Witness History: Archive 2011

We take you back to the early days of the European project when six countries established the European Economic Community.

Photo: Keystone/Getty Images

In December 1981 hundreds of peasants were killed by the army in El Salvador.

Men, women and children from the village of El Mozote were shot.

Only one woman, Rufina Amaya, is known to have survived.

Photo: Rufina Amaya at a funeral for the victims held in 2001. Credit AFP/Getty images

It is 10 years since the height of the financial crisis in Argentina.

Bank accounts were frozen and tens of thousands of ordinary people took to the streets in protest.

Photo: Demonstrators climb the gates of Government House in Buenos Aires. Credit: Associated Press.

It is 70 years since Japanese planes attacked the US Navy base in Hawaii.

The action forced the USA into World War II.

Jack Hammett, was a young naval medic who survived the carnage.

Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

The story of the Bermuda Triangle began when five US Navy planes went missing in 1945.

No trace of the bombers was ever found - and since then - other ships and planes have diappeared in the same area of the Atlantic Ocean.

Witness hears from one man who took part in the original search for Flight 19.

"The idea that you could take a pill, that meant that you wouldn't get pregnant and you could enjoy sex. That had a magic feel to it."

On 4 December 1961 the contraceptive pill became widely available for free in the UK, through the National Health Service. For married women this form of birth control meant reliable, convenient family planning - for unmarried women it meant sexual freedom.

Hear from the writer Michelene Wandor was a student at Cambridge University at the time.

Photo: The Pill, Credit: Getty Images

To mark World Aids Day Louise Hidalgo reports on the story of Ryan White.

He was a haemophiliac who was banned from school after testing HIV positive.

His death from Aids, changed attitudes towards the disease in the USA.

PHOTO: Associated Press

In 1979 British public sector workers went on strike over pay.

Among those taking industrial action were grave-diggers.

But the media, politicians, and even their own families turned against them at the thought of bodies being left unburied.

In November 1999 police battled with anti-globalisation protestors for control of the streets of Seattle.

The demonstrators were protesting against World Trade Organisation talks taking place in the US city.

Norm Stamper was the Chief of Police in Seattle at the time.

Photo: AP

In November 2001 a group of British tourists were arrested and put on trial for spying in Greece.

They were not spies, but aircraft enthusiasts.

Hear how their British hobby resulted in suspicion, and ultimately jail.

Paul Coppin with Greek police. Photo AP News.

Fifty years ago, the sedative drug thalidomide was withdrawn from sale in Germany and the UK.

It became clear that, if taken by women in early pregnancy, it can cause serious - in many cases, fatal - damage to the unborn child.

Photo: Getty Images

Ned Kelly, the infamous Australian outlaw was captured in the remote settlement of Glenrowan in 1880.

In a dramatic last stand, Kelly and his gang took hostages and tried to derail a police train.

Kelly was hanged a few months after his capture.

The rest of the gang were killed.

Witness brings together eye-witness accounts of the last stand.

The programme also hears from the Australian historian Professor Carl Bridge.

PICTURE: Ned Kelly is shot and captured while wearing his armour (HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES).

Of the "Big Men" who ruled Africa after independence, few were as notorious as Mobutu Sese Seko.

During his 32 years in power, Mobutu renamed Congo as Zaire and stole many millions of dollars.

As the people of Congo prepare to vote for a new president, a former advisor to Mobutu remembers his years in power.

Witness also hears from Michaela Wrong, author of "In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz".

PHOTO: Mobutu shares a joke with a foreign visitor (HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES)

In November 2003 a popular uprising unseated the government of Georgia.

Demonstrators waving roses burst into Parliament and Eduard Shevardnadze was forced to stand down.

Hear from one of the people on the streets of Tbilisi that day.

In 1977, Anwar Sadat became the first Egyptian president to visit Israel and address the Israeli parliament, or Knesset.

At the time, Egypt was still formally at war with Israel - a country which no Arab nation then recognised.

Sadat's visit led to a formal peace treaty betweem the two countries.

Louise Hidalgo talks to the Egyptian cameraman, Mohamed Gohar - a favourite of Sadat's.

PHOTO: Sadat addressing the Knesset (AFP/Getty Images)

The diminutive weight-lifter, Precious McKenzie, was a prodigious talent, but apartheid prevented him from competing for South Africa.

Precious had to move to Britain and work in a factory in Northampton.

While doing so, he finally achieved international success at the 1966 Commonwealth Games.

Precious went on to become a familiar figure on British TV in the 1970s.

Emily Williams talks to him for Sporting Witness.

PHOTO: Precious McKenzie shows off his medal collection (Hulton Archive/Getty Images).

He was one of the great pioneers of electrical power.

In November 1915 the New York Times announced that he and his rival, Thomas Edison, would share the Nobel Prize for Physics.

But the two men never received the prize.

Image: A statue of Nikola Tesla in his home village of Smiljan. Credit: AFP/Getty Images.

How a Soviet agent managed to fool the British intelligence service for years.

Even after he'd been identified as a spy by the Americans, Kim Philby was allowed to stay in Britain.

Photo: Kim Philby (right) protesting his innocence to the media. Credit: Getty Images.

It is 45 years since a BBC TV drama changed British ideas about homelessness.

The hardhitting film, directed by Ken Loach, told the story of a young woman who fell on hard times and lost her home, her husband and then her children.

On All Saints Day 1755, the Portuguese city of Lisbon was hit by a triple disaster - an earthquake, followed by a tsunami and a fire.

One of the most splendid cities in Europe suffered massive damage and thousands of people were killed.

The disaster also led to debate across Europe about whether earthquakes were a natural phenomenon or a message from God.

Witness brings together accounts by British survivors of the earthquake, and hears from Edward Paice, author of Wrath of God - the Great Lisbon Earthquake.

Image: Lisbon before the earthquake (Hulton Archive/Getty Images).

The leader of a student protest in Greece nearly 40 years ago tells Alan Johnston about the moment when the country's military junta sent in the tanks, and how she only just managed to escape with her life.

This programe was first broadcast last year.

In the 1960s, radio and stage shows helped provoke a change in attitudes towards World War I.

Songs once sung by men in the trenches helped audiences to think of the war from the point of view of ordinary soldiers rather than officers.

Image: British soldiers during the Battle of the Somme (Press Association)

In November 1989 the civil war in El Salvador hit the capital city.

Rebels fighting the US-backed goverment began attacks in San Salvador.

But after less than two weeks of gun-battles and street fighting the rebels left the capital.

Image: VT Freeze Frame

The Soviet leader died in November 1982 after years of ill health.

He had ruled the USSR for 18 years and presided over a period of economic and political stagnation.

Image: Associated Press

In November 1964 the first spacecraft to go to Mars left Earth.

It was to send back the first photographs of the Red Planet.

Engineer John Casani designed the Mariner craft.

Photo: One of the images sent back by Mariner.

