Witness History: Archive 2012
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Witness History: Archive 2012
The story of our times told by the people who were there.
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The Death of Steve Biko
The anti-Apartheid activist Steve Biko, leader of the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa, died in a police cell in 1977. The South African p...
John Howard Griffin: Black Like Me
John Howard Griffin, a white journalist, dyed his skin black to experience segregation in America's Deep South. John Howard Griffin wrote a book about...
The Los Angeles Riots
In May 1992 the people of South Central Los Angeles took to the streets in fury at police brutality.
They were angry that Los Angeles police dep...
The Stolen Generation
Debra Hocking was taken from her indigenous Australian family as a baby and was placed with a foster family. It was part of a government policy to try...
African Troops During WWII
During World War II, African soldiers were a vital part of the Allied forces. Many of them were sent to Burma as reinforcements for the British troops...
Pong and the birth of the computer game
It is 40 years since a video game was invented which would change the way we play. An on screen version of table tennis, to begin with Pong was only p...
Big Brother - the beginning of reality TV
In December 1999 a young Dutch man won the first ever Big Brother reality TV show.
It was to be the start of a global television phenomenon.
Maitatsine
In December 1980, thousands were killed in the Nigerian city of Kano following an uprising by an Islamic sect.
The sect was led by a radical pr...
Vietnam War - Christmas bombing campaign
40 years ago the Americans launched their heaviest aerial bombardment of the Vietnam War. It was to become known as the Christmas bombing campaign. 2...
The Execution of the Ceauşescus
Nicolae and Elena Ceauşescu were executed by firing squad on 25 December 1989.
It was the end of one of the most repressive regimes in former...
Dusty Plays South Africa
In 1964 the British popstar Dusty Springfield went on tour in apartheid South Africa. She said she would only play to racially mixed audiences but the...
Mad cow disease - CJD
In the 1990s it became clear that a brain disease could be passed from cows to humans. The British government introduced a ban on beef on the bone. B...
Libya and Weapons of Mass Destruction
In December 2003 Colonel Gaddafi announced Libya was giving up trying to make weapons of mass destruction. United Nations weapons inspectors were imme...
The last men on the moon
It is 40 years since the last moon mission returned to earth. One of the three astronauts on board was geologist Harrison Schmitt. He looks back on th...
Piltdown Man
In 1912, Britain's top paleontologists were tricked by one of the biggest hoaxes in scientific history - a skull thought to be the "missing link" in h...
The M Room
How exiles from the Nazis helped British intelligence listen in on German prisoners-of-war.
Ninety-three-year-old Fritz Lustig, a refugee from N...
Discovering Cleopatra's Palace
Twenty years ago a former economist from France, Franck Goddio, began underwater excavations which unearthed a 2000 year old palace belonging to Cleop...
Marsha Hunt and the 1960s
In the late 1960s a young black American woman rolled up in 'Swinging' London. Although Marsha Hunt says she couldn't sing, she ended up a star in a W...
Archive of Terror
In 1992, a Paraguayan human rights activist called Martin Almada discovered a huge cache of documents in a run-down police station.
The files sh...
The Origin of Nollywood
The story of the 1992 film which launched Nigeria's hugely successful movie industry.
It was called "Living in Bondage".
We speak to one...
Landing in Red Square
Twenty-five years ago, during the Cold War, a German teenager Mathias Rust, managed to evade Soviet air defences to land his single-engine plane in Mo...
The Montreal massacre
On 6 December 1989, a college shooting in Canada left 14 women dead. The killer sent all the men out of the classroom before opening fire on the women...
Great London Smog of 1952
In 1952, the worst smog in living memory descended over London, reducing visibility so badly that people could barely see a metre in front of them.
Witness: The Bodyline Tour
In 1932 a row between England and Australia over cricket became a diplomatic incident.
The row erupted over controversial "Bodyline" tactics use...
The Bhopal gas disaster
In December 1984 thousands of people in the Indian city of Bhopal were killed by leak from a chemical plant. The city was enveloped by a cloud of pois...
First Successful Sex Change
It is 60 years since newspapers in the US announced the successful operation of Christine Jorgensen. Once a soldier called George, she transformed her...
Iran Hostage Crisis - The Canadian Story
In November 1979 Iranian revolutionaries stormed the US embassy in Tehran taking everyone inside hostage. But six Americans escaped - they sought refu...
Eric Hebborn - Forger Extraordinary
He was one of the most prolific art forgers of the 20th Century. A talented painter in his own right he became disillusioned with the art world and en...
Isabelle Dinoire: The World's First Face Transplant
In November 2005 doctors in France carried out the first ever face transplant. The patient, Isabelle Dinoire, had lost part of her face after being ma...
The Secret Soviet Naval Mutiny
In November 1975, an incredible mutiny took place aboard a Soviet warship, the Storozhevoy, in the Baltic sea. The Kremlin ordered the Soviet military...
The Trojan Room Coffee Pot
Twenty years ago the world's first webcam was created - and it was pointed at a pot of coffee. A camera was set up because computer scientists wanted...
Lee Harvey Oswald and the USSR
Lee Harvey Oswald, the man accused of killing President John F Kennedy in November 1963 had spent more than two years living in the USSR. He had defec...
The death of the Kabaka of Buganda
In November 1969 the first President of Uganda, Edward Mutesa, died in exile in London.
He had been forced to flee his homeland by Milton Obote...
Windsor Castle Fire
In November 1992, a fire devastated Windsor Castle - a symbol of the British monarchy and Queen Elizabeth's weekend home. Coming at the end of a year...
Shoot
In November 1971 a young American artist decided to get a friend to take a shot at him. His name was Chris Burden and the shooting would go down in th...
Cesar Chavez - Yes we can!
In the 1960s, a wave of strikes and protest marches by Mexican-American farm-workers inspired Latinos across the US.
The movement was led by Ces...
The Lost Tribe Hoax
In the 1970s the Filipino government annouced they had discovered a group of cave dwellers who were still living as people did in the stone age. But t...
China's one-child policy
A Chinese government think tank has recommended bringing an end to the one-child policy.
It was launched in the late 1970s to tackle China's exp...
Colombia mudslide
It's 27 years since more than 20,000 people died when a volcano erupted in western Colombia. The town of Armero disappeared under tonnes of mud, lava...
Baby Fae and the Baboon Heart Transplant
In 1984 doctors in California tried a revolutionary operation on a two-week-old baby girl. She had been born with a fatal heart condition - but there...