Witness History: Archive 2013

In December 1980 three US Roman Catholic nuns and a layworker were abducted and murdered in El Salvador. Their work speaking out on behalf of the poor had made them targets for the country's fiercely anti-communist military. A close friend and colleague, Sister Patricia Murray, was one of the last people to see them alive.

In November 1970, Portugal launched a surprise raid on the independent West African nation of Guinea, which had been supporting liberation fighters opposed to Portuguese rule in neighbouring Guinea Bissau.

Hundreds of Portuguese colonial troops and Guinean exiles took part in the attack. They hoped to overthrow Guinea's leader, Sekou Toure.

Photo: Rebels fighting Portuguese rule in Guinea Bissau, Credit: AFP/GettyImages

In November 1943, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill all met together for the first time to discuss the progress of World War Two. The meeting was held in Tehran over four days.

(Photo: Joseph Stalin (left), Franklin Roosevelt (centre), Winston Churchill (right). Credit: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

In 1973, the campaign group Stop de Kindermoord or Stop the Child Murder launched in the Netherlands. It would change the face of the nation's infrastructure. Witness speaks to the group's chair, Maartje van Putten.

Image: Dutch National Archive.

In November 1936, a US socialite and her Chinese-American guide captured a giant panda cub in the forests of China. Ruth Harkness took the cub to the USA and kept it in her New York flat, before selling it to a Chicago zoo.

Photo: Quentin Young, the panda cub and Ruth Harkness. Courtesy of Jolly Young.

In 1993 the first webcam went online. Its camera was focused on a coffee pot so that computer scientists in Cambridge, in the UK could see if there was any coffee available. Dr Quentin Stafford-Fraser, Martyn Johnson and Paul Jardetzky explain how they developed the precursor to Skype.

On 23rd November 1963, the first episode of one of the world's best loved TV sci-fi programmes was shown.

But the BBC's debut of Doctor Who was tragically overshadowed by the assassination of US President John F Kennedy.

Lucy Burns speaks to Carole Ann Ford, who played the Timelord's grand-daughter, Susan.

Presented and produced by Lucy Burns.

First broadcast on BBC World Service November 2013.

In 1974, bombs exploded at two busy pubs in the English city of Birmingham, killing 21 people. The IRA were blamed. Witness speaks to Les Robinson, who survived the attack.

(Photo: Debris and damage from the bomb in the basement pub. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

In November 1995, Nigeria's military government provoked international outrage when it executed the writer, Ken Saro-Wiwa, and eight other activists from Ogoniland in the oil rich Niger Delta.

(Photo: Ken Saro Wiwa at a rally in Ogoniland. Credit: Greenpeace)

Before he shot President John F Kennedy, Oswald spent two and a half mysterious years living in Minsk. We hear from two people who got to know him during his time there.

(Photo: Lee Harvey Oswald after his arrest in Dallas, Nov 22 1963. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

In November 1978 an American cult leader, Jim Jones, ordered more than 900 people to kill themselves. He had brought his followers to live in a remote settlement in Guyana in South America - they called it Jonestown. Hear from one of his disciples who escaped the killing that day. This programme was first broadcast in 2009.

Photo: The aftermath of the Jonestown Massacre. Associated Press.

Red Cross doctors tried to treat both royalist and republican casualties in Yemen in the 1960s. Witness Pascal Grellety-Bosviel first journeyed to the frontline, to reach injured fighters, in November 1964. He later went on to help found the charity Medecins sans Frontieres.

Photo: Royalist fighters in the mountains. Keystone Features/Getty Images

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 was no infant human donor available. Hear from the lead surgeon, and an intensive care nurse involved in the fight to save Baby Fae's life.

Photo: Baby Fae listening to her mother's voice in the isolation unit. Courtesy of Loma Linda Hospital

In November 1982, the boxer Deuk-Koo Kim died of brain damage after a world title fight against the American Ray Mancini. Kim fell into a coma after being repeatedly knocked down in the 14th round. His death led to a series of reforms in boxing.

Ray Mancini shares his memories of the fight and its aftermath.

(Photo: Deuk-Koo Kim at home in Seoul before his departure for Las Vegas to fight Ray Mancini. Credit: Dong-a Ilbo/AFP/Getty Images)

In November 1933, one of the first in a series of dust-storms hit the central United States. In the following years, hundreds of thousands of farmers would migrate to California. Witness tells their story using archive recordings from the Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin collection at the Library of Congress.

(Photo: Dust storm engulfing houses. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

On November 11th 1918 at 11am, the guns of World War One finally fell silent.

Listen to voices from the archives remembering that moment.

Photo: Marshall Foch and other military leaders outside the railway carriage where the WW1 Armistice was signed on Nov 11th 1918. (Three Lions/Getty Images)

On 10 November 1979 a train carrying hundreds of tonnes of dangerous chemicals crashed in Canada. It led to one of the biggest peacetime evacuations in North America.

(Photo: Aerial view of the crash scene. Credit: Courtesy of Mississauga Library System)

In November 1953 the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas died in New York aged just thirty-nine. Witness presents interviews from the BBC archives.

