Witness History

Witness History is a short BBC World Service podcast about history that takes you inside big moments from the past through first-hand testimony and archive. Each weekday, in around nine minutes, we revisit one moment that helped shape the world and hear it through the voice of someone who was there. Scientists, artists, campaigners, soldiers, leaders and everyday people tell their true stories. When you subscribe to Witness History, you’ll be taken inside turning points in world affairs, from West Africa’s fight back against Boko Haram in 2015, to the behind-closed-doors talks that led to the US-Cuba “thaw” and the surprise announcement of restored relations.

You’ll discover what it was like to experience disasters and how people recovered from them, including the Tabasco floods in Mexico, Portugal's worst train disaster, and the huge clean-up after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

You’ll explore culture and ideas too: Sweden’s Expedition Robinson, often credited as the first modern reality TV game show; the friendship between The Beatles’ George Harrison and Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar; and the night a tiger attack brought Las Vegas superstars Siegfried and Roy’s show to a sudden end.

And if you’re curious about inventions, we’ll tell you how air fryers, BlackBerry, YouTube, Alexa, GPS, superglue, the shopping cart (shopping trolley) and bubble tea were created.

If you’re new to Witness History, the appeal is simple: real voices, one strong true story, and a fresh way to understand today through events from history – all in the time it takes to enjoy a cup of tea or a walk around the block. Join millions of BBC World Service podcast listeners around the globe and enjoy the insight, context and detail Witness History will bring you.

Denne podkasten er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(2000)

The Eichmann trial

In April 1961, Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi official in charge of concentration camps, was put on trial in Israel.The trial helped reveal the full details of the holocaust in which millions of European je...

19 Apr 202110min

China's 'Kingdom of women'

The Mosuo community in China’s Himalayan foothills is matrilineal, so a family’s ‘bloodline’, inheritance and power is passed down through the female side. There is no such thing as marriage and mono...

16 Apr 202111min

The vultures saved from extinction

South Asian vultures started dying in huge numbers in the 1990s but no one knew why. They were on the verge of extinction before scientists worked out what was killing them. Bob Howard has been heari...

15 Apr 20218min

Fighting for Castro at the Bay of Pigs

On April 17 1961 a group of Cuban exiles launched an invasion of communist-ruled Cuba in a failed attempt to topple Fidel Castro. After 72 hours of fighting many of the invaders were captured or kill...

14 Apr 20218min

How a worm helped explain human development

After the discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA in the 1950s, South African biologist Sydney Brenner was searching for a model animal to help him tease out the genes involved in human behavio...

13 Apr 20218min

The US Supreme Court's first woman justice

In 1981, Sandra Day O'Connor became the first woman judge to be appointed to the US Supreme Court. She was nominated by newly-elected Republican president Ronald Reagan, who'd made the pledge to appoi...

12 Apr 20219min

Discovering the Jet Stream

The Jet Stream is formed by powerful high-altitude rivers of air which circle the globe and help determine our climate. The existence of these winds was first documented in Japan in the 1920s, but onl...

9 Apr 202111min

From Leningrad to St Petersburg

As the communist system in the former Soviet Union was collapsing in 1991, the people of Leningrad voted to drop Vladimir Lenin's name abandoning the city's revolutionary heritage and returning to its...

8 Apr 20219min