New Zealander Jean Batten was nicknamed the ‘Queen of the Skies’ for her record breaking flights of the 1930s. After abandoning a career in music, Jean learnt to fly at the age of 21. She soon joined other female pilots, such as the American, Amelia Earhart, in making international headlines. They were flying across the world, in planes made of wood and canvas, during the so-called golden age of aviation. Jean’s achievements included being the first woman to fly solo from Australia to England; a...
Oct 29, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 1676, Astronomer Royal John Flamsteed was looking to find a way to determine longitude at sea, so ships could know their position and hazards. Feuds with Sir Isaac Newton, dirty rivers and a missing key are just some of the obstacles he contended with and overcame. His labours ultimately paved the way to Greenwich Mean Time. Emily Akkermans, Curator of Time at Royal Museums Greenwich, and Keith Moore from the Royal Society of London, speak to Allis Moss. Eye-witness accounts brought to life b...
Oct 28, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 1970, father of five Gary Gygax was fired from his job as an insurance underwriter in Chicago, in the United States of America. It may sound like a mundane event to read about but, believe it or not, this moment actually changed the gaming industry forever. Gary is the creator of table-top roleplay game, Dungeons & Dragons. In the 50 years since its release, D&D has generated billions of dollars in sales and now boasts more than 50 million players worldwide. However, Gary’s story is n...
Oct 25, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast Star athlete, Jose Adelino Barceló de Carvalho, abandoned his career in 1972 to follow his one true passion, music. After growing up under Portuguese colonial rule, he became an outspoken supporter of Angolan independence, and used the pseudonym, Bonga Kwenda. He was later forced into exile in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, where he recorded his first album. He went on to become a famous Angolan musician. He speaks with Marcia Veiga. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness Histo...
Oct 24, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 1984, Ethiopia suffered one of its worst ever famines. A BBC news report from the area shocked the world - and led to a huge global fundraising campaign. In 2014, Lucy Burns spoke to Dawit Giorgis, who was in charge of Ethiopia's internal relief effort during the crisis. 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 ...
Oct 23, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast Argentinian geologist Eduardo Olivero became the first scientist to find the remains of a dinosaur in Antarctica in 1986. But digging in frozen ground is not easy, so recovering them took several trips over a decade. Eduardo had to work with discretion and hide the fossils a couple of times to prevent other scientists from taking away his discovery. It was later proven the dinosaur is a new kind of Ankylosaurus that now carries his name: Antarctopelta oliveroi. He speaks to Stefania Gozzer about...
Oct 22, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 2013, Emami, an Indian beauty and wellness company, put out an advert for their skin lightening product 'Fair and Handsome'. It features billionaire blockbuster actor Shah Rukh Khan telling a young man that he can get more attention and live a better life if he uses the product. Kavitha Emmanuel who was campaigning to end colourism in India, saw the advert and decided to petition against it. She managed to gather 20,000 signatures and went to the Emami headquarters to ask them to take it down...
Oct 21, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast After the Six Day War in June 1967, the Suez Canal in Egypt was closed. It meant 14 ships from eight different countries, including the United States, Bulgaria and France, were trapped in an area called the Great Bitter Lake. They would remain there for eight years, and would become known as the ‘yellow fleet’. Two of the ships were the MS Melampus and MS Agapenor. Former assistant steward, Phil Saul, worked on both and was in charge of looking after the engineers and officers. He speaks to Mega...
Oct 18, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 1969, a new sound began to dominate the airwaves in the UK, reggae. This was terrible news for two Jamaican men, Len Dyke and Dudley Dryden who were making their money selling 'slices of home' records on market stalls in London. They had been pushed out by big labels but being true businessmen, they established themselves in an area with little-to-no commercial competition - black women’s haircare. Little did they know they were entering the market when black beauty was about to get a whole n...
Oct 17, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 1999, Waheed Arian left his family in Afghanistan to seek refuge in the UK. He was just 15. He was escaping violence, poverty and the threat of being recruited as a child soldier. He tells Vicky Farncombe about how a dream of one day becoming a doctor sustained him. 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, ...