Picture copyright BBC - Dylan Thomas, making a broadcast on the BBC in November 1948.

In November 1975, King Hassan the Second ordered hundreds of thousands of Moroccans to march into disputed territory in the desert. He wanted to claim the colony of Spanish Sahara for Morocco. The Green March led to a diplomatic victory for the King, but sparked a guerrilla war and decades of instability in the region. Witness speaks to a Moroccan who was on the march.

In 1963 southern Africa's first multi-racial school opened in Swaziland.

It was a direct challenge to neighbouring South Africa's apartheid regime.

We hear from two people who were there when the school first opened its doors.

Photo: Headmaster Michael Stern and his first pupils in 1963 (courtesy of Waterford Kamhlaba)

In 1937, Hitler and the Nazi party organised a huge exhibition of modern art in Munich. It was designed to ridicule works of art which they disapproved of - they called it Degenerate Art. It went on to be one of the best attended modern art exhibitions of all time.

Picture: Two men prepare to hang German Expressionist painter Max Beckmann's triptych 'Temptation' at the 20th Century German Art Exhibition at the New Burlington Galleries, London. The exhibition includes work by all the German artists pilloried by Adolf Hitler in the 'Degenerate Art' exhibition in Munich of 1937. (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

In November 1953 an English clergyman set up the first telephone helpline for people considering suicide. The Reverend Chad Varah began the pioneering service from a room in his own church house.

Today, the Samaritans receive more than five million calls every year in the UK alone. There are more than 100 branches overseas.

(Photo: The Reveren Chad Varah at the entrance to his office at the church of St Stephen, Wallbrook, City of London. Credit: PA)

On 31 October 1984, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was shot dead by her Sikh bodyguards. We speak to RK Dhawan, one of her closest aides, who was with her in the garden that morning and was a witness to her assassination.

(Photo: Indian school children light candles to pay tribute to the late former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Credit: Narinder Nanu/AFP/Getty Images)

In 1998 Central America was hit by Hurricane Mitch. More than 18,000 people died, hundreds of thousands were left homeless. We hear from two people who were in Honduras, the country worst hit by the huge storm.

(Photo: One young man balances on a log to get across a river swollen by the storms in Honduras. Credit: Yuri Cortez/AFP/Getty Images)

In 1949, Iva Toguri, a Japanese-American woman, was wrongly convicted for making propaganda broadcasts on behalf of Japan during the Second World War. She was accused of being the infamous radio presenter known to American servicemen as "Tokyo Rose". Witness speaks to Ron Yates, a reporter whose investigation helped to clear Iva Toguri's name.

PHOTO: Iva Toguri in the 1940s (US National Archives)

19 October 1987 became known as Black Monday after share prices on Wall Street fell by a record rate.

We hear from Art Cashin, a trader at the New York Stock Exchange.

Photo: The scene on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Black Monday (MARIA R BASTONE/AFP/Getty Images)

In 1963, Erik de Mauny became the first BBC correspondent based in the Soviet Union.

The BBC had tried to open a bureau there during World War II, but only succeeded 20 years later.

De Mauny's son, Marc, talks about the hurdles his father had to overcome while reporting from behind the Iron Curtain.

Photo: Erik de Mauny (BBC)

In 1993, Burundi's civil war began. We hear the story of Marguerite Barankitse who helped thousands of children affected by the conflict and came to symbolise hope for peace. She is known as 'the Angel of Burundi'.

Photo: Marguerite Barankitse in Burundi / UNHCR

On 23 October 1983, hundreds were killed in co-ordinated suicide attacks on the headquarters of American and French troops stationed in Lebanon. The troops were part of a multi-national force deployed to help end the Lebanese civil war. Hear the story of Randy Gaddo, a US marine who witnessed the devastating attack on the US Marine barracks.

(Photo: Aftermath of attack on US Marine Barracks in Beirut, 23 October 1983. Credit: AP)

In 1991, one of East Berlin's most famous poets was revealed to have been an informer for the secret police. Sascha Anderson speaks to Witness about his double life.

Photo: A shelf in the files department of the Stasi-archives in Berlin. Credit: Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images.

In October 1973 Sydney Opera House was officially opened by the Queen. The impressive building, with its distinctive white-shelled roof, took 20 years to complete. We hear from Jack Zunz, one of the lead engineers about the dramas, both human and structural.

(Photo: The Syndey Opera House. Credit: ALLSPORT/Getty Images)

On 19 October 1983, Grenada's popular left-wing prime minister, Maurice Bishop, was killed following an internal party coup. Six days later the US invaded the tiny Caribbean island. We hear from Ann Peters, who was with Maurice Bishop in his final hours.

Photo: Maurice Bishop in 1983 . BBC Pictures

In 1931, nine black teenagers were convicted of raping two white girls in the southern US state of Alabama.

Eight were sentenced to death by an all-white jury; but after years of campaigning, all eventually went free.

We hear from the daughter of Clarence Norris, one of the accused.

