Pakistani popstars, and the hippo and the tortoise
The History Hour11 Nov 2023

Pakistani popstars, and the hippo and the tortoise

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.

We hear from Zoheb Hassen, one half of a sibling duo from Pakistan who topped the charts in countries all over the world with their dancefloor filler, Disco Deewane.

Our guest is BBC radio presenter and Pakistani music fan Raess Khan. He talks about how Pakistani pop music evolved from Zoheb’s success.

Entertainment star Debbie McGee, who is best known for being the assistant and wife of British magician Paul Daniels talks about escaping from Iran at the start of the revolution in 1978.

In 2004 a supermarket fire in Paraguay killed more than 300 people. It was the country’s biggest peacetime disaster. One of the survivors, Tatiana Gabaglio tells her story.

Plus, how one of Bosnia's most famous landmarks, the historic bridge in Mostar, was destroyed by Croat guns during the Bosnian war in 1993

Finally, the unlikely friendship of a hippo and a tortoise following the tsunami in 2004.

Contributors: Zoheb Hassen – former popstar Raess Khan – BBC presenter and Pakistani pop fan Debbie McGee – British celebrity Tatiana Gabaglio – supermarket fire survivor in Paraguay Mirsad Behram – journalist Eldin Palata – cameraman Dr Paula Kahumbu – wildlife conservationist

(Photo: Nazia and Zoheb Hassen in 1982. Credit: BBC)

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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 Mars 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 Mars 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 Mars 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 Mars 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

The Iranian Revolution

The Iranian Revolution

In February 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile to Iran in the defining moment of a revolution that would change his country and the whole Middle East. In a special edition of the programme, Rebecca Kesby hears eye-witness accounts from the protestors who brought down the Shah, one of the Ayatollah's aides and an American embassy official taken hostage by Khomeini supporters. She also talks to the BBC Persian Service's special correspondent, Kasra Naji.PHOTO: Ayatollah Khomeini returning to Iran (Gabriel Duval, AFP/Getty Images.)

2 Feb 201949min

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