In 1980, the British swimmer, Duncan Goodhew, faced a moral dilemma over whether to compete in the Moscow Olympics, which were being boycotted by the USA.

In the end, he decided to compete and won Gold in the 100m breastroke.

For Witness, David Prest hears from Duncan Goodhew and other British athletes at the 1980 games.

PHOTO: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

It is 20 years since the newspaper magnate disappeared off his yacht.

After his death it soon became clear that his publishing empire was in serious financial difficulties.

We hear from one man who knew him well.

Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest on 4 November 1956 ending a shortlived popular uprising

For six year old Miklos Gimes it would mean his last meeting with his father - and exile.

Photo: Getty Images

On 2 November 1936 the first regular TV service in the world was launched by the BBC.

Initially it only had a few hundred viewers and was only broadcast for two hours a day.

Viewers watched variety acts beamed live from the studios.

How a jazz concert organised by a 17-year old turned into a bestselling album.

And how it almost didn't happen.

Vera Brandes describes the difficulties surrounding the legendary performance by the American pianist.

Photo credit: Jacques Munch/AFP/Getty Images

In late October 1984 the body of a Polish priest was found in a town outside Warsaw.

He was Father Jerzy Popieluszko and he had become the spiritual leader for the banned trade union Solidarity.

It was later revealed that he had been kidnapped and killed by members of the Communist secret police.

In October 1974 one of the greatest boxing matches of all time took place in Zaire.

Muhammad Ali and George Foreman fought for the World Heavyweight title.

The President of Zaire, Mobutu Sese Seko had paid them millions of dollars to travel to Africa.

Hear from Jerry Eisenberg who covered the game as a reporter for The New Jersey Star Ledger.

(Fight archive courtesy of ESPN)

Photo: AFP/Getty Images

In the autumn of 1965 a purge of communist sympathisers began in Indonesia.

Hundreds of thousands of people were caught up in the terror - many of them were killed.

Others like Carmel Budiardjo and Putu Oka, were jailed for years without trial.

When the Korean War ended, a few US POWs chose to stay with their captors and live under communism.

David Hawkins was one of them.

He tells his remarkable story to Witness.

It is almost 40 years since the publication of a groundbreaking book about relationships.

It was written by a British academic and illustrated with images of real people.

It went on to sell millions of copies around the world.

Image © Chris Foss courtesy www.ChrisFossArt.com

It is 55 years since the Mau Mau leader Dedan Kimathi was arrested in Kenya.

He had been fighting against white rule in the British colony.

Photo: Mau Mau suspects in a prison camp. Getty images

It is 45 years since tragedy struck a Welsh mining village.

Tons of coal-waste collapsed onto houses and Aberfan's primary school.

One hundred and forty-four people were killed in total - most of them children.

(Photo: Jim Gray/Getty Images)

In October 1966 a Soviet double agent escaped from a British jail.

He was helped, not by the KGB, but by other former prisoners.

Michael Randle was an anti-nuclear protestor who took part in the escape.

(Photo: Michael Randle on his release from Wormwood Scrubs prison).

In October 1970 James Cross, a British diplomat, was taken hostage.

The kidnappers were from the FLQ - the Front de Liberation du Quebec.

Soon after, a provincial minister from Quebec was also kidnapped - he was found days later, dead in the boot of a car.

(Photo: James Cross and his wife Barbara, on his release. Getty Images)

On 18 October 1989, the East German communist leader, was forced from power.

He had been slow to react to the changes within the Soviet bloc.

Three weeks after he left office, the Berlin Wall came down.

(Photo: Honecker meets Gorbachev in October 1989. Associated Press)

On 17 October 1961, French police turned against Algerian demonstrators in Paris. Some were shot, others drowned in the Seine. For years the killings were not acknowledged. We hear from one man whose sister died that day.

(Photo: Demonstrators, arrested during a march by between 20,000 and 30,000 pro-Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN) Algerians, are seen in a bus on October 17, 1961 in Paris. French police attacked the illegal but peaceful demonstration.)

(Credit AFP/Getty Images)

In 1985 the soft drink company changed its age old formula.

The public backlash against the new taste surprised everyone.

Eventually, the bosses gave in and brought back the old Coca Cola.

(Image Credit: Reuters)

Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the US in 1916. It was open for 10 days, giving women advice about contraception. For this she was arrested for breaking obscenity laws and was sent to prison for 30 days. She spent her time there teaching women about birth control.

Later she went on to found The Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Photo: Margaret Sanger (left) outside court, awaiting trial.

On 12 October 2000, an American destroyer was attacked by al-Qaeda suicide bombers in the Yemeni port of Aden.

Kirk Lippold was the commanding officer on board that day.

The attack left 17 sailors dead.

In October 1975 the film stars Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor got married - for the second time.

To avoid the media they held the ceremony on a remote game reserve in Botswana.

We hear from the man who married them.

It's ten years since the first airstrikes on Afghanistan.

The start of what the US and its allies called Operation Enduring Freedom.

Two Afghans who were in Kabul that night share their memories.

On October 6, 1981 the President of Egypt was shot dead.

He was killed by Egyptian officers taking part in a military parade.

He was replaced by his Vice-President, Hosni Mubarak.

Photo: September 6, 1978 Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat Credit: AP

The invention of the atomic bomb was known as The Manhattan Project, with research and design led by Robert Oppenheimer.

Young American scientist Bill Wilcox was part of the team which helped make the bomb, he told Louise Hidalgo about his top secret work which began in 1943.

He recalls the “privilege of being part of a remarkable group of people”.

This programme has been updated since the original broadcast.

(Photo: The first atomic bomb test in the United States. Credit: Getty Images)

On 4 October 1936, fascists clashed with Jews, socialists and anarchists in London.

It is often hailed as the day that fascism was defeated in Britain.

Bill Fishman was a Jewish teenager from London's East End when he got caught up in the fighting.

Photo: Getty Images.

(This programme was first broadcast last year)

Just before the 1968 Olympics, the Mexican government cracked down hard against student demonstrators.

Some were killed, others arrested - David Huerta was one of the young protestors, hear his story.

Photo: Mexican soldiers arresting students after the shooting (Associated Press).

In September 1991 the first heavy metal rock concert was held at a Moscow airfield.

The bands Metallica and ACDC had been persuaded to take part.

It almost turned into a riot - as organiser Boris Zosimov remembers.

Photo: Boris today.

On 29 September 1941, the organised massacre of Ukrainian Jews began.

In the capital Kiev, most of them were taken to a place called Babi Yar, and shot.

Raissa Maistrenko escaped the shooting as a three-year-old girl.

Rabbi Alexander, Dukhovny's mother survived the Holocaust outside the city.

Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

In September 1969 left-wing activists kidnapped Charles Burke Elbrick in Rio de Janeiro.

They demanded the release of 15 of their comrades in exchange for his life.

One of the kidnappers was Fernando Gabeira, then a young journalist.