Picture: Police escort two recently freed "Scottsboro Boys" New York, 1937, Credit: Associated Press

In October 1989, the anti-apartheid leader, Walter Sisulu, was freed from prison after 26 years.

He had been jailed along with Nelson Mandela on Robben Island.

One of Sisulu's daughters, Beryl, recalls the day her father came home.

Photo: Walter Sisulu with his wife, Albertina, soon after his release from prison (AP)

In October 1984, Margaret Thatcher survived a bomb attack on the hotel where she was staying.

Five people were killed and more than 30 others injured in the explosion, which was carried out by the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

We hear from a government official in the hotel at the time.

Photo: The Grand Hotel in Brighton after the IRA bombing (John Minihan/Express/Getty Images)

Hundreds of Jewish slave labourers in a Nazi death camp staged a revolt and escaped in October 1943.

Many were caught and shot. Around 50 made it to the end of the war.

Listen to the story of Thomas Blatt, one of the survivors.

Photo: Sobibor Death Camp (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum)

On September 15 1963, four young black girls were killed in a racist bomb attack against a church in Birmingham, Alabama in the US. The Baptist church at 16th Street had been a centre for civil rights activities in the city.

Sarah Collins Rudolph was badly injured in the attack, and her sister, Addie Mae was one of those who died. Listen to her story.

Photo: BBC Copyright.

One of Africa's most famous radical leaders, Captain Thomas Sankara, was gunned down in a coup in Burkina Faso in October 1987. His overthrow was orchestrated by his old friend, Blaise Compaore. We hear from Thomas Sankara's brother, Paul.

Photo: Captain Thomas Sankara in Zimbabwe, Aug 1986. AFP/Getty Images

In 1925 a young black American dancer became an overnight sensation in Paris. Her overtly sexual act soon made her one of the most famous women in Europe. Her name was Josephine Baker - hear from her adopted son Jean-Claude Baker about her dancing, and her life.

(Photo: Josephine Baker in her heyday. Credit: Walery/Getty Images)

In October 1964 a group of students helped 57 people escape from communist East Germany despite the wall built to keep them in. Hear from Ralph Kabisch and Joachim Neumann who spent weeks digging what became known as Tunnel 57.

(Photo: A refugee is pulled out of Tunnel 57. Courtesy of Ralph Kabisch).

Birmingham in Alabama was one of the most segregated cities in the USA in 1963. In May that year thousands of black schoolchildren responded to a call from Martin Luther King to protest against segregation at the height of racial tensions. It became known as the Children's Crusade.

Gwendolyn Webb was 14 years old at the time and took part. Listen to her story.

(Photo: Firefighters turn their hoses on civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama. Credit: AP Photo/Bill Hudson)

In October 1943, at the height of the Second World War, most of the Jews in Denmark evaded Nazi plans to send them to death camps. They were warned about a planned roundup by a German diplomat. Hear the story of Bent Melchior who was 14 years old when his family made the journey to safety in neutral Sweden.

(Photo: Bent, aged 15 and living in Sweden)

The outspoken Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead outside her Moscow flat in October 2006. She had been a fierce critic of Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin, and a campaigner for human rights. Her son, Ilya Politkovsky, was the first family member at the scene of the crime.

(Photo: Anna Politkovskaya. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

When Chief Albert Luthuli won the Nobel Peace Prize he was living under a banning order in rural South Africa. His daughter Albertina talks to Witness. Also listen to archive recordings of his acceptance speech.

He won the prize for advocating peaceful opposition to the Apartheid regime in South Africa.

Picture: Albert Luthuli receives the Nobel Peace Prize in 1960, Credit: Keystone/Hulton Archive

Following her own struggles with drink and prescription drugs, former American First Lady Betty Ford opened a drug and alcohol treatment centre on 4 October 1982. The Betty Ford Center is now one of the most famous rehabilitation centres in the world. Lucy Burns spoke to Joseph Cruse, one of the doctors who helped her recover.

Photo: Betty Ford, courtesy of Gerald R Ford Memorial Library (public domain).

In October 1986, an Israeli nuclear technician, Mordechai Vanunu, revealed his country's secret nuclear weapons programme. Vanunu told his story to Britain's Sunday Times newspaper. He was later kidnapped by Israeli agents, taken back to Israel and put on trial for espionage.

Photo: Mordechai Vanunu in detention, Israel, 1986 (AP)

In 1974 American Vogue put a black model on its cover for the first time. We hear how Beverly Johnson made it to the front of the world's most famous fashion magazine.

In 1975, Lee Elder braved death threats to become the first African-American golfer to play at the prestigious US Masters in Augusta.

It was one of the last colour barriers in US sport and made him a hero to many black sportsmen - including Tiger Woods.

Lee Elder recalls the tournament for Witness.

PHOTO: Lee Elder playing golf later in life (Getty Images)

In 2001, Australia refused entry to more than 400 refugees aboard a Norwegian freight ship, the Tampa. The people on board were mainly Afghans fleeing the Taliban, who had set sail in a fishing boat from Indonesia. The refugees became the centre of an international row over who should give them shelter.

