Panama and the 'Purple Heart Battalion'
The History Hour14 Dec 2024

Panama and the 'Purple Heart Battalion'

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Joan Flores-Villalobos, Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Southern California, and author of The Silver Women: How Black Women’s Labor Made the Panama Canal.

First, we hear from a man involved in the handover of the canal from the United States to Panama in 1999. Then, DJ and singer Leonardo Renato Aulder explains how the canal led to the creation of Reggaeton music.

Next we go to Cuba. An old comrade of Fidel Castro recounts the violent start of the Cuban revolution in 1953. And a member of the Obama administration explains how he negotiated better US-Cuba relations in 2014.

Finally, the story of the 442nd US military regiment, made up almost entirely of Japanese Americans, that earned more than 4,000 Purple Heart medals for extraordinary heroism during World War Two.

Contributors: Alberto Aleman Zubieta - Panama Canal administrator. Leonardo Renato Aulder - Reggaeton singer and DJ. Joan Flores-Villalobos - Assistant Professor at the University of Southern California. Agustín Díaz Cartaya - Cuban revolutionary. Ben Rhodes - Speechwriter for US President Barack Obama. Clyde Kusatsu - son of 442nd Regiment veteran.

(Photo: World War Two veterans from the highly decorated 442nd Regiment in 2015. Credit: Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

Avsnitt(468)

Tanzania's Ujamaa

Tanzania's Ujamaa

Socialism in Tanzania, the man who assassinated the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, the crash of the Soviet supersonic jet Concordski, 20 years to build a road and Date Rape(Photo: Tanzanian women cultivating the soil. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

4 Juni 201650min

The Thalidomide Trial

The Thalidomide Trial

Executives of the German company that made the drug Thalodomide go on trial. Plus, Chechen rebels negotiate peace with President Yeltsin; the Israeli airlift of 14,000 Ethiopian Jews; Hands Across America, the day millions of Americans formed a human chain to try to end poverty; and the execution of the Queen of England, Anne Boleyn.Photograph: A Thalidomide child undergoes rehabilitation, 1963 (Credit: Keystone/Getty Images)

28 Maj 201650min

Remembering Chernobyl

Remembering Chernobyl

Chernobyl, the world's worst nuclear disaster; the funeral of Charles Darwin, whose theory of evolution changed the world; plus, the impact of being accused during the McCarthy era in America, and two style icons of the Sixties, the Mini and Yves St Laurent.Photo: a Swedish farmer wears protective clothing because of contamination from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster (Credit: STF/AFP/Getty Images)

30 Apr 201650min

The Original Revolutionary Feminist

The Original Revolutionary Feminist

Russia's revolutionary feminist, British women after the First World War, poisoning in the Balkans, a miscarriage of justice in Britain, and the world's worst aviation disaster

12 Mars 201650min

The Battle of Verdun

The Battle of Verdun

The World War One battle that traumatised France; the Austrian mountaineer who wrote Seven Years in Tibet; how Christian Dior revolutionised fashion with the 'New Look'. Plus, how Foot-and-Mouth disease broke the hearts of British farmers and the botched assassination which humiliated the Israeli Secret Service.(Photo: French Troops under fire at Verdun. Credit: General Photographic Agency/Getty Images)

20 Feb 201650min

Prozac

Prozac

The birth of the Prozac generation, the battle to save Afghanistan's ancient artworks and death and violence in the Spanish embassy in Guatemala. Plus we hear about an American political corruption scandal and the launch of the Disney classic, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

6 Feb 201650min

The Challenger Disaster

The Challenger Disaster

The launch of space shuttle Challenger goes horribly wrong, Rupert Murdoch goes to war with his print unions, Australia's 18th century penal colonies, Sharia law in Nigeria, and Batman comes to TV.Photo: Christa McAuliffe (left) and Barbara Morgan. Credit: Nasa

30 Jan 201650min

Michael Jackson's Thriller

Michael Jackson's Thriller

The 1982 release of the world's best selling album; plus the untimely death of General George S Patton; the former child star Karolyn Grimes on the film It's A Wonderful Life, the Beagle 2 mission to Mars, and Vladimir Nabokov's scandalous book, Lolita.(Photo: Michael Jackson and assorted zombies in the video for Thriller in 1983. Credit: 01/01/1983 Publicity Handout)

31 Dec 201545min

Populärt inom Samhälle & Kultur

en-mork-historia
mardromsgasten
podme-dokumentar
rattsfallen
aftonbladet-krim
p3-dokumentar
skaringer-nessvold
killradet
nemo-moter-en-van
creepypodden-med-jack-werner
badfluence
flashback-forever
rss-brottsutredarna
p1-dokumentar
kod-katastrof
hor-har
vad-blir-det-for-mord
svenska-fall
rss-sanning-konsekvens
larm-vi-minns