Photo: Fernando Gabeira now.

He was one of the most innovative musicians in the USA in the 1960s.

Listen to one woman's story of working for Frank Zappa.

Almost 40 years ago Britain and Iceland came to blows over fishing rights in the North Atlantic.

Hear from a British fisherman, and an Icelandic coastguard skipper about the battle for cod.

He was the President of Liberia and in September 1990 he died a very violent death.

The BBC's West Africa correspondent at the time was Elizabeth Blunt, she was there when he was captured by rebels.

Photo: VT Freeze Frame

In the mid 1960s young people in China were encouraged to criticise their elders.

Thousands of members of the Communist establishment were arrested and jailed.

For one teenage boy the world was turned on its head.

Photo: Jean Vincent/AFP/Getty Images

The Chilean politician was killed by a bomb in Washington DC, 35 years ago.

He had gone there after being released from detention by General Pinochet's government.

He was finally buried in his home country, 16 years later.

Photo AFP

In November 1974 the Palestinian leader was allowed to speak at the UN.

But there was a great deal of opposition to his visit and security was extremely strict.

Hear from the man who helped write his speech and organise his trip.

(This programme is a repeat)

Photo: Associated Press

The Secretary General of the UN was killed in a plane crash 50 years ago.

He was on his way to Congo, in an attempt to prevent war.

Two people who knew him well remember the man.

Photo: Associated Press

On 16 September 1992, Britain lost billions in foreign currency reserves in a single day.

Norman Lamont was Chancellor of the Exchequer when the country had to crash out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.

Image: VT Freeze Frame

On 15 September 2008, the US investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy.

Two New Yorkers at the centre of the crisis talk about the events leading up to that day.

Photo: AFP

The trials of senior Nazis began in the autumn of 1945.

Howard Triest was a German Jew who acted as a translator during their questioning.

Photo: Getty Images

In the 1960s, non-white immigrants were not welcome in Australia.

Five-year-old Nancy Prasad became a focus for campaigners trying to reverse the policy.

She tells the story of her deportation.

On 12 September 1980, the army took control in Turkey.

It was not the first time they had done so. It was the third coup d'état in the history of the Republic of Turkey, the previous having been in 1960 and 1971.

The coup followed growing street fighting between left and right-wing groups. Politicians were arrested and parliament, political parties and trade unions were dissolved.

Following the coup at least 50 people were executed and around half a million were detained. Many were tortured and hundreds died in custody.

Vice Admiral Isik Biren, who was an official in the defence ministry, and a former student activist, Murat Celikkan recount their different memories of that time.

(Photo: Portraits of people killed or tortured during the coup are displayed in a courthouse in the capital Ankara. Credit: Adem Atlan/ Getty Images)

Two days before 9/11, al-Qaeda killed an Afghan leader in a suicide bombing.

Ahmed Shah Massood had been one of the main figures opposing the Taliban.

Photo: VT Freeze Frame

The story of how a teenage girl in Azerbaijan became disenchanted with Moscow's propaganda.

She sided with nationalists who campaigned for the break-up of the Soviet Union.

Image: An Azerbaijan resident removes a picture of Lenin, Credit: Getty Images

In September 1666, a fire destroyed much of the city of London.

The diarist, Samuel Pepys, and a schoolboy called William Taswell both watched in horror as the fire consumed houses and even St Paul's Cathedral.

Witness briccngs together their aounts of a blaze which changed the city for ever.

The programme also hears from Meriel Jeater, an expert on the fire from the Museum of London.

PHOTO: A sketch of St Paul's burning from a contemporary pamphlet (Hutton Archive/Getty Images)

It is 45 years since the South African Prime Minister was killed in Parliament.

His attacker was a parliamentary messenger.

Photo: Dimitri Tsafendas, the man who killed Hendrik Verwoerd. (Getty Images)

At the height of the Cold War, an announcement was made that the UK would host American nuclear missiles. One of the anti-war marches that followed ended at the airbase at Greenham Common in Berkshire and a permanent camp of nuclear protestors was established. The Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp endured for nearly 20 years.

Helen John, who took part in the march and founded the camp in September 1981, speaks to Witness.

The scoop of the century on the eve of World War II.

How a young British reporter witnessed the German military build-up just days before the invasion of Poland in 1939.

We hear Clare Hollingworth's own account of a daring trip across the border.

Photo: Clare Hollingworth in 1978. Credit: BBC

The Summer of Love, 1967, and the commune in Colorado known as Drop City, where rumours of free love, drugs and a lot of music attracted not only hippies from all over the United States, but plenty of tourist buses too.

photo: Getty Images

How villagers in a remote region of Cameroon awoke one morning to find hundreds of their friends and neighbours had mysteriously died in the night.

We hear from the scientists who were sent in to find out what had happened.

At the height of the Spanish Civil War, thousands of Basque children were evacuated to safety in Britain.

In 1937, Herminio Martinez was sent away by his parents at the age of seven. It was 23 years before he saw them again.

Herminio Martinez talks to Witness about his memories of the evacuation and the reunion with his family.

PHOTO: Hutton Archive/Getty Images

It was a pivotal moment in American popular culture.

Three days of music and much more on a muddy farm in upstate New York - the Woodstock festival of 1969.

A self-confessed "Woodstock survivor" tells us how it changed his life.

The story of how students at the officially designated "white" University of Cape Town campaigned in support of an academic who had fallen foul of apartheid's racist laws.

Picture courtesy UCT.

Dr Spock's Baby and Child Care, a book that revolutionised the way people thought about bringing up children in the years after World War II.

The book sold half million copies within six months of publication in 1946.

We hear from Lynn Bloom, a friend of Dr Spock, and his biographer.

The theft of the Mona Lisa from the museum of the Louvre in Paris in August 1911.

The search for the famous painting would take two years and helped to cement its fame around the world.

We hear how even the famous artist Pablo Picasso was arrested during the police investigation that involved detectives in both Europe and America.

The bomb that destroyed the UN headquarters in Baghdad in 2003, killing 22 people, among them the UN Special Representative Sergio Vieira de Mello.

We hear from the UN mission's spokesman who was in the building when the blast occurred.

The failed attempt to overthrow the Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachov in August 1991.

Mr Gorbachov was held prisoner in his holiday dacha in the Crimea on the Black Sea while tanks and troops were deployed on the streets of Moscow.

One of Mr Gorbachov's neighbours recalls an abruptly curtailed telephone conversation, and a Moscow journalist remembers filming on the streets of a nervous capital.

The picnic planned as a demonstration for European integration that ended with hundreds of East Germans escaping to the West through the Iron Curtain.

We talk to one of the organisers of the picnic, on the border between Austria and Hungary in 1989, that prefigured the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

During the 1930s the people of the US faced widespread economic hardship.

We hear from two people who remember that time.

Bert Stolier was ten years old when the stock market collapsed in 1929.

It is 60 years since The Goon Show first hit the airwaves.