(Photo: The Indonesian fishing boat carrying more than 400 refugees comes alongside the Norwegian Cargo ship Tampa which took them aboard. Credit: AP)

In April 1966, Ethiopia's emperor Haile Selassie made a spectacular arrival in Jamaica. It was his first and only visit to the birthplace of the Rastafarian movement which revered him. A quarter of a million people greeted him at the airport.

Photo: Haile Selassie in Addis Ababa, 1966. Getty Images

In 1963, a small group of black activists in Bristol in the UK started a pioneering protest against racism by the local bus company, which had specified that they did not want to employ black drivers. Inspired by the example of Martin Luther King, the boycott ended in victory and led to the passage of Britain's first anti-discrimination laws.

Paul Stephenson talks about his part in the protest.

Mao declares the formation of the People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949. We hear from an American who helped to plan the revolution in the caves of Yan'an. Sidney Rittenberg remembers what the early days of communist rule were like in China.

On September 30th 1938, Neville Chamberlain returned from negotiations with Hitler promising "peace in our time". He had agreed for Hitler to take over the Sudetenland in western Czechoslovakia, as part of a policy known as appeasement.

It is 60 years since an American academic Alfred Kinsey published an in-depth study of women's sex lives. He and his researchers had interviewed thousands of women about their experiences. The results shocked America.

Hear from his daughter, who took part in the research.

Photo: Dr Alfred Kinsey (centre) with his team of researchers from Indiana University. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

In 1991, the Yugoslav army pounded the Croatian town for 87 days. The battle horrified the world and marked the start of the wars in former Yugoslavia. WItness hears from a Croat who defended Vukovar and from the former BBC war correspondent, Martin Bell.

In September 1984, the famous Spanish matador, Francisco Rivera, also known as Paquirri, was gored to death by a bull during a fight in the small town of Pozoblanco. The bravery he showed during his final moments turned Paquirri into a legend. Witness speaks to El Soro, a matador who shared the bill that fateful day, and to Muriel Finer, an American journalist married to a Spanish bullfighter.

Photo: A recent bullfight (Getty Images).

The first episode of Baywatch aired on 22 September 1989. It went on to be one of the world's biggest TV shows, broadcast in 44 languages in 148 countries. Executive producer Michael Berk remembers the birth of the programme.

(Photo: Baywatch promotional poster. Credit: Getty Images)

Re-education is still used as a form of punishment in Communist China. Hear from Robert Ford, a British man who spent five years being re-educated in the 1950s after being captured by Chinese soldiers in Tibet.

(Photo: Chinese soldiers enter Tibet in 1950. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The jazz legend Duke Ellington played a concert in the Afghan capital Kabul in September 1963 . Hear from Faiz Khairzada, the man who organised, not just his appearance, but a series of ambitious cultural events.

(Photo: Duke Ellington in 1964, Copyright BBC)

One week after the 9/11 attacks, a series of letters were sent to journalists and politicians. They contained the deadly biological agent Anthrax. The United States was gripped with fear as postal workers fell ill. The FBI launched one of the biggest and most expensive investigations in its history. Special Agent Scott Stanley was one of those on the case.

(Photo: Workers washing out rubbish bins. Credit: AP/Steve Mitchell)

In September 1993, after weeks of secret negotiations, a peace agreement was signed between Israel and the Palestinians. Hear from Mona Juul, a Norwegian diplomat, who had a close up view of the talks.

Photo: Yitzhak Rabin, Bill Clinton and Yasser Arafat on September 13th, 1993. Reuters.

In 1955, the Argentine military seized power in a coup and stole the remains of the revered former first lady, Evita Peron. Over the next few decades, the body was stored in several different places in several different countries, inspiring wild stories about its supernatural powers. Linda Pressley travelled to Buenos Aires to investigate.

Her full documentary, Evita's Odyssey, was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2012.

In the early 1970s the Bengal Tiger was said to be on the brink of extinction. In 1973 the Indian Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, launched 'Project Tiger' a campaign to save the animal.

(PHOTO: A Bengal Tiger. Courtesy of Valmik Thapar)

On September 11th 1973, Gen Augusto Pinochet ousted the socialist government in Chile. Hundreds of people were tortured and killed in the coup, among them the folk-singer Victor Jara. Hear his British widow Joan's first-hand account of those historical events.

(Photo: Victor Jara. Credit: Associated Press)

In December 1983, a US airman was shot down while attacking Syrian forces in Lebanon. Lt Robert O. Goodman was captured and taken to Damascus as a prisoner. His release was negotiated by the black civil rights leader, Rev. Jesse Jackson.

(Photo: Lt Goodman shortly after his release in January 1984. Courtesy of Goodman family)

In September 1971 prisoners in a high security jail in the US rose up against their guards taking 42 people hostage. After 4 days of negotiations, armed police retook the jail. By the time the siege ended 39 people were dead.

Photo: Discussions inside the prison on 10th September 1971. Associated Press.