Oct 16, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast In November 2003, the people of Georgia ousted veteran president Eduard Shevardnadze. Protestors stormed the parliament building in the capital Tbilisi, holding flowers in their hands. It would become known as the Rose Revolution. In 2011, Nino Zuriashvili, who was one of the protestors, spoke to Damien McGuinness. 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 peop...
Oct 15, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast Between 18 March and 10 April 2014, more than 500,000 people in Taipei, Taiwan, protested against a new trade deal with China. It was one of the largest social movements in Taiwanese history. Rachel Naylor speaks to Brian Hioe, one of the demonstrators, who stormed Parliament and occupied it for 23 days. 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...
Oct 14, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast After the death of her brother, engineer Thérèse Izay Kirongozi got to work handmaking huge robots to direct traffic and save lives. In 2013 they were installed on the streets of Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. They have green lights on their hands, a red light in their chest, can turn around and live stream to a police control centre, they also sing when children cross the road. You might also see the ‘female’ robots wearing skirts, make-up and hoop earrings. Thérèse speaks to Me...
Oct 11, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 1994, bar codes were in widespread use in businesses around the world, but the Japanese car component company, Denso Wave, wanted something quicker. So they asked one of their engineers, Masahiro Hara, to come up with a solution. After playing his favourite board game, Go, he came back with an idea. He designed a black and white square of data that was fast, practical, and could handle more than 200 times the information contained in a barcode. It was called the Quick Response code, or QR for...
Oct 10, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 1946, one of the world’s first electronic computers was unveiled in Philadelphia, in the USA. It was called the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, or ENIAC, and was initially designed to do calculations for ballistics trajectories. It was programmed by six female mathematicians. Rachel Naylor speaks to Gini Mauchly Calcerano, whose dad John Mauchly co-designed it, and whose mum, Kay McNulty, was one of the programmers. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness Histor...
Oct 09, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast Scientists at Waseda University in Japan built the world's first humanoid robot in 1973. They called it the 'WABOT', the Waseda robot. It could see, walk and even talk. It was a huge leap forward in the history of artificial intelligence and robotics. Dr Hiromichi Fujisawa tells Ben Henderson how he was tasked with making the robot speak. 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 thro...
Oct 08, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast Eliza is the name of a 1966 invention by German born scientist, Joseph Weizenbaum, that is said to be the first chatbot. Eliza worked by someone typing their feelings into a computer keyboard, and then the programme repeated it back to them, often as a question. Joseph’s daughter, Miriam tells Gill Kearsley about Eliza. We also hear from Joseph through archive interviews from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, in the USA, that were recorded with Pamela McCorduck in 1975. Eye-witness accou...
Oct 07, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 1973, two men pretending to be Colombian guerrillas took a plane and flew across Latin America for 60 hours. It was the longest hijacking of an aircraft in the region. The SAM Airlines plane stopped in countries that included Aruba, Peru, and Paraguay, making its last landing in Argentina, where local authorities were surprised to see the hijackers had vanished. Former flight attendant Edilma Perez was one of the employees who volunteered to relieve the original crew on the second day of the ...
Oct 04, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast In November 1967, the Maltese diplomat, Arvid Pardo, addressed the United Nations with a remarkable speech that shaped the laws governing the sea. Pardo's message is immortalised in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which was adopted in 1982, and is now the fundamental legislation governing difficult topics such as deep sea mining. Artemis Irvine spoke to Christina Pardo Menez, Arvid Pardo's daughter, and his friend David Attard. A Whistledown production for the BBC World Serv...
Oct 03, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 1989, South Africa became the first, and only country to make and then dismantle nuclear weapons. The project was conducted at Kentron Circle, a secret weapons facility. André Buys was plant manager and systems engineer at Kentron Circle and was involved in making the weapons. He tells Gill Kearsley about his work on this once top-secret project. 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...
