The first lesbian couple to get married and World Laughter Day
The History Hour13 Jan 2024

The first lesbian couple to get married and World Laughter Day

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

In 2001, the Netherlands became the first country to legalise gay marriage. Four couples were chosen to take part in a collective wedding at midnight which was broadcast on TV. Hélène Faasen and Anne-Marie Thus talk about the wedding they thought they'd never have.

Our guest Lauren Moss, the LGBT & Identity Correspondent at BBC News tells us about the history of gay marriage. Also, the man who risked his life to make the audio recordings which blew open one of the biggest corruption scandals in Spain's recent history.

Then we hear the story of the 1970s defection from the Soviet Union of a world-famous ballerina. Plus, the mystery surrounding the fate of the last king of France's son and the man who really does believe that laughter is the best medicine.

Contributors: Hélène Faasen & Anne-Marie Thus - the first lesbian couple to get married legally. Lauren Moss - LGBT & Identity Correspondent at BBC News. José Luis Peñas - the man that made secret recordings that revealed the Gurtel scandal. Prof Jean Jacques Cassiman - Belgian geneticist. Deborah Cadbury - historian. Dr Madan Kataria – founder of World Laughter Day.

(Photo: The couple arrive to be married at the Amsterdam City Hall. Credit: Marcel Antonisse/ANP/AFP via Getty Images)

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The Fall of Suharto in Indonesia

The Fall of Suharto in Indonesia

In 1998, the Indonesian dictator, President Suharto, resigned after 31 years in power. He stood down in the wake of nationwide demonstrations sparked by the killing of four student protestors. We hear from Bhatara Ibnu Reza, who was with one of the students when he died. Plus, how a Pakistani theatre company took on the dictatorship of General Zia ul-Huq; the landmark Holocaust documentary Shoah; and the day lesbian protestors targeted the BBC news studio.Photo: Students celebrate outside the Parliamentary buildings, Jakarta after Indonesian President Suharto announced his resignation. Credit: Adam Butler/PA

26 Maj 201850min

May 1968 Paris Riots

May 1968 Paris Riots

A French riot policeman's view of the violence that swept through France in May 1968; plus the man who led a team that made safe two nuclear weapons that had crashed to ground in the US. Also, the origins of Montessori education, one of the airmen on the Dambusters' raid and actor Jane Asher remembers John Osborne's radical 1950s play, Look Back in Anger.Photo: Protesters face police in front of the Joseph Gibert bookstore, Boulevard Saint Michel in May 1968. (Credit: Jacques Marie/AFP/Getty Images)

19 Maj 201851min

The Last King of Bulgaria

The Last King of Bulgaria

From child king in the Second World War to post-communist prime minister, the story of Bulgaria's King Simeon II; the first ever surgery performed on a foetus in the womb, an American family selling secrets to the Soviets in the 1980s, plus the 1963 attempt to form a United States of Africa, and the earliest diagnosis of autism.Photo: King Simeon II 1943 (credit: Bulgarian Royal Family)

12 Maj 201850min

When Margaret Thatcher Came to Power

When Margaret Thatcher Came to Power

Working for Britain's first female PM, the rare story of prisoners on the high seas in WW2, plus the Children's Crusade for civil right in 60s Alabama, the origin of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the story behind the Japanese TV hit, Takeshi's Castle. Photo: British Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, with husband Denis on May 4th 1979. (Credit: John Minihan/Evening Standard/Getty Images)

5 Maj 201849min

The Oslo Peace Talks

The Oslo Peace Talks

The story behind the secret Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Oslo in 1993, the woman who swam from the USA to the Soviet Union, plus remembering Pablo Picasso, how art transformed notorious Scottish prisoners, and one of the most famous figures of World War One, the Red Baron. Photo: Yitzhak Rabin, Bill Clinton and Yasser Arafat at the signing ceremony for the Oslo Accord, September 13,1993. Credit: AFP/Getty Images

28 Apr 201849min

Earth Day

Earth Day

The birth of the modern environmental movement, Germany's 1918 Spring Offensive, the discovery of the concentration camp horrors of Bergen-Belsen plus the rebuilding of the World Trade Centre site; and the last occupiers of Europe's most westerly lighthouse.Photo credit: Robert Sabo-Pool/Getty Images

21 Apr 201850min

The Zimbabwe Massacres

The Zimbabwe Massacres

In this week's episode, Robert Mugabe's brutal crack down on the opposition in the 1980s, a mass expulsion of Soviet spies from Britain in the 1970's and the working class film revolution of the 1960's. Plus the first frozen embryo and the death of a German student leader that sparked huge demonstrations. (Photo: Robert Mugabe. Getty Images)

14 Apr 201850min

The Good Friday Agreement

The Good Friday Agreement

In 1998, the political parties in Northern Ireland reached a peace agreement that ended decades of war. We hear from Paul Murphy, the junior minister for Northern Ireland at the time. Plus, a cross-community choir in Bosnia and women pioneers from the worlds of finance and oceanography.PHOTO: Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern (L) and British Prime Minister Tony Blair (R) pose with the mediator

31 Mars 201850min

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