George Lloyd, a young English composer, wrote a march for the ship he served on in World War II. The HMS Trinidad was sent to protect convoys carrying supplies to Russia, but it came to a tragic end - and George Lloyd suffered a breakdown which stopped him composing. His march has been revived for the Last Night of the Proms at the Albert Hall in London.

Photo: George Lloyd (far right) playing with the HMS Trinidad band.

In World War II , Britain set up a secret organisation which waged war in Nazi occupied Europe. Noreen Riols, a former member of SOE, who helped train the agents, recounts her experiences in Churchill' s secret army.

(Photo: A group of SOE agents during training. BBC copyright)

In 1973 two decades of civil war in Laos ended. It also brought an end to the 'secret war' - the American-led fight against Vietnamese communists in Laos. But when the fighting stopped many of the country's Hmong people who had supported the Americans had to flee to escape persecution.

PHOTO: Courtesy of Yee Chang (front row, young boy in black on the left, photo taken the day before he and his family crossed the Mekong river)

In September 1888, one of the most infamous serial killers in history stalked the narrow streets of the East End of London. Jack the Ripper killed at least five prostitutes and was never caught by the police despite a massive manhunt. Using contemporary accounts, Simon Watts describes how the murderer cast a spell over late Victorian England.

ILLUSTRATION: Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

In September 1961, an attack by rebels in Eritrea marked the start of the country's thirty year war of independence from Ethiopia. We hear the story of one doctor who joined the liberation struggle. Photo: EPLF fighters on patrol in Eritrea, 1978.

In 1993 young women began disappearing in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez.

Hundreds are thought to have been kidnapped and killed since then.

Witness hears from two people closely involved in the cases.

Photo: Jorge Uzon. AFP/Getty Images

In 1946 Aboriginal farm workers went on strike against virtual slavery in Australia. It was the first time they'd taken industrial action and it helped changed their status.

PHOTO: A photograph of Aboriginal strikers, all of whom are now deceased. Courtesy of David Noakes.

POEM: Clancy and Dooley and Don McLeod by Dorothy Hewett, 1946.

On August 28th 1963, the American civil rights leader, Martin Luther King, made his historic plea for an end to racial discrimination in the USA. Standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, he addressed hundreds of thousands of activists who had marched to Washington to demonstrate for black rights.

Listen to John Lewis, the youngest speaker on the podium that day.

Photo: Associated Press.

In 1962, Sherri Finkbine, a TV presenter from Arizona, unwittingly took the dangerous drug thalidomide while pregnant with her fifth child. She and her husband then launched a very public campaign for the right to have an abortion. Refused treatment in America, the Finkbines eventually had to travel to Sweden. Their case galvanised the campaign for abortion to be legalised in the United States.

In 1883, the Krakatoa volcano exploded, triggering a tsunami that caused devastation in Indonesia and beyond. Using archive recordings, Simon Watts tells the story of one of the world's biggest natural disasters. He also speaks to historian Simon Winchester. This programme was first broadcast in 2010.

PHOTO: Associated Press.

In 1992, President Fernando Collor of Brazil was forced from office by a huge wave of street protests against corruption. The demonstrations were led by students who painted their faces with slogans and the colours of the Brazilian flag. Witness speaks to one of the first members of a movement that became known as Caras pintadas, meaning the Painted Faces.

Picture: Students with painted faces protest, Credit: AFP/Getty Images

In August 1976 more than 200 people developed a mystery illness at a convention of veterans' association the American Legion in Philadelphia. 34 of them died.

We speak to the doctor who led the Centre for Disease Control's response to the outbreak.

Photo: Rachel Rogers.

On August 21 1983, the opposition leader, Benigno Aquino, was shot dead in the Philippines.

He was killed at Manila airport, minutes after returning from exile in the US.

We hear from his brother-in-law, who was with him that day.

Photo: Benigno Aquino on the plane home (courtesy of K. Kashiwahara)

A former student describes how he made a desperate appeal for the support of the outside world as invading Soviet tanks rumbled through the streets of the Czechoslovak capital in August 1968. This programme was first broadcast in 2010.

Picture: Soviet troops in Prague (Getty Images)

Hundreds of foreign nationals were held hostage in Iraq in the run up to the First Gulf War. We hear the story of the Lockwood family, whose 5 year old son, Stuart, was paraded on TV next to Saddam Hussein. Photo: Iraqi President Saddam Hussein patting 5 year old Stuart Lockwood, 23 August 1990, Baghdad AFP/Getty Images.

Fifty years ago, the legendary film director, Stanley Kubrick, premiered his classic cold war satire Dr Strangelove. It was the start of his long relationship with the set designer, Sir Ken Adam. Sir Ken talks to Vincent Dowd about working with one of the most talented - and difficult - men in film.

Photo: Columbia Tristar/Getty Images.

In August 1998, 29 people died and more than 220 were injured in a massive car bombing in the centre of Omagh, Northern Ireland.

It was the worst single incident of violence in the decades of sectarian violence.

We hear from one man whose wife who was killed that day.

