

Japanese Murders in Brazil

How Japanese immigrants in Brazil fell out with each other after the end of the WW2, how Britain helped to get disabled people on the road in the 1940s plus life for Jews under Imperial Russia, the victims of Brazil’s military dictatorship in the 1970s and the American embassy hostage crisis in Tehran.

17 Nov 201850min

The End of World War One

The End of World War One

11th November 1918 saw the end of a four year war that had killed an estimated 20 million soldiers and civilians around the world. We hear eyewitness accounts of the conflict which was fought by many nations, on many continents. The historian, Professor Annika Mombauer joins Max Pearson to discuss the devastating war that changed the world. Photo: Crowds in London celebrate the signing of the Armistice on 11th November 1918 (Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

10 Nov 201851min

When Russia's Richest Man Was Jailed

When Russia's Richest Man Was Jailed

Russia's struggles with big business, when Nigeria struck oil, why Maximilian Kolbe was made a saint, the London arrest of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and Desmond Tutu.Photo: former head of Yukos Mikhail Khodorkovsky leaving the courtroom in Moscow, Russia, September 22, 2005. Credit: Sovfoto/UIG via Getty Images

26 Okt 201850min

The Nazi Black Book

The Nazi Black Book

The Nazi black book, a list of those to be arrested and dealt with if Germany occupied Britain, privation in wartime and Allied-occupied Austria, racial tension in 1940s Sweden, plus how Britain's Labour party moved against hereditary peers in the House of Lords in the 1990s.

26 Okt 201849min

When Belgium Banned Coca Cola

When Belgium Banned Coca Cola

A strange illness strikes Belgian teenagers, Brazil's forgotten Amazon war, diverting Mount Etna's lava, arguments over aid and trade in the UK, and the 1973 oil crisis.(Photo: A poster saying 'out of order' is stuck on a Coca Cola vending machine in Mouscron, Belgium in 1999. Credit: Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty Images).

20 Okt 201851min

The Street Battle That Rocked Brazil

The Street Battle That Rocked Brazil

In October 1968, students from two neighbouring universities in the centre of São Paulo clashed in a battle which left one dead and many injured. We hear how the so-called 'Battle of Maria Antônia' drove Brazil deeper into a military dictatorship which is still controversial to this day. Plus, a pioneering race relations case in Britain during World War 2, the invention of artificial skin and fashion in the Soviet Union.Photo: the 'Battle of Maria Antonia', São Paulo, 1968. Credit: Agência Estado/AFP

6 Okt 201850min

The Arnhem Parachute Drop

The Arnhem Parachute Drop

Operation Market Garden - the failed attempt to end the war against Hitler; plus, a deadly nuclear accident in Brazil, the film of the Battle of Algiers, the last regular steam train to run in Britain and one of the Cuban Five jailed in America for spying for Fidel Castro.(Photo: Allied planes and parachutists over Arnhem, Getty Images)

22 Sep 201850min

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