The death of Franco

The death of Franco

General Francisco Franco died in November 1975, ending 36 years of dictatorship over Spain.

The general had been in power since 1939 after winning the country’s bloody civil war, and his death followed a long illness.

He was mourned by conservative Spaniards but those on the left celebrated, calling him a fascist who had once been an ally of Hitler and Mussolini.

In 2015, Louise Hidalgo spoke to Jose Antonio Martinez Soler, a young journalist about the ending of an era.

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 the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina’s Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall’ speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler’s List; and Jacques Derrida, France’s ‘rock star’ philosopher. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest; the disastrous D-Day rehearsal; and the death of one of the world’s oldest languages.

(Photo: General Francisco Franco lies in state in Madrid, 1975. Credit: Central Press/Getty Images)

Episoder(2000)

The Funeral of the Duke of Wellington

The Funeral of the Duke of Wellington

A man recorded by the BBC shares his memories of the funeral of the Duke of Wellington in 1852. The Duke was given a state funeral after defeating Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815. The British General was credited with preventing Napoleon Bonaparte from establishing a European empire. Frederick Mead was just five when he went with his parents to watch the funeral procession go by.PICTURE: The Duke of Wellington. Oil on canvas (photo by Imagno/Getty Images)

19 Nov 201811min

Britain's Little Blue Disability Car

Britain's Little Blue Disability Car

For decades disabled people in the UK were offered tiny, three-wheeled, turquoise cars as their main form of transport. They were known as Invacars and they were provided, free of charge, to people who couldn't use ordinary vehicles.They were phased out in the 1970s because they were accident-prone and people were given grants to adapt conventional cars instead. Daniel Gordon has been hearing from Colin Powell, who was issued with his first Invacar at the age of 16.Photo: an Invacar. Credit: BBC

16 Nov 20189min

Japanese Murders in Brazil

Japanese Murders in Brazil

When WW2 was over, a fanatical group of Japanese immigrants living in Brazil refused to believe that Japan had lost the war. They decided to punish their more prominent compatriots who accepted that Japan had lost. The extremists killed 23 people. Aiko Higuchi remembers the tragic day in February 1946 when her father became their first victim.Photo: Some members of Shindo Renmei (Tokuichi Hidaka is the first from the right) in picture taken by Masashigue Onishi in Tupã, state of São Paulo, Brazil, in the beginning of 1946, before the killings. Credit: Masashigue Onishi/Historical Museum of Japanese Immigration in Brazil

15 Nov 20189min

The Shah in Exile

The Shah in Exile

In November 1979, Iranian students seized the American embassy in Tehran after Washington agreed to allow the deposed Shah into the US for medical treatment. It would be more than a year before the US embassy hostages were released and the crisis irreparably damaged American-Iranian relations. Louise Hidalgo has been talking to diplomat Henry Precht, head of the Iran desk at the US state department during those tumultuous months who argued against letting the exiled Shah enter America.Picture: protestors in New York demonstrate against the admission of the Shah of Iran into a New York hospital (Credit: Michael Norcia/Sygma/Getty Images)

13 Nov 20189min

Jewish in Imperial Russia

Jewish in Imperial Russia

Pearl Unikow was a young woman who grew up in a segregated Jewish community in Russia before WW1. Her stories, recorded in Yiddish in the 1970s, provide a rare account of traditional Jewish life. Her granddaughter Lisa Cooper wrote a book based on those recordings. Dina Newman has been listening to the tapes and spoke to Lisa Cooper. Photo: Pearl Unikow (in the middle of the back row) with her cousins, circa 1920. Credit: family archive.

13 Nov 20188min

How The Brazilian Dictatorship Made My Father Disappear

How The Brazilian Dictatorship Made My Father Disappear

On a hot summer day in 1971, six armed men invaded the house of former Congressman Rubens Paiva in Rio de Janeiro. He was taken from his wife and children, never to be seen again. Paiva was one of the most famous Brazilians to disappear during the military dictatorship. His son, writer Marcelo Rubens Paiva, tells how his family coped with decades of lies, uncertainty and, finally, the truth.Photo: Rubens Paiva surrounded by his family (his son, Marcelo, is seated cross-legged). Credit: Family Archive

12 Nov 20188min

WW1: Revolution in Germany

WW1: Revolution in Germany

After four years of war Germany was on the verge of defeat. Its armies were exhausted and in retreat, its civilian population enduring hardship and hunger. As unrest grew at home, the German government and military struggled to maintain control. The German Kaiser was forced to abdicate. Germany became a republic. Hear first-hand accounts from the BBC archive of how the disastrous end to the First World War provoked revolution in Germany. Photo: Revolutionaries in a truck with machine guns in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, November 1918 (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)

8 Nov 20189min

Women Nurses during World War One

Women Nurses during World War One

During World War One, two British nurses set up a first aid station just a few hundred metres behind the trenches of the Western Front. Mairi Chisholm and Elsie Knocker became known as 'the Madonnas of Pervyse'. Mairi Chisholm spoke to the BBC in 1977, Lucy Burns has been listening to her story.(Photo: Mairi Chisholm (left) and Elsie Knocker. Courtesy of Dr Diane Atkinson, author of Elsie and Mairi Go To War)

7 Nov 20188min

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