Photo: Omagh town centre after the bombing (AP)

In the summer of 1950, the East German government claimed that American planes were dropping potato beetles over their fields to try and sabotage their crops. But was this the truth.. or just a Cold War rumour? In collaboration with Germany's Memory of the Nation Association, Lucy Burns investigates for Witness.

Photo: Evening Standard/Getty Images

The early 20th Century was a golden age for physics with pioneers such as Max Born, Robert Oppenheimer and Werner Heisenberg working together at Gottingen University in Germany. But the rise of Hitler forced Born and many other Jewish scientists to flee into exile. Max Born's son, Gustav, tells Louise Hidalgo about his memories of the period and his father's friendship with Albert Einstein.

(Photo: A gathering of European scientists in 1927. Max Born is second from the right in the second row.)

In August 1998, a war began in DR Congo which would last for years and involve six African armies. We hear the story of a Congolese student who saw the conflict come to his small hometown.

(Photo: Rebel troops on main road to Uvira, 2002. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

In 1945, the allies dropped an atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Nagasaki. The explosion was bigger than the blast at Hiroshima three days earlier and killed 70,000 people. Louise Hidalgo introduces BBC archive recordings of survivors of Nagasaki.

(Photo: Mushroom cloud in the sky. Credit: US Air Force/Press Association)

In August 1988 huge protests demanding an end to military rule in Burma were met with violence.

Thousands of people were killed.

Photo: Burmese soldiers order crowds of protesters to disperse (Tommaso Villani/AFP/Getty Images)

In 1997, a research boat on the way home from a yacht race discovered that plastic waste was collecting in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Photo: Charles J Moore

In August 1975, Japanese Red Army militants took 53 people hostage when they stormed the AIA building in downtown Kuala Lumpur. We hear from two people caught up in the crisis.

(Photo: A Japanese Red Army militant with two hostages before boarding a bus to go to the airport, Kuala Lumpar, August 1975. Credit: AP)

It is 25 years since the end of a campaign which brought unrest to the famous tea-growing region of Darjeeling in northern India. During the early 1980s, Nepali-speaking separatists were agitating for autonomy - for what they called Gorkhaland, but in August 1988 a deal was done to end the violence. Claire Bowes has been speaking to two sisters whose family was devastated during the conflict

It is 25 years since the final episode of one of India's biggest ever TV programmes, Ramayan. Based on the Hindu epic the Ramayana, it brought India to a standstill every Sunday morning as more than a hundred million people tuned in. Leading actress Deepika Chikhalia recalls working on the hit television series.

(Picture: Women hold candles in front of a picture of Hindu gods. Credit: Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images)

The controversial American union leader, Jimmy Hoffa, was last seen alive on July 30 1975. He is believed to have been killed by the Mafia. The search for his body continues to this day. Listen to one of the FBI agents involved in the original investigations.

Photo: Jimmy Hoffa testifying at a hearing into labour rackets, 1958 (Keystone/Getty Images)

In the last days of World War II, an American warship, the USS Indianapolis, was torpedoed in the Pacific. For days, no one came to the survivors' rescue. Left adrift in shark-infested waters, hundreds of sailors died. We hear from Loel Dean Cox one of the few who survived.

(Photo: Last rites for a crew member held by ship mates and men from the US base Peleliu) (Credit: TopFoto)

In July 2005 the IRA in Northern Ireland promised to put its weapons out of use.Catholic, Father Alec Reid and Protestant, Reverend Harold Good joined General John de Chastelain to oversee the decommissioning process. Hear their story.

Photo: An IRA mural in Belfast. Credit: Press Association.

On July 27 1953 the Korean War came to an end and thousands of prisoners were released. They could choose whether to return home, or to go with their captors to a new country. A handful of American prisoners of war decided to go to communist China. Hear what happend to one of those GIs.

(Photo: David Hawkins in 2011)

The Ugandan rebel leader Joseph Kony is one of the most wanted men in the world. His Lord's Resistance Army is notorious for abducting children to use as fighters or sex slaves. Hear the story of one young woman, taken from her school aged 14 and forced to live with Kony and bear his children.

(Photo: Joseph Kony in 2006. Credit: Associated Press)

In the summer of 1935 the world's most famous programme for treating alcoholism, Alcoholics Anonymous, was founded in Akron, Ohio.

(Photo: Two men pouring alcohol down a drain during prohibition in America circa 1920. Credit : Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

In 1983 violence erupted between the Sinhala majority and the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka. Hundreds, possibly thousands of Tamils were killed in the capital Colombo. The violence ended after a few days, but the killings had sparked off a civil war which would last for more than quarter of a century.

(Photo: The aftermath of the violence in a street in Colombo. Credit: Associated Press)

In July 1973, a Moroccan waiter, Ahmed Bouchiki, was shot dead by an Israeli hit-squad in Norway. Israel's secret services had wrongly identified Bouchiki as the leader of an armed Palestinian group. Five members of the hit-squad were jailed in Norway for the killing. We hear from one of their lawyers.

Photo: Lillehammer (BBC)

In 1985, the double agent, Oleg Gordievsky, escaped from under the noses of the KGB, making it from Moscow to the West with the help of British intelligence. Witness tells the story of one of the most dramatic incidents during the Cold War.

