The Vietnam War and the expansion of the EU

The Vietnam War and the expansion of the EU

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service about the Vietnam War and the invention of the hugely popular mobile phone game, Snake.

Don Anderson, a former BBC TV reporter during the final days of Vietnam, discusses the atmosphere in Saigon as the North Vietnamese forces closed in.

We also hear about the network of tunnels in the south of the country which Viet Cong guerrillas built during the fighting.

Finally, the former president of the European Commission and two-time prime minister of Italy, Romano Prodi on steering through the ten-state expansion of the European Union in 2004.

Contributors:

Le Van Lang - a Viet Cong veteran.

Dr Xuan Dung Tran - a doctor in the South Vietnamese Marines.

Don Anderson - former BBC TV reporter.

Phạm Chi Lan - economist at Vietnam’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Romano Prodi - former president of the European Commission and two-time prime minister of Italy.

Taneli Armanto - mobile phone game Snake, inventor.

(Photo: Viet Cong soldier inside the Cu Chi tunnels. Credit: Dirck Halstead/Getty Images)

Episoder(467)

China's Barefoot Doctors

China's Barefoot Doctors

How China's barefoot doctor scheme revolutionised rural healthcare; plus M*A*S*H, the ground-breaking American TV show that taught a generation about war; the assassination of the Swedish prime minister Olof Palme; the German and Russian soldiers who fought on the Eastern Front in the First World War; and the Angel of the North, a huge steel sculpture that has become an icon for the north-east of England.Picture: Gordon Liu

3 Mar 201851min

The Boy in the Bubble

The Boy in the Bubble

How a young boy lived with a rare genetic disorder; plus "Ghana Must Go" - when 1 million Africans were expelled from Nigeria, battling the last major smallpox epidemic in India, reporting the Jimmy Swaggart scandal and the story behind the acclaimed novel "Infinite Jest" (Photo: David Vetter and his mother Carol-Ann Demaret Credit: Carol-Ann Demaret)

24 Feb 201849min

Women's Rights In Iran

Women's Rights In Iran

We hear from Mahnaz Afkhami, Iran's first ever minister for Women's Affairs, appointed in 1975. Plus, the so-called "headscarf revolutionaries" who fought for improvements in Britain's notoriously dangerous fishing industry, a member of the Viet Cong recalls one of the biggest battles of the Vietnam War, finding the lost notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, and the 1970s lesbian separatist movement in America.Photo: Mahnaz Afkhami at the UN in 1975. (Mahnaz Afkhami)

17 Feb 201850min

The Munich Air Disaster

The Munich Air Disaster

The plane crash that killed eight of Manchester United's top players, the courage of the British Suffragettes, uncovering South Africa's nuclear secrets, plus tracking down Nazis in South America and the attack on a South Korean airliner ahead of the Seoul Olympics.(Photo: Plane wreckage at Munich airport - AFP/Getty Images)

10 Feb 201850min

The Tet Offensive

The Tet Offensive

In January 1968, North Vietnamese troops and Viet Cong guerrillas launched a huge surprise attack on towns, cities and military bases across South Vietnam. The events of the Tet offensive had a profound impact on American public opinion and marked a turning point in the war. Plus the roots of the Rohingya crisis, the birth of gospel music, Ireland's Bloody Sunday, and the end of corporal punishment in Britain.Photo: Julian Pettifer reporting under fire near the Presidential Palace in Saigon, 31st January 1968 (BBC)

3 Feb 201850min

The Capture of the USS Pueblo

The Capture of the USS Pueblo

When North Korea and the US came close to war in 1968; plus Salvador Dali, re-creating Francis Bacon's studio, the first veggie burger and the origins of Lego Photo: Members of the USS Pueblo's crew being taken into custody. Credit: Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service

27 Jan 201850min

Truth And Reconciliation in South Africa

Truth And Reconciliation in South Africa

After Apartheid was abolished in the 1990s, South Africa set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to try to confront the legacy of its brutal past. We speak to Justice Sisi Khampepe, who served on the Commission. Plus, the inspiring story of the disabled Irish author, Christoper Nolan; an inside account of two of America's most famous presidential speeches; and the role of British women in World War I.(PHOTO: Pretoria South Africa: President Nelson Mandela (L) with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, acknowledges applause after he received a five volumes of Truth and Reconciliation Commission final report from Archbishop Tutu. Credit: Getty Images.)

20 Jan 201850min

When France Said 'Non' to Britain Joining Europe

When France Said 'Non' to Britain Joining Europe

When France stopped Britain joining Europe in the 1960s, the boy who set a record for continuously staying awake, the launch of the first iPhone, hands reaching out in friendship between Britain and Germany after the Second World War, and a notorious massacre during Algeria's bitter internal conflict of the 1990s.Photo: Charles de Gaulle, President of France, at a press conference on 14th January 1963 at which he said Britain was not ready to join the European Economic Community, now the EU (Credit: Central Press/Getty Images)

13 Jan 201849min

Populært innen Samfunn

giver-og-gjengen-vg
aftenpodden
rss-spartsklubben
konspirasjonspodden
aftenpodden-usa
rss-nesten-hele-uka-med-lepperod
vitnemal
popradet
wolfgang-wee-uncut
grenselos
synnve-og-vanessa
rss-dannet-uten-piano
frokostshowet-pa-p5
fladseth
alt-fortalt
fryktlos
rss-herrepanelet
opptur-med-annette-og-ingeborg
den-politiske-situasjonen
relasjonspodden-med-dora-thorhallsdottir-kjersti-idem