A surreal comedy, much of it was written and performed by the comedian Spike Milligan.

His producer Charles Chilton remembers him.

On 13 August, 1961 East German soldiers and construction workers began work on the Berlin Wall.

At first many Berliners couldn't believe that they would be permanently cut off from one another.

It was to stay in place for almost 30 years.

Photo: Associated Press

In August 1979 the seaside town of Brighton decided to open a nudist beach.

It was the first place in Britain to agree to allow naked bathing.

At first it was a very divisive idea, which shocked some of the locals.

It is 10 years since the closure of the world's first music-sharing website - Napster.

It had been created by teenager Shawn Fanning.

He talks about its beginnings, and the music industry campaign that finally shut it down.

Photo: Associated Press

How one man endured exile after the British expelled his people from the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia to make way for an American military base.

Image: Science Photo Library

He was a Canadian sporting superstar but in 1988 he was sold to an American team.

The negotiations surrounding the sale of the ice-hockey player became known simply as 'The Trade'

When he left Canada even non-sports fans felt the pain.

Photo: Getty Images

In 1972 the dictator Idi Amin announced that all Asians had 90 days to leave Uganda.

Nurdin Dawood, a teacher with a young family, didn't at first believe that Amin was serious.

But soon he was desperately searching for a country to call home.

Photo: Idi Amin - Press Association

In 1947 a Norwegian adventurer sailed across the Pacific on a wooden raft.

Thor Heyerdahl had built the raft using only materials available to Americans before Columbus arrived on the continent.

His son and his biographer talk about that extraordinary journey.

Photo: Kon-Tiki Museum

In August 1980 a huge bomb destroyed much of Bologna train station in Italy. 85 people were killed, and hundreds were injured.

Right-wing extremists were eventually convicted of planting the bomb.

A survivor talks about that day.

Photo: Associated Press

The story of a child who dreamed of world peace. She wrote a letter to the leader of the Soviet Union and found herself invited to summer camp on the Black Sea.

This programme was first broadcast in 2010.

Photo: Samantha Smith with Young Pioneers, Credit: Getty images

On 1 September 1969, a military coup in Libya toppled the King and brought to power Colonel Gaddafi - for many Libyans, the only leader they have ever known.

In contrast to today's long-drawn out and bloody struggle for power, it was all over very quickly in 1969.

Photo: Getty Images

It is 30 years since the launch of the first 24 hour music TV channel.

It was to revolutionise the way that music was consumed and promoted - and the way that people watched television.

Witness History hears from one of the founders of MTV.

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 football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic’ and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they’ve had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America’s occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.

The story of one of the most dramatic labour disputes in British history - the union take over of shipyards on the Clyde when thousands of jobs were threatened in 1971.

Photo: Sam Barr (2nd left), Jimmy Reid (2nd right) and colleagues in London for negotiations with the government.

(Press Association)

Sixty years ago a young art historian got to know the greatest painter in the world.

John Richardson met Picasso in the South of France in 1951.

Photo: AFP/Getty

It is almost exactly 40 years since two young Australians had what has become a famous encounter with a lion in the depths of the African bush.

John Rendall and Anthony Bourke had come across "Christian" late in 1969, at what was then a zoo in the upmarket London department store, Harrods.

Alan Johnston speaks to John Rendall about their decision to release him into the wild in Kenya and the extraordinary moment that became a YouTube sensation.

It was the first international telecommunications satellite.

It is almost 50 years since viewers in Europe and America sat down to watch the first transatlantic broadcast.

Brian Oakes (right) was one of the engineers who made it happen.

In July 1959 two Cold War leaders argued over whose system was best.

But who won the argument when Nikita Khrushchev and Richard Nixon went head to head in public?

And why were they talking about kitchen appliances?

Photo: AP

In 1961 hundreds of Jewish children were smuggled from Morocco to Israel.

They pretended they were going on a summer holiday to Switzerland.

We hear from one of the organisers of the trip, and one of the children who left his family behind.

In 1996 over a thousand prisoners were killed at Abu Salim jail in Tripoli.

Many people see the killings as the spark that eventually led to the uprising against Colonel Gaddafi's government.

When protestors first went on the streets of Benghazi in February this year it was to demonstrate against the arrest of a lawyer who was investigating the killings.

Photo: AP

It is 10 years since protests against a G8 summit turned violent on the streets of Genoa, Italy.

Many police and demonstrators were injured - and one protestor was killed.

Bill Hayton covered the events for the BBC - he talks to a campaigning journalist who was badly beaten by police.

Rupert Murdoch's career in the media began in the Australian town of Adelaide in the early 1950s.

From there, he went on to build one of the largest media empires in the world.

In July 1967 British cyclist Tom Simpson, rode himself to death on the Tour de France.

His team-mate talks to Witness about Tom and the Tour.

This programme was first broadcast in 2010.

In July 1955 the first ever Disney theme park was opened in California.

The opening day wasn't entirely successful.

We hear from two people who were there. One a Disney employee, the other, a seven year old boy.

A graphic account of one of the major events in the history of the Middle East.

The conquest of Jerusalem by the Crusaders more than 900 years ago.

Through the BBC's Archive footage Alan Johnston pieces together the story of a Battle of Britain fighter pilot who was shot down during a dogfight and badly burnt before parachuting from his stricken aircraft.

We hear how Richard Hillary then had to prepare to die as he drifted for hours in the North Sea.

Photo: Press Association

In July 1995, Bosnian Serb fighters killed thousands of Muslim men and boys.

They had taken refuge in the UN 'safe area' of Srebrenica - but peacekeepers there were unable to protect them.

Wim Dijkema (right) was one of the Dutch soldiers in the town at the time.

In 1989, the people of Liverpool began boycotting Rupert Murdoch's Sun newspaper over its reporting of the Hillsborough football disaster.

The Sun later apologised, but sales in the city have never recovered.

Witness speaks to a Liverpudlian involved in the boycott, and to a local radio journalist who remembers the city's anger.

PHOTO: Press Association

It is more than 30 years since the launch of the first space shuttle.

Milton Silveira has been involved in the programme since the very beginning - long before the first shuttle ever took off.

He talks to Witness.

It is 10 years since riots engulfed the city of Bradford in the North of England.

There were running battles between police and young British Pakistanis.

Mohammed Amran was on the streets throughout.

Photo: Press Association

On July 6 1988 167 people died in a fire on an oil rig in the North Sea.

Roy Carey is one of the survivors.

In a programme first broadcast last year he spoke to Witness.

Photo: VT Freeze Frame

In 1985 the Royal couple made their first joint visit to America.

The highlight of the tour was a gala dinner at the White House where the young Princess danced with John Travolta.

Photo: Associated Press

We take you back more than 40 years to the height of the war in Vietnam.

Alan Johnston talks to the former US Marine and peace activist Ron Kovic about two moments that changed his life forever - one on the battlefield, and one at anti-war protest in Washington.

