Witness History Podcast
History as told by the people who were there.
Episodes to download
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The Assassination of Ahmed Shah Massood
Fri 9 Sep 2011
Two days before 9/11, al-Qaeda killed an Afghan anti-Taliban leader.
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An Azerbaijani View of the Demise of the Soviet Union
Thu 8 Sep 2011
How the collapse of the Soviet Union played out in the life of a teenager in Azerbaijan.
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Great Fire of London
Wed 7 Sep 2011
In 1666, a fire destroyed much of the city of London. Two diarists recorded what happened.
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Assassination of Hendrik Verwoerd
Tue 6 Sep 2011
It is 45 years since the South African Prime Minister was killed in Parliament.
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The Women of Greenham Common
Mon 5 Sep 2011
How an anti-nuclear march turned into a peace camp based outside a US airbase in the UK
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The Freedom Riders
Tue 30 Aug 2011
The story of an extraordinary act of courage by the civil rights leader Martin Luther King
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Cameroon's Lake Nyos Disaster
Mon 29 Aug 2011
How villagers awoke to find hundreds of friends and neighbours mysteriously dead
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Child evacuees from the Spanish Civil War
Fri 26 Aug 2011
How thousands of Basque children were evacuated to Britain during the Spanish Civil War.
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Woodstock Festival 1969
Thu 25 Aug 2011
A pivotal moment in American popular culture - the Woodstock festival of 1969.
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South African Student Sit-in Against Apartheid Injustice
Wed 24 Aug 2011
White students in apartheid South Africa stage a sit-in protest against racial injustice.
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Dr Spock: Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care
Tue 23 Aug 2011
Dr Spock's Baby and Child Care, the book that revolutionised child care.
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Stealing the Mona Lisa
Mon 22 Aug 2011
The theft of the Mona Lisa from the museum of the Louvre in Paris in August 1911
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The Moscow Coup
Thu 18 Aug 2011
The failed attempt to overthrow the Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachov in August 1991
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The Hungarian Picnic
Wed 17 Aug 2011
The picnic that led to the first breaches of the Iron Curtain in 1989
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The Great Depression
Tue 16 Aug 2011
During the 1930s the people of the US faced widespread economic hardship
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The Building of the Berlin Wall
Fri 12 Aug 2011
On 13 August 1961, East German soldiers and construction workers began the Berlin Wall
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Napster
Thu 11 Aug 2011
It is 10 years since the closure of the world's first music-sharing website - Napster
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Expulsion of the Chagos Islanders
Wed 10 Aug 2011
A Chagos Islander talks of Britain's expulsion of his people from their homeland.
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Wayne Gretzky
Tue 9 Aug 2011
He was a Canadian sporting superstar but in 1988 he was sold to an American team
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Britain's first nudist beach
Mon 8 Aug 2011
In August 1979 the seaside town of Brighton decided to open a nudist beach
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Exodus of Asians from Uganda
Fri 5 Aug 2011
In 1972 the dictator Idi Amin announced that all Asians had 90 days to leave Uganda
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The Voyage of the Kon-Tiki
Thu 4 Aug 2011
In 1947 a Norwegian adventurer sailed across the Pacific on a wooden raft
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Bologna bomb
Wed 3 Aug 2011
In August 1980 a huge bomb destroyed much of Bologna railway station in Italy
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Peace Activist Samantha Smith
Tue 2 Aug 2011
A child dreams of world peace and writes a letter to the leader of the Soviet Union