Oct 02, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 2009, a UN-backed war crimes tribunal opened in Cambodia to try the senior Khmer Rouge commanders responsible for genocide. An estimated two million people were killed during Pol Pot's regime in the 1970s. Aged 26, New Zealander Kerry Hamill was on a sailing trip with friends when he mistakenly found himself in Cambodian waters. He was taken to Tuol Sleng prison where thousands of people were tortured and murdered. In 2022 Kerry's brother, Rob Hamill, told Josephine McDermott how he testified...
Oct 01, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast In November 1938, the Nazis organised a night of terror against Jews in Germany. Windows of homes, businesses and synagogues were broken. Kurt Salomon Maier was eight years old, living with his Jewish family in Kippenheim, Germany. He survived what became known as Kristallnacht or ‘the night of broken glass’ and escaped to the United States. Kurt Salomon Maier, now 94-years-old, speaks to James Jackson. A Whistledown production for BBC World Service. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archi...
Sep 30, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 1994, the MS Estonia ferry sank in the Baltic Sea with the loss of 852 lives. It was one of the deadliest shipping tragedies since the sinking of the Titanic. The Estline ferry was sailing overnight from Estonia to Sweden, in bad weather and heavy seas, when it sent a distress signal saying it was listing heavily. Survivors later reported the boat sank within five minutes, and many passengers did not have time to escape. An official inquiry found that the ship's bow door locks had failed allo...
Sep 27, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 1949, inter-racial marriage and relationships were banned by South Africa’s apartheid government. In June 1985, the ban was lifted. Suzanne La Clerc and Protas Madlala were the first couple to tie the knot under the new rules. Ashley Byrne was speaking to them in 2015. Protas Madlala died in 2023. A made in Manchester production for the BBC World Service 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 sh...
Sep 26, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 1969, a white man and an Indian woman were put on trial in South Africa for conspiring to have sex. Dr Zureena Desai and Professor John Blacking were the most high profile couple to be arrested under the Immorality Act. Their case made headlines all over the world and made a laughing stock of South Africa's ruling National Party and its racist regime. Dr Desai tells Vicky Farncombe about the ridiculous lengths police officers went to in order to gather evidence against the couple, including c...
Sep 25, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 1993, a gritty and unflinching crime movie called Menace II Society was released to huge acclaim. The debut picture from the teenage directors, Allen and Albert Hughes, provided a deep dive into the harsh realities faced by many young African Americans growing up in Los Angeles. But behind the scenes, all was not well and the violence on-screen bled into real life. Rap sensation, Tupac Shakur – who had originally been cast to feature in the movie – had fallen out with the directors and was sa...
Sep 24, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 2014, India’s Mars Orbiter Mission meant the country was the first in the world to successfully place a satellite into orbit around Mars on its initial attempt. The mission, named Mangalyaan, was one of the cheapest interplanetary missions ever. It cost less than a Hollywood film. Indian scientist, Dr Mylswamy Annadurai, also known as ‘moon man of India,’ was programme director for the mission. He tells Gill Kearsley about this momentous event. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive....
Sep 23, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast Millions of us see the Google logo every day. Ruth Kedar is the designer of the logo. The story of how she got the job starts in a martial arts class in 1998. The Brazilian artist and designer was invited to meet company founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and asked to present them with some ideas. Ruth tells Gill Kearsley her story of meeting the tech owners and how the design developed into a logo that became part of history. Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History i...
Sep 20, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast On 2 December 1972, Joan Wiffen, her husband, son and daughter started a camping trip. But it was far from ordinary. They were obsessed fossil-hunters and they were deep in the largest rainforest of New Zealand's north island at a spot by a river described casually in an old geological map as having “Saurian” bones. For Joan, as she started to search for remains, it was “like opening up the Christmas stocking". At the time, scientists believed dinosaurs had not inhabited New Zealand. With the he...
Sep 19, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 1994, the pneumonic plague broke out in the city of Surat, causing mass panic. It saw the largest migration across India since independence was declared in 1947. Ashley Byrne speaks to Doctor Vibha Marfatia who fled along with her family. This is a Made in Manchester production for the BBC World Service. 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 w...
Sep 18, 2024•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