In 1975 he became the first African-American man to win the tennis tournament.

His friend and agent, Donald Dell, talks about that memorable match - and about what else Ashe might have achieved if he had not died young.

Photo: Ashe at Wimbledon in 1975

Flamenco singing was dwindling in popularity in Spain until the appearance of Camaron de la Isla.

Thousands lined the streets at his funeral in Andalucia in 1992.

Witness speaks to a guitarist called Marcos - one of Camaron's biggest fans and the author of a recent biography.

Photo: Getty Images

In the 1960s British mercenaries joined the fighting in Yemen's civil war.

They trained local tribesmen to fight against Egyptian troops.

Their activities were never officially sanctioned by the British government.

The little boy caught in the middle of a tug-of-war between Miami and Havana.

When armed US agents stormed his relatives' home in Miami a photographer, Alan Diaz, captured the fear on his face.

He talks to Witness about the family, the Pullitzer prize-winning shot and about Elian.

Photo: Associated Press

The Irish author, Colm Toibin remembers President Kennedy returning to the land of his forefathers and being taken to the nation's heart as if he were one of its own.

Photo: JFK in Co.Wexford, PA Wire.

Fourteen years ago the Soufriere Hills volcano erupted on the Caribbean island of Montserrat.

Much of the south of the island was covered with ash and 19 people died.

Hear Rose Willock, broadcaster and 'voice of Montserrat' as she remembers the 25 of June 1997.

(Photo: BBC)

Solving Fermat's Last Theorem had intrigued mathematicians for centuries.

In June 1993 a British academic, Andrew Wiles, thought he'd cracked it. But then someone pointed out a flaw in his calculations and it took him another year to correct it.

A frontline Soviet officer tells of what he saw the night that Hitler ordered Operation Barbarossa - Germany's invasion of the USSR.

During World War II, many British children were sent away from the cities to escape German bombs.

Most went to the countryside but some went as far away as Australia.

Helen Cuthbert (right) and her sister were sent to live with their aunt there.

In 1937, the Japanese army went on the rampage after invading the Chinese city of Nanjing.

Hundreds of thousands of people are thought to have died.

Witness speaks to a survivor of what became known as the Rape of Nanjing.

On 16 June 1961 the great ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev cut his ties with the Soviet Union.

He escaped his KGB minders at an airport in Paris.

Nureyev and Fonteyn in 1963.

In June 1953 East German workers went on strike in protest at Soviet rule.

Demonstrations spread throughout the country but they were soon crushed by Communist troops.

Image: East Germany demonstrators march through Brandenburg Gate into the Western sector of Berlin, Credit: Getty Images

An account of the remarkable life of Rachel Beer, who challenged the prejudices of Victorian England. She reached the top in journalism to become the first ever female editor of a British newspaper, The Sunday Times, only to be engulfed by disaster and lose everything.

Picture: Rachel Beer

In June 1994, America watched in disbelief as the police chased the retired sports star OJ Simpson, along the freeways of Los Angeles.

LAPD detective Tom Lange contacted OJ Simpson by cell phone and tried to calm him down.

When Italy joined World War II in June 1940, British-Italian men were rounded up and interned.

Joe Pieri was just 21 years old and living in Glasgow when he was arrested and sent to a prison camp in Canada.

Photo: Joe Pieri today.

It is 30 years since Israeli war planes destroyed a nuclear reactor in Iraq.

The pilot who led the raid talks to Witness about the planning, the secrecy, and the day of the attack itself.

As tensions in Syria worsen, we talk to a man who was jailed for opposing the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

In 2003 it did not take much to attract the attention of the authorities.

A former political prisoner tells his story.

The first international conference on the problems of the environment took place in 1972. Hear the story of the man, Maurice Strong, who made this important gathering possible.

Photo: Maurice Strong (right) shakes hands with Brazilian Indian Chief Kanhok Caiapo. AFP/Getty.

It's 30 years since the HIV virus was first identified by medical experts.

In the early days, carriers of the virus were stigmatised and treatment was in its infancy.

Alan Johnston talks to Ugandan-born Winnie Ssanyu Sseruma about her experiences of having HIV back in the 1980s.

A British soldier tells us of one extraordinary day on the beaches of 1940 Dunkirk during World War II.

We hear of how he managed to work his way through the chaos and constant danger, and escape to England.

Photo: Soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force lie on their backs on the beach at Dunkirk to shoot with their rifles at enemy aircraft, which are bombing the transport ships that have arrived to evacuate them, 20th June 1940:) (Credit: Fox Photos/Getty Images)

Eye witness accounts of the killing of hundreds of Jews in the streets of the Iraqi capital, Bagdhad.

Witness hears how the massacre in 1941 led to the uprooting of this ancient community.

It is almost 40 years since an attack at the airport outside Tel Aviv - more than 20 people were killed.

This programme contains some graphic descriptions of violence - listeners may find it distressing.

Photo: Ros Sloboda, a survivor of that day, tells her story.

It is 50 years since the assassination of Rafael Trujillo - Dominican Republic dictator.

Witness hears from three people who remember that day.

Photo: Antonio Imbert, one of men who shot Trujillo.

It is 13 years since Pakistan first tested a nuclear weapon.

Dr Samar Mubarakmand was a senior figure at the country's Atomic Energy Commission.

He was given the job of organising the test.

He talks to Witness.

It is half a century since the launch of the human rights group Amnesty International.

Over the years it has highlighted thousands of cases where people have been imprisoned without trial.

Maria was a teenager in jail in Uruguay when she was helped by one of its early letter-writing campaigns.

(Photo: Maria today)

In 1980, more than 100,000 Cubans left the island in a boatlift from Mariel harbour.

Witness speaks to the writer, Mirta Ojito, about how she fled from communism with her family.

Photo: Mirta (left) with her father and sister.

In 1921 the most famous perfume ever, was launched in France.

It was created for Coco Chanel - the fashion designer and good-time girl - who wanted something modern and fresh to suit the times.

(Photo: A young Coco Chanel, credit Getty images)

In May 1968 Manchester United Football club won its first European cup at Wembley.

A supporter and a player talk about the match, and the emotions.

Listen to David Sadler, and life-long fan Brian Hughes.

Photo: David Sadler in action. Getty images.

In May 1971 a group of women challenged the ban on contraception in Ireland.

They took a train from the Republic of Ireland in the south across the border to Northern Ireland and came back laden with pills and condoms.

Nell McCafferty was one of the leaders of the protest.

(Picture: Condoms, Credit:

In May 1924 two rich and educated teenage boys killed an acquaintance in Chicago.

They thought they had carried out the perfect crime.

But they were soon caught and put on trial.

Witness investigates their motives.

In May 1944 the Tatar people of Crimea were forced into exile by the Soviet army.

Although the Muslim minority had lived in the region for centuries they were ordered out by Stalin.

