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History told by the people who were there. For nine minutes every weekday, Witness History takes you back to moments which have shaped our world.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by and curious about 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 how the Excel spreadsheet was developed, the creation of cartoon rabbit Miffy and how the sound barrier was broken.

We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: the moment Reagan and Gorbachev met in Geneva, Haitian singer Emerante de Pradines鈥� life and Omar Sharif鈥檚 legendary movie entrance in Lawrence of Arabia.

You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, like the invention of a stent which has saved lives around the world; the birth of the G7; and the meeting of Maldives鈥� ministers underwater. We cover everything from World War Two and Cold War stories to Black History Month and our journeys into space.

Updated: daily
Episodes available: indefinitely

Episodes to download

  •

    The Funeral of Princess Diana

    Fri 1 Sep 2017

    Diana's brother Earl Spencer remembers the emotional speech he made at her funeral.

  • The Birth of eBay

    Wed 30 Aug 2017

    The online auction site first went live in 1995.

  • George Orwell and Animal Farm

    Tue 29 Aug 2017

    Animal Farm was an allegory about the dangers of Soviet communism and of Joseph Stalin.

  • The Revolutionary Head Scan

    Mon 28 Aug 2017

    The summer of 1983 saw a major breakthrough in the treatment of facial deformities.

  • Notting Hill Race Riot

    Fri 25 Aug 2017

    The racial disturbances in west London which shocked Britain in 1958.

  • The Rostock-Lichtenhagen Riots

    Thu 24 Aug 2017

    A home for asylum seekers was set on fire in the German city of Rostock in August 1992

  • Medicine In World War One

    Wed 23 Aug 2017

    Veterans tell the story of how medical care dealt with the horrors of WW1

  • The Discovery of Botox

    Tue 22 Aug 2017

    How an ophthalmologist and a dermatologist discovered that a toxin could stop wrinkles

  • The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials

    Mon 21 Aug 2017

    A German court put Nazi war criminals on trial 20 years after the end of World War Two

  • Rabindranath Tagore

    Fri 18 Aug 2017

    The "Bard of Bengal" died on August the 7th 1941.

  • The Division of Cyprus

    Thu 17 Aug 2017

    In August 1974, Turkish troops invaded Cyprus for a second time cutting the island in two

  • The Buenos Aires Herald

    Wed 16 Aug 2017

    The English-language newspaper was credited with standing up to Argentina's dictatorship.

  • Nike and the Sweatshop Problem

    Tue 15 Aug 2017

    In the 1990s Nike got a bad name after being linked to sweatshops in Asia.

  • Germany's Nudists

    Mon 14 Aug 2017

    How East Germans went naked on the beaches despite official communist party disapproval.

  • Reagan's Bombing Joke

    Fri 11 Aug 2017

    "We begin bombing in five minutes" said the US President in 1984. But he was only joking

  • Florence Nightingale

    Thu 10 Aug 2017

    The "lady with the lamp" died on August 13th 1910.

  • The Calcutta Killings of 1946

    Wed 9 Aug 2017

    Exactly a year before Indian independence there were deadly riots in the city of Calcutta

  • The Murder of Naji al-Ali

    Tue 8 Aug 2017

    The acclaimed Palestinian cartoonist was gunned down in London in 1987

  • Discovering The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

    Mon 7 Aug 2017

    Charles Moore recalls how he came across the world's largest floating rubbish dump.

  • The Camp David Summit

    Fri 4 Aug 2017

    In 2000 the US led a major effort to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

  • China's Crackdown on Falun Gong

    Thu 3 Aug 2017

    In July 1999, the Chinese government banned the spiritual movement Falun Gong

  • The Birth of the Water Baby

    Wed 2 Aug 2017

    In 1977 a state hospital near Paris began quietly changing the way women gave birth.

  • Surviving the "Auschwitz of the Balkans"

    Tue 1 Aug 2017

    Croatian fascists killed Serbs, Jews and Roma people in Jasenovac camp during WW2.

  • The Death of Evita

    Mon 31 Jul 2017

    Remembering Argentina's controversial First Lady Eva Peron, who died on July 26 1952.

  • Pioneer North Sea Divers

    Fri 28 Jul 2017

    In the 1970s, deep sea divers were at the sharp end of the North Sea oil boom

  • Chiang Kai Shek: The Man Who Lost China

    Thu 27 Jul 2017

    The Chinese civil war remembered by the Nationalist leader's former chief aide.

  • When homosexuality was a crime

    Wed 26 Jul 2017

    Hear one man's story of living in fear before 1967 when Britain legalised homosexuality

  • Khrushchev's Soviet Housing Programme

    Tue 25 Jul 2017

    In the 1960s, many Soviet families moved to a flat of their own for the first time.

  • The Welsh Language Act

    Mon 24 Jul 2017

    In July 1967 there was a breakthrough for the Welsh language.

  • US Psychological Warfare in Vietnam

    Fri 21 Jul 2017

    How American military PSYOP teams waged war in Vietnam in the 1960s

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