Witness History
A podcast by BBC World Service
1472 Episodes
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Rescuing Palmyra’s treasures from the Islamic State group
Published: 09/05/2025 -
VE Day celebrations
Published: 08/05/2025 -
Sinking of the Lusitania
Published: 07/05/2025 -
The invention of the automatic electric rice cooker
Published: 06/05/2025 -
Conclave: How a new pope is chosen
Published: 05/05/2025 -
Snake: Popularising mobile gaming
Published: 02/05/2025 -
Ten countries join the EU in one night
Published: 01/05/2025 -
The Cu Chi tunnels of the Vietnam War
Published: 30/04/2025 -
Surviving the fall of Saigon in 1975
Published: 29/04/2025 -
Doi Moi: Vietnam's economic miracle
Published: 28/04/2025 -
The death of Adolf Hitler
Published: 25/04/2025 -
Staging Othello in apartheid South Africa
Published: 24/04/2025 -
Coca-Cola’s ‘New Coke'
Published: 23/04/2025 -
The creation of YouTube
Published: 22/04/2025 -
Exercise Tiger: Disastrous D-Day rehearsal
Published: 21/04/2025 -
The origin of World Book Day
Published: 18/04/2025 -
Clearing landmines in Cambodia
Published: 17/04/2025 -
The Khmer Rouge take power in Cambodia
Published: 16/04/2025 -
The invention of the white LED lightbulb
Published: 16/04/2025 -
The Bali Nine drug smuggling case
Published: 14/04/2025
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, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina’s Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall’ speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler’s List; and Jacques Derrida, France’s ‘rock star’ philosopher. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest; the disastrous D-Day rehearsal ; and the death of one of the world’s oldest languages.
