Robert Kennedy's funeral train and the opening of the Medellin Metro

Robert Kennedy's funeral train and the opening of the Medellin Metro

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service, all related to trains and journeys which have helped to shape our world.

Our guest Nicky Gardner, travel writer and co-author of Europe by Rail: the Definitive Guide, discusses the origins of train travel.

The first story involved the hijacking of a train in 1950s communist Czechoslovakia which was driven across the border into West Germany.

We also hear about Senator Robert Kennedy's funeral train in 1960s America, and Italy's "happiness train", which took children from the poverty stricken south to wealthier families in the north.

Contributors - Archive interview with Karel Ruml. Frank Mankiewicz - Robert Kennedy's former press secretary, and Rosey Grier, his former bodyguard. Bianca D’Aniello - a passenger on the “happiness train”. June Cutchins - received gifts from the Gratitude Train. Tomas Andreas Elejalde - general manager of the Medellin Metro.

(Photo: People stand near railroad tracks as a train carries the body of Robert Kennedy on June 8, 1968. Credit: Steve Northrup/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Episoder(469)

Drama in the British parliament

Drama in the British parliament

Prime Minister Jim Callaghan's desperate attempts to survive a no-confidence motion in 1979, the record-breaking 20-day balloon flight around the world; plus the Nazi past of Kurt Waldheim, mindfulness and the first home pregnancy test.Picture: James Callaghan outside 10 Downing Street (Fox Photos/Getty)

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Autism and the MMR vaccine

Autism and the MMR vaccine

How a British doctor misled the world by linking the MMR vaccine to autism; the early rise of Hungary’s Viktor Orban also what it was like to contest the Soviet Union’s first multi-party elections plus the exposure in the 1970s of a Nazi criminal in Holland and uncovering Mexico’s Aztec past.Photo: Dr Andrew Wakefield arrives at the General Medical Council in London to face a disciplinary panel, July 16th 2007 (Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images)

23 Mar 201954min

China's breakthrough malaria cure

China's breakthrough malaria cure

How an ancient Chinese remedy provided a 1970s breakthrough in the fight against malaria; the bombing of Dresden in the Second World War that inspired Kurt Vonnegut's anti-war novel Slaughterhouse Five; the fall of Singapore; plus the town that America built in Afghanistan's south-western desert, and 'was Lenin a mushroom' - a satirical re-writing of Soviet history.Photo: Professor Lang Linfu (Family archives)

16 Mar 201950min

I was abused by a President

I was abused by a President

How allegations of child abuse engulfed Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, the campaign to return the Elgin marbles to Greece, Britain's first black headteacher, the origins of the Barbie doll and how Baroness Warsi made history.Photo: Zoilamerica Narváez announces in a press conference that she is filing a law suit against her stepfather Daniel Ortega, March 1998 (RODRIGO ARANGUA/AFP/Getty Images):

9 Mar 201950min

Venezuela's oil bonanza

Venezuela's oil bonanza

When Venezuela was rich; surviving a mid-air airline disaster; Japan's Red Army militants of the 1970s, the origin of the swine flu epidemic and Iceland's Beer Day. Photo: Seidel/United Archives/UIG via Getty Images

2 Mar 201950min

The curse of Agent Orange

The curse of Agent Orange

Millions left dead or deformed because of chemicals used in the Vietnam war, UK cigarette smoking warnings ignored, remains of the Nazi 'Angel of Death' discovered in Brazil, the Columbia Shuttle disaster which led to huge questions about American space safety and the unrest featured in the Oscar-nominated film, Roma, where Mexican students were killed by government-trained paramilitary troops.Photo: Child suffering from spinal deformity in rehabilitation centre in Saigon.

23 Feb 201950min

Iceland jails its bankers

Iceland jails its bankers

Why Iceland jailed 40 bankers after the 2008 financial crisis, how the Maastricht Treaty gave birth to the EU, plus America's first female airline pilots, Cameroon's historic referendum and homeless, drunk and yet a genius in the USSR.(Photo: Protesters on the streets of Reykjavik demand answers from the government and the banks about the country's financial crisis, Nov. 2008. (Halldor Kolbeins/AFP/Getty Images)

16 Feb 201950min

The last days of Hitler

The last days of Hitler

Hitler's secretary on the last days in the bunker; a CIA operative on the killing of Che Guevara, remembering the US invasion of Iraq, a child of the Soweto Uprising and the tricky task of bringing Disneyland to France. Photo: Getty Images

9 Feb 201950min

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