Hundreds of thousands of people, mainly women and children, were put on trains and sent to Uzbekistan.

Photo: Dilara Aslanovna Baganovna's family before deportation.

Over 400 years ago an Irish woman pirate met Queen Elizabeth I.

Grace O'Malley led hundreds of men into battle at sea and on land.

When Ireland's English rulers tried to curb her power she paid a personal visit Queen Elizabeth to argue her case.

The Red Army took control of the German capital Berlin, in May 1945.

The Soviet soldiers had a terrifying reputation and civilians in their path feared looting and violence.

One German woman who survived that time tells her story.

Photo: Associated Press

This programme was scheduled for broadcast on May 2nd but postponed due to the death of Osama bin Laden.

At Easter 1916, a small army of Irish rebels attempted to start a revolution against British rule.

They held out for more than a week against a massive British military response.

Witness brings together eye-witness accounts of the Easter Rising.

A street barricade in Dublin. Photo: Getty images.

Nearly 300 years ago a feral child was brought to the court of George I in London.

He'd been found in the forests of Germany and sent to England at the request of the King.

But what was his life like? Historian Lucy Worsley has followed up the clues.

President Tito of Yugoslavia was one of the great characters of post-war Europe.

Although a communist, he refused to toe the Moscow line.

His former doctor remembers a man who loved the good life, and held his country together with an iron grip.

Photo: Getty Images

A young Italian flyer describes in a letter home how he mounted the world's first ever aerial bombing run during an attack on Ottoman forces in Libya, in 1911.

Giulio Gavotti in 1910. Photograph courtesy of his grandson, Paolo di Vecchi.

In May 1976 the German left-wing extremist Ulrike Meinhof killed herself in prison.

She and Andreas Baader had led a terror campaign against the West German state in the early 1970s.

Journalist Stefan Aust knew her well, he talks to Witness.

Photo: Press Association

On May 8 1945, Winston Churchill announced the end of the war in Europe.

It meant defeat for Germany, but great rejoicing in Britain.

One man whose joy was captured on camera that day speaks to Witness about the celebrations in London's Trafalgar Square.

Photo: Getty Images

In 1954 a record was broken when a young British athlete ran a mile in under four minutes.

Roger Bannister talks about how he trained and how he became a runner in the first place.

It is 60 years since the opening of the Festival of Britain.

A grand event which aimed to lift post-war Britain out of its age of austerity.

A stretch of London riverbank was completely rebuilt with futuristic buildings and sculptures.

We remember the day in 1998 when al-Qaeda bombed America's embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, and hear the harrowing testimony of a man who was blinded for life in one of the blasts.

In 1945, the Red Army occupied part of Berlin as World War II came to an end.

Witness speaks to one German woman about life in the city under the Soviet troops.

(Photo: A Russian soldier on horseback supervising German prisoners of war as they drive a herd of cattle past Stettiner Railway Station on the way to Russia, 23rd October 1945. (Credit: George Konig/Keystone/Getty Images)

In the 1930s, a combination of bad weather and Soviet policy led to a devastating famine in Ukraine.

Alan Johnston brings together accounts from a survivor and a journalist who visited Ukraine at the time.

This programme was first broadcast last year.

Ten years ago an American businessman called Dennis Tito became the first space tourist.

He was 60 years old when he paid millions of dollars to be blasted into space alongside two Russian astronauts.

He has been talking to Witness.

In 1978, tens of thousands of music fans attended an anti-racism concert in the East End of London.

Rock against Racism was the biggest anti-fascist demonstration since World War II.

Witness speaks to one of the organisers Roger Huddle, and to the musician, Billy Bragg, who was in the crowd.

It was one of the worst atrocities of the Spanish Civil War.

German bombers, backing Franco's fascist forces, virtually destroyed the Basque town.

Hear first-hand accounts of the bombing from the BBC archives.

(Photo: A copy of Picasso's mural, in the town of Guernica itself)

In 1983 a German magazine believed it had found Hitler's wartime diary.

It sold the rights to other papers including the Times in London.

Journalist Phillip Knightley doubted their authenticity from the start.

As part of our series in the run-up to Britain's Royal Wedding we take you back to 1981 and the marriage of Prince Charles to Lady Diana Spencer.

Mishal Husain reports for Witness.

Photo: Associated Press

It is 21 years since a Romanian woman was finally able to uncover her family history - kept hidden for decades by the communist secret police.

Nick Thorpe reports for Witness.

In 1930, Gandhi led the famous Salt March against British rule in India. His great-grandson Tushar, retraced the route 75 years later.

Witness speaks to him about the power of peaceful protest. The programme also includes a newspaper account of the original march.

(Photo: 1930. Indian nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi, and politician Mrs Sarojini Naidu, with a garland, during the Salt March protesting against the government monopoly on salt production.) (Credit: Keystone/Getty Images)

In 1993, around 80 people died in the fire that ended the siege at the headquarters of a Christian cult in Waco, Texas.

Sam Henry from Manchester, lost his wife and five children in the blaze.

He tells Witness how the cult's leader David Koresh, brainwashed his family.

In April 1961 Cuban exiles, backed by the US government, tried to overthrow Fidel Castro.

Fifty years ago boatloads of counter-revolutionaries stormed the beaches of a bay in Cuba.

They soon ran out of ammunition, and without backup their mission failed.

We hear from one of those exiles.

Picture: Captured - the US-backed force of Cuban exiles who attempted invasion at the Bay of Pigs, Credit: Three Lions/Getty Images

She was a Hollywood superstar - he was Prince of a tiny European state.

Their wedding turned into a media frenzy.

One of her bridesmaids remembers that day.

(Photo credit: Associated Press)

In 1982 people in the Syrian city of Hama rose up against the Assad regime.

We hear from two men who as children, lived through the government crackdown that followed.

(Photo credit: Hama skyline)

In 1957 a nuclear reactor in the north of England caught fire. When things started to go wrong at the Windscale nuclear plant, workers rushed in to help.

Witness hears from two men who helped bring things under control during Britain's worst nuclear accident.

It is 50 years since Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space.

The young cosmonaut became a hero around the world and a poster boy for Soviet technological achievement.

Photo: Yuri Gagarin, Credit: Getty Images

Jackie Robinson was the first black Major League Baseball player.

He broke the colour bar in professional baseball in the USA.

He suffered discrimination and abuse along the way.

(Photo credit: AP)

When Seretse Khama and Ruth Williams fell in love in post-war London, they expected their families to object.

He was African, she was English. But soon governments were trying to stop their wedding.

Part of our series in the run-up to Britain's Royal Wedding.

A plane crash on 6 April 1994, set off a wave of killing in Rwanda which lasted 100 days.

Almost a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus lost their lives.

Jean-Francois Gisimba survived that time and helped hundreds of others who had taken refuge in the family-run orphanage to stay alive as well.

Photo: Gisimba Orphanage in Kigali - as it is today.

Thirty years ago, in April 1994, Kurt Cobain was found dead in his home in Seattle.

The death of the lead singer of the grunge rock ban Nirvana, shocked his fans and the whole of the music industry.

One of his former bandmates, Dave Grohl, has been talking to Tom Bateman.

This programme was first broadcast in 2011.

(Photo: Kurt Cobain singing on stage whilst playing the guitar. Credit: Kevin Mazur/WireImage Via Getty.)

John Gotti was a mafia boss who had escaped prison for years.

In April 1992 he was finally convicted on several counts of murder - and was jailed for life.

One of the prosecutors, Patrick Cotter, tells his story.

Photo of John Gotti: AP

The anti-poll tax demonstration of March 1990 brought thousands onto the streets of London.

Some were simply there to protest against a new Thatcherite policy. Others were looking for trouble.

Rioters attack a police van.

On 30 March 1981, there was an attempt to assassinate the US President.

Jerry Parr was one of the special agents who helped to save Ronald Reagan's life.

Photo:AP

David Kirke was one of the first people to try bungee jumping in 1979. He and his friends chose the Clifton suspension bridge in Bristol as their location, but had not tested the ropes before making the first jump.

It is 40 years since the beginning of the war between East and West Pakistan which resulted in the formation of Bangladesh as an independent country.

Junaid Ahmed reports.

In July 1999 two members of British celebrity royalty tied the knot.

Victoria Adams of the Spice Girls, and David Beckham of Manchester United were both at the top of their professions.

When they announced their wedding, the British press went into celebrity overdrive.

For 65 years the BBC World Service has broadcast in Russian, this weekend it stops.

The Russian Service came into its own during the attempted coup by communist hardliners in August 1991.

Mikhail Gorbachev said he got his news from the BBC, while being held under house arrest in Crimea.

When Leonardo da Vinci, the great Renaissance painter, was invited to paint a huge fresco in Florence - he could not have imagined that he would end up in direct competition with Michelangelo. Jonathan Jones, art critic for the Guardian newspaper, has written about the rivalry.

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In September 1999 there was a nuclear accident at Tokaimura in Japan. Workers mixing nuclear fuel had managed to start a nuclear reaction by mistake. For several days radiation leaked into the surrounding area.

The English author Christopher Isherwood lived in Berlin throughout the 1930s. His vision of the city has been linked with the German capital ever since.

In March 1994, the first women were ordained as Anglican priests. Witness speaks to Angela Berners-Wilson, one of 32 women ordained that day. She speaks about her long fight to become a priest in the Church of England.

It was during the Iran-Iraq war in 1988 that Saddam Hussein's jets carried out a gas attack against Halabja in northern Iraq.

Five thousand people were killed in the Halabja attack, considered one of the worst atrocities of Saddam Hussein's regime.

Mariwan Hama-Saeed was a small boy living in the town at the time.

When a nuclear reactor at the Three Mile Island power plant in Pennsylvania malfunctioned - Victor Galinsky was one of the men charged with putting things right. He talks to Witness.

This programme was first broadcast last year.

They lasted for less than 12 minutes, but US air strikes against targets in Libya in April 1986, shook the country.

Three of Colonel Gaddafi's children were among the injured - his adopted daughter died.

But did they strengthen or weaken his hold on power?

Bombs planted on Spanish commuter trains and detonated at the height of the morning rush hour caused chaos in Madrid.

The attacks killed 191 people and injured almost 2,000. One rescue worker remembers that day.

Photo: One of the wrecked trains outside Atocha station (AP)

In 1996, a heavily-armed gunman killed sixteen children at a primary school in the small Scottish town of Dunblane.

The attack caused shock not just in Britain, but around the world.

Witness speaks to the father of one of the victims. The loss of his daughter made him a campaigner for gun control.

We hear what it was like to be trapped in the Herald of Free Enterprise car ferry when it sank off the Belgian port of Zeebrugge in 1987 - killing more than 190 people.

To mark a century of International Women's Day we bring you a portrait of the revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg.

Feminist icon, writer and theorist - Lenin called her the Eagle of the Revolution.

In 2002, a brutal civil war broke out in Ivory Coast.

It turned the once prosperous city of Abidjan into a place where African migrants and westerners all feared for their lives.

Paul Welsh covered the Civil War for the BBC. He recalls the atmosphere in Abidjan and how journalists themselves were targetted.

In March 1970, three white middle-class revolutionaries from the Weatherman movement accidentally killed themselves at their New York safehouse.

They died when the pipe bombs they were planning to use at a military base accidentally went off in the basement.

Witness speaks to Cathy Wilkerson, one of the survivors of the blast.

"I felt a slap in the face, this was a declaration of a racial war."

Wilf Mbanga was a young journalist when the white minority government in Rhodesia declared the country a republic.

Photo: Wilf Mbanga

The city of Krakow in Poland was home to a large Jewish community before World War II.

But with the arrival of the Nazis many of its Jews were deported, or fled. Then in 1941 a Jewish ghetto was built.

This programme begins with a deeply disturbing recollection.

Photo: Dr Ludwik Zurowski

When Colonel Muammar Gaddafi first took control in Libya in 1969 - few people had heard of him.

He and a group of fellow army officers carried out a coup while the King was out of the country.

Two ordinary Libyans remember that day.

(This programme was first broadcast last year.)

When Edward VIII fell in love with Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee, he had to choose between his throne and her.

We take you back to their low-key wedding in France, in 1937.

Part of the Witness Royal Weddings series.

(Photo:Getty images)

In February 1965, the controversial black leader, Malcolm X, was assassinated in Harlem, New York.

Witness speaks to a supporter of Malcolm X who saw the killing.

When democratic elections were held in Nicaragua in 1990, many observers expected the Sandinistas to win easily.

But they were defeated by a right-wing coalition led by Violeta Chamorro.

Her son talks to Witness about the difficulties her candidacy presented to the family.

Before 1956, Josef Stalin had always been portrayed as a hero of the Soviet Union.

Then, in a secret speech to a Communist Party conference, his successor, Nikita Khrushchev, denounced him as a brutal and paranoid tryant.

Witness hears from Russians who remember the speech and the shock it caused.

In 1986, thousands of peaceful demonstrators took to the streets of the Philippine capital, Manila.

Just days later, President Ferdinand Marcos was forced from power.

For Witness, the leading Philippine novelist, Jose Dalisay, recalls the demonstrations.

Rioting in Algeria in October 1988 killed around 500 people and started a period of political turmoil. A short-lived experiment in democracy ended in a violent civil war between Islamists and the Algerian army. A state of emergency remains in force until today. Witness speaks to a foreign journalist and an Algerian student who both experienced a turning point in the country's history.

(Photo: Algiers citizens help to clean up the main avenue of the Belcourt area in Algiers 08 October 1988 after three days of rioting.) (Credit: STF/AFP/Getty Images)

When the son of aviator Charles Lindbergh disappeared it was assumed he had been kidnapped.

