Witness History
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Witness History
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South Africa's luxury train
In 1986, South African businessman Rohan Vos was sitting in the bath when he decided to pursue his passion and launch a vintage railway business. Howe...
The American Freedom Train
In April 1975, the American Freedom Train set out on a tour across the United States to celebrate 200 years of American independence.
On-board w...
The longest musical composition
On 31 December 1999, a piece of music started playing in a lighthouse in East London.
It’s called Longplayer, and it’s set to keep going, witho...
Radio Free Europe
Seventy-five years ago, Radio Free Europe started broadcasting news to audiences behind the Iron Curtain.
It initially broadcast to Bulgaria, Cz...
SMS: The invention of text messaging
In October 1984, as the market for mobile phones was just opening up, one man decided it would be useful if the new technology could be used to send a...
Tamagotchi is born
The Tamagotchi was first released in Japan in 1996 after it was developed by Akihiro Yokoi and his colleagues at his toy development company.
Me...
The invention of Jenga
It's just over 30 years since the brick game was introduced to the world at a department store in London.
Made of 54 wooden blocks stacked into...
When Laurel and Hardy spent Christmas at an English pub
In December 1953, Hollywood film stars Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy spent a few weeks at the Bull Inn, Bottesford, Leicestershire, while they performe...
When Norway introduced salmon sushi to Japan
In the late 1980s, Norway needed a new market for its growing farmed salmon production.
Fish-loving Japan and its lucrative sushi market seeme...
How NFL tickets caught fugitives
Operation Flagship was a U.S Marshals sting operation, where some of Washington DC’s most wanted fugitives, were lured to a convention centre under th...
Introducing The Bomb: Kennedy and Khrushchev
The world is on the brink of nuclear war. How can the Soviet Union and the USA prevent it? Hosts Nina Khrushcheva and Max Kennedy, relatives of the su...
The Paris climate agreement
On 12 December 2015, nearly 200 countries adopted the Paris climate agreement. It legally committed countries to climate action plans, designed to sto...
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa
Following the abolishment of Apartheid in the 1990s, South Africa had to find a way to confront its brutal past without endangering the chance for pea...
The discovery of the coelacanth
In 1938, South African museum curator Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer discovered a coelacanth, a fish that was believed to have been extinct for 65 million...
Dismaland: Banksy's dystopian theme park
In 2015, Banksy turned a derelict swimming pool in Weston-super-Mare, England, into a dystopian theme park which drew huge crowds and Hollywood stars....
The Balcombe Street IRA siege
In December 1975, four members of one of the IRA’s deadliest units were chased by police through the streets of London before hiding out in a small fl...
How Lagos Fashion Week began
In 2011, Lagos Fashion Week debuted, putting Nigerian style on the map.
Omoyemi Akerele founded the event which helped to launch the careers of...
Wole Soyinka: Imprisoned during Nigeria’s Biafra war
In 1967, Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka tried to stop the country’s Biafra war, in which Nigeria’s Igbo people responded to violence by seceding from th...
Escaping Nigeria's Biafra war
When the south-east region of Nigeria declared itself to be the independent state of Biafra, civil war broke out in May 1967. More than a million peop...
West Africa fights back against Boko Haram
In 2015, West African countries fought against the jihadist militant group Boko Haram which controlled large areas of northeastern Nigeria.
The...
The Howard Hughes literary hoax
In 1971, the publishing world was rocked by one of the biggest hoaxes in literary history – a fake autobiography of the reclusive billionaire Howard H...
Colombia's Salt Cathedral
In 1995, a cathedral was built 180m underground in the Zipaquirá Salt Mine in Colombia.
The idea came from the miners building makeshift altars...
Toy Story: the first digitally-animated feature film
Released in 1995, this buddy movie about a cowboy doll and a toy astronaut was the first to use entirely computer-generated images.
The story,...
How the Bosnian war ended
The Dayton Peace Accords were signed on the 21 November 1995, ending the three-and-a-half-year war in Bosnia.
The war was part of the break-up...
The Spanish king reclaims his throne
In 1975, the death of General Francisco Franco was announced in Spain, bringing to an end 36 years of dictatorship.
Franco had already chosen hi...
The death of Franco
General Francisco Franco died in November 1975, ending 36 years of dictatorship over Spain.
The general had been in power since 1939 after winn...
Angela Merkel suspends EU asylum rules
In the summer of 2015, there was a surge in the number of people from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, seeking asylum in Europe.
Social Democrat po...
Reagan and Gorbachev: The Geneva Summit
Forty years ago, in November 1985, two of the world’s most powerful leaders met for the first time.
With Cold War tensions running high and the...
When Maldives' ministers met underwater
On 17 October 2009, the Maldives’ top government officials donned their scuba gear for the world’s first underwater cabinet meeting.
Fish float...
Bataclan attack in Paris
On 13 November 2015, 90 people were shot dead by gunmen at the Bataclan theatre in France during an Eagles of Death Metal concert.
A further 40...
Prosecuting Nazis at the Nuremberg Trials
In November 1945, the first major war crimes trial in history opened in the German city of Nuremberg.
Senior Nazis who had committed atrocities...
Birth of the G7
In November 1975, a summit took place at Rambouillet, France, where the heads of six of the world’s most industrialised nations and their finance mini...
Breaking the sound barrier
On 14 October 1947, American Chuck Yeager became the first pilot to fly faster than the speed of sound.
Despite having two broken ribs, Chuck r...
Discovering the largest dinosaur ever
In 2012, a shepherd uncovered a bone belonging to a new species of dinosaur on a ranch in Patagonia, in Argentina.
A team from the Museum of Pal...
The ‘father of e-books’
In 1971, an American historical document typed out on a university computer played a vital role in the digital revolution of electronic books. It beca...
The creation of Miffy
It's 70 years since Miffy was created.
The little rabbit with two dots for eyes and an X for a mouth went on to feature in 32 books translated i...
President Clinton is impeached
In 1999, the US Senate chamber in Washington DC was turned into a court to put President Bill Clinton on trial, after he admitted lying about an affai...
The brains behind Thunderbirds
In 1965, a groundbreaking children's show using cutting-edge puppets first blast onto television screens.
Thunderbirds was set in 2065 and foll...
Emerante de Pradines: Haiti’s musical trailblazer
Emerante de Pradines was a Haitian singer, dancer and folklorist who became the first person from her country to sign a record deal. She was dedicated...
Orson Welles broadcasts The War of the Worlds
The night before Halloween in 1938, 23-year-old Orson Welles and his Mercury Theatre on the Air performed a radio adaptation of HG Wells’s The War of...