(Image: The former KGB headquarters in Moscow)

June 23 marked the tenth anniversary of the launch of online virtual world Second Life. Witness speaks to founder Philip Rosedale.

When a group of London students organised an exhibition called Freeze in 1988, they couldn't have foreseen that it would change the face of British modern art. Mat Collishaw was one of them.

Picture: Young British Artists Gavin Turk, Abigail Lane, Tracey Emin and Mat Collishaw with curator Gregor Muir - BBC

In 1997 Hong Kong was a buzzing hub of capitalism surrounded by a Communist state. It was also a colonial relic - still ruled largely from Britain. It was the job of former Governor General, Chris Patten to hand it over to China. He remembers that day.

Photo: Chris Patten receiving the British flag. Credit: AFP/Getty Images

In the summer of 1943, the first and only professional women's baseball league was launched in the US. It was set up to ensure the sport's survival during World War II, when so many male, major league players were being drafted. Ninety-four-year-old Mary Pratt explains what a great opportunity it was for women of her generation.

(Photo: Women in the League playing ball)

On 12 July 1979 a disgruntled Chicago DJ, Steve Dahl, held an event in a baseball stadium to show how much he hated disco. But things got out of hand. The riot that followed made headlines all over the USA.

(Image: People dancing to disco. Credit: Getty Images)

In 1979, the world held its breath as the American space station, Skylab, re-entered the Earth's atmosphere. NASA tried desperately to control Skylab's descent, but large fragments hit south-west Australia instead of the Indian Ocean. Witness speaks to two residents of Esperance, a remote coastal town which bore the brunt of the impact.

(Image: Saturn V giant booster used for all the Apollo and Skylab NASA space missions between 1967 and 1972. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

***Some listeners may find this report disturbing*** In June 1963, Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc shocked the world by setting himself on fire in protest against the Catholic South Vietnamese government. Sister Chan Khong was there.

(Photo: Sister Chan Khong. BBC copyright)

In July 1999, students in Iran took to the streets demanding reform. At the time it was the largest anti government protest since the Islamic revolution. We hear the story of one student who became an unwitting symbol of the protest movement.

(Photo: Ahmad Batebi holds up a T-shirt belonging to an injured friend, Tehran, July 12, 1999. Credit: Reuters)

On July 8 1943, at the height of World War Two, the leader of the French Resistance was killed by German forces. Hear from Daniel Cordier who worked alongside Jean Moulin as his radio operator and secretary in the year before his death.

(Photo: Daniel Cordier today)

In July 1994 the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, was allowed to return from Tunisia to visit the Gaza strip, after 27 years in exile. Hear from Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, who was among the crowds that were there to greet him.

(Image: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the middle of a large crowd. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

In 1953, a posthumous work by the Austrian thinker, Ludwig Wittgenstein, revolutionised philosophy. Written in a unique, sometimes poetic style, Philosophical Investigations contained new thinking about the nature of language.

Simon Watts brings together BBC archive recordings of Wittgenstein's friends and colleagues, and hears from the philosopher's biographer, Ray Monk.

(Image: Ludwig Wittgenstein. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The mission to save thousands of African penguins from an oil spill off the coast of South Africa in July, 2000.

Photo: Penguins make their way back to the water after being rescued from the oil slick. (ANNA ZIEMINSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

***Warning: Listeners may find parts of a personal account of this story disturbing***

In July 1986 two students were set on fire by soldiers in Chile. They were taking part in demonstrations against the military government of General Augusto Pinochet. One of the youngsters died of his wounds - the other, Carmen Quintana, survived.

Witness hears her disturbing story.

Photo: Anti government protests in Chile, April 1987. Credit: JOSE DURAN/AFP/Getty Images)

It is 150 years since a crucial battle in the American Civil War, which also inspired one of the most famous speeches in US history, the Gettysburg Address. Listen to diaries, and journals from the time.

(Image: Re-enactors portraying Union soldiers in the Murray's Brigade drill commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. Credit: Matt Rourke/AP)

The recent surge in violence in Iraq has echoes of the sectarian conflict in 2006-07. We hear from May Witwit, an Iraqi academic who lived throught that bloody period. She eventually fled the country, after seeing her name on a militia hit list.

(Photo: Iraqi women mourn the death of their murdered relatives, Nov 2006. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

In June 1963 the US President John F Kennedy made a state visit to Ireland, his ancestral home. Irish novelist Colm Toibin remembers the effect he had on the people lining the streets to welcome him.

(Image: President John F Kennedy in the middle of a crowd. Credit: Keystone/Getty Images)

It wasn't until the 1950s that British researchers first connected cigarette smoking with the huge rise in people suffering from lung cancer. Initially, scientists had thought pollution was a much more likely cause. Hear an archive of Sir Richard Doll who carried out the original studies and Sir Richard Peto who worked with him.