Two months later on 12 May the child's badly decomposed body was found less than five miles (8 km) from the Lindbergh's home.

An autopsy found that he had been killed by a blow to the head shortly after the kidnapping.

It was one of the biggest stories in the US in the years before World War II.

The creation of a cloned sheep had massive implications for the worlds of science and medicine.

Sir Ian Wilmut led the team which created Dolly and describes what she was like and why did she died after only seven years.

In February 1779 the great British explorer Captain Cook was beaten to death in Hawaii.

For several weeks, he and his men had been staying quite peacefully on the island. So what happened to change his relationship with the local people?

Simon Watts looks back on Captain Cook's last days.

The fall of Singapore was one of the most serious losses suffered by the Allies during World War II. One British survivor of that battle tells his story.

The former Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, was driving through central Beirut when a remote-controlled bomb was detonated under his armour-plated car. 22 other people were killed in the attack.

Pushkin died after a duel with a Frenchman.

Rumours about the other man's relationship with Pushkin's much younger wife had led to the stand-off.

Elaine Feinstein is a Pushkin biographer.

On 9 February 1950 Senator Joseph McCarthy began his hunt for communists in the US.

Throughout the Cold War, people on the left of politics came under attack in the US.

They were put on trial, lost their jobs, and some were jailed.

An American communist talks to Witness.

For almost 18 months Irish republicans had refrained from bombing mainland Britain. But on this day 15 years ago, they returned to violence.

Among those fighting against Iraq in 1991 was a British airman John Nichol, who was shot down and captured by Iraqi forces.

He tells Witness about his time in captivity.

After weeks of popular unrest, the dictator known as Baby Doc Duvalier, finally left Haiti on 7 February 1986.

But Haitians did not find the peace and prosperity they had hoped for after the fall of the Duvalier dynasty.

On February 5 1994, an attack on a marketplace in the centre of the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, shocked the world. It led to a change in the international attitude towards the war in the former Yugoslavia.

In its aftermath, Nato began air strikes against Serbian forces.

The first week of February 1979 saw a revolution unfolding in Iran.

After the Shah had left, and Ayatollah Khomeini had arrived back in the country, it was only a matter of time before the Islamic revolution in Iran was complete.

Mohsen Sazegara was at the heart of those changes - he talks to Witness.

With his snarl and spikey hair, the Sex Pistols bassist, Sid Vicious, was the embodiment of punk rock.

New York photographer, Eileen Polk, hung out with Sid Vicious and his American girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, when they moved to the city.

For Witness, she recalls their final days and Sid Vicious's death in February 1979.

Image: Nancy Spungen and Sid Vicious, pictured in 1978 (Credit: Press Association)

When a winter storm combined with high tides to breach sea defences in the Netherlands, over 1800 people drowned.

A survivor remembers the once in a lifetime flood.

When Leningrad was cut off from the rest of Russia by German troops during World War Two, one third of its population died.

Some were killed in the fighting, but most died of hunger.

(Photo: Two women collect remains of a dead horse for food, during the siege of Leningrad) (Credit: World History Archive/TopFoto)

In January 1911, an extraordinary gun-fight took place in the East End of London.

Two Latvian revolutionaries fought off hundreds of British police and troops for hours until their hide-out caught fire. The Home Secretary - Sir Winston Churchill - attended the scene in person.

The Siege of Sidney Street was one of the first big news events caught on film and would start a huge political row over immigration from Eastern Europe.

After Siad Barre was driven from power by clan militias in Somalia, the country fell into chaos.

It has not known peace since then and hundreds of thousands of people have died in the fighting, or from starvation.

Twenty years on, Somalia still has no central government.

Horst Woit was just 10 years old when he and his mother boarded a ship in the hope of escaping Russian forces towards the end of World War II.

He recalls the night that ship - the Wilhelm Gustloff - went down with huge loss of life.

With the death of Sir Winston Churchill Britain went into mourning for its great wartime leader.

He was given a state funeral in St Paul's Cathedral.

Hundreds of thousands of people turned out to pay their respects.

Alongside Louis XVI as he was driven to his death, was an English catholic priest, Henry Edgeworth. He wrote down everything he saw and heard that day.

In 1987, Tunisia's long-serving president was toppled in a political coup, and replaced by his prime minister - by Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

(Photo: Former Tunisian Prime Minister Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali (4th R) smiles to the cheering crowd 07 November 1987 in Tunis after being sworn in as President of Tunisia.) (Credit: JOEL ROBINE/AFP/Getty Images)

In January 1966, two American military planes crashed over the remote Spanish village of Palomares. One of them was carrying four nuclear weapons.

Captain Joe Ramirez was one of the first US servicemen on the scene. He took part in the desperate search for the missing bombs.

(Photo: One of the four bombs recovered from the sea) (credit: Sandia National Laboratories)

The Norwegian polar explorer Borge Ousland spent more than two months skiing alone across the continent of Antarctica.

He talks to Witness about the highs and lows of his journey.

Over 10,000 Jewish children were brought to Britain from Nazi Europe in the months leading up to World War II.

They travelled on trains which became known as the kindertransports.

Listen to one little boy's story. His name is Oliver Gebhardt.

Former England captain Jimmy Armfield takes us back to the moment in 1961 when the modern world of footballers' pay was born.

It is 10 years since the Wikipedia online encyclopedia was launched.

Jimmy Wales, one of the founders of Wikipedia, talks to Witness about the origins of one of the most popular websites in the world.

It was during the 1960s in America that the idea of freezing people for the future, first became popular.

Some of those frozen bodies are still suspended in labs in the US, in the hope that one day science will have progressed enough, to bring them back to life.

The laws of ancient Rome made it illegal for the governor of a province to lead his soldiers into Italy.

The Rubicon marked the border that could not be crossed. Afterwards, there was no going back.

How, in 1995, investigators in the Philippines stumbled upon a terrorist plot that would reverberate in the world's memory for years to come.

Bill Clinton's press secretary at the time of the impeachment trial was Joe Lockhart. He talks to Witness about the politics behind the Lewinsky affair.

This weekend the people of Southern Sudan will vote in a referendum on independence.

We take you back to the last time the South tried to break free of the rest of Sudan.

We hear from two Sudanese women about the war which began in 1983 following the push for autonomy.

Alan Johnston hears one woman's account of how she and others defied the Taliban's efforts to prohibit education for girls in Afghanistan, by setting up secret schools and helping teachers to give lessons in their homes.

In 1965, US President Lyndon B Johnson gave a State of the Union Address. In it, he set out his Great Society ideals, including healthcare for the elderly and the poor.

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 football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic’ and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they’ve had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America’s occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.

(Photo: President Lyndon B Johnson during his 1965 State of the Union Address. Credit: Keystone-France\Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

We hear from Dennis Egan, whose father was to become the first governor of the newly formed state. He remembers the hope, pride and emotion of that historic day.