(Image: A man holding a cigarette and blowing out smoke. Credit: Press Association)

Regarded as one of the most important pieces in 20th Century English music, it was first played in the newly built Coventry Cathedral. The original had been destroyed during World War II. Hear from one of the orchestral performers who took part, and from composer Michael Berkeley.

(Photo: Benjamin Britten in 1964 - BBC copyright)

It's 55 years since a picture of a foetus inside the womb was first published. It appeared in an article in the British medical journal 'The Lancet' on the first ultrasound scanner.

In 1963 Soviet Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova went into orbit. Photo: Valentina Tereshkova before boarding Vostok 6, at Baikonur cosmodrome, on June 16, 1963. AFP/TASS

In June 1979 an American TV reporter was shot dead by government forces in Nicaragua. The killing led to the withdrawal of US support for Nicaragua's president, Anastasio Somoza.

We speak to Stephen Cherry-Downes, who was working as Somoza's personal pilot at the time.

(Image: President Somoza, Jan 1978. Credit: AFP)

Forty years ago, a low-budget comedy musical called the Rocky Horror Show had its opening night at a tiny London theatre. To the surprise of his creators, the antics of a transexual transvestite from Transylvania soon became a cult hit and then a Hollywood film. Richard O'Brien, the writer of the Rocky Horror Show, talks to Witness.

(Image: Cast members of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, including Tim Curry, Patricia Quinn, Richard O'Brien and Little Nell Campbell. Credit: Getty Images)

It is 60 years since an American couple were executed for spying. They had been convicted of passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. They left two young sons in the care of friends. Their younger son, Robert, spoke to Witness in 2010.

(Image: Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

Later this month the US Supreme Court is expected to rule on same sex marriage. But more than forty years ago a gay couple from Minnesota managed to get a marriage licence - and even had a Christian wedding ceremony. We look back at the story and speak to the Minister who married them.

Photo: Jack Baker and Mike McConnell, photographed by R. Bertrand Heine. Courtesy of Minnesota Historical Society.

In 1971 one man leaked thousands of pages of secret US government documents to the press. The papers, relating to America's role in Vietnam, were copied and distributed to the media by Daniel Ellsberg.

Photo: Associated Press

A child's eye view of life in the ruined German capital after the end of World War II. Food and fuel were scarce and Berliners had to live on their wits. Christine Buschschluter was just three years old when Berlin fell to Soviet soldiers but she remembers life in the occupied city with a mixture of humour and pride.

(Image: Christine Buschschluter as a child)

On June 12 1993, Nigeria held an election which was supposed to mark the end of military rule. What happened next sparked years of controversy. We speak to an aide to the presumed winner, MKO Abiola.

Abiola died in jail still believing he was Nigeria's rightful ruler.

(Image: Chief MKO Abiola at polling station, June 12 1993. Credit: AFP)

In June 1962 three prisoners escaped from the maximum security US jail on the island of Alcatraz. Hear from one of the civilians who was living on the island at the time.

Photo: BBC.

In June 1968, Senator Robert Kennedy was gunned down during his campaign for the American presidency. Amid the nationwide mourning that followed, his funeral train travelled from New York to Washington with huge crowds lining the tracks. Witness speaks to Kennedy's former press secretary and to his former bodyguard. This programme was first broadcast last year.

PHOTO: Robert Kennedy in 1968 (US National Archive/Getty Images)

Millions of people were sent to brutal labour camps in the Soviet Union during the communist rule of Joseph Stalin. Over a million prisoners died of disease, starvation, or exhaustion. Leonid Finkelstein was imprisoned in the Gulag camps for five-and-a-half years, but survived. He recounts the appalling conditions of Stalin's forced labour camps.

(Image: A watch tower and barbed wire perimeter of a Gulag. Credit: Igor Mikhalev FPG Getty Images)

In June 2001, Timothy McVeigh was executed for the bombing of a federal government building.in Oklahoma City in 1995 which killed 168 people. It remains the deadliest domestic-based terrorist attack in American history. We speak to Dan Herbeck, co-author of American Terrorist, who interviewed McVeigh.

(Image: Timothy McVeigh)

It is twelve years since the Crown Prince of Nepal killed both his parents and other members of his family in a shooting at the royal palace. Lucy Burns spoke to his cousin, who survived the massacre.

(Image: Dipendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev, Crown Prince of Nepal. Credit: AP/Binod Joshi

In 1953, the young Queen Elizabeth the Second was crowned at Westminster Abbey. Two of her Maids of Honour share their memories of Coronation Day for Witness.

This programme was first broadcast in 2013.

PHOTO: Press Association.

Eighty years ago, new US president Franklin Roosevelt promised to spend his first 100 days in office rescuing America from the Great Depression with one of the biggest public spending projects in history - the New Deal.

Image Credit: AP

In 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tensing Norgay became the first men to conquer the world's highest mountain. Witness brings together archive recordings of members of the British-led expedition.

PHOTO: Tensing and Hillary at Everest Base Camp in 1953 (Associated Press)

In May 1913, the premiere of a new ballet by Igor Stravinsky caused a riot on its opening night in Paris.

With the help of the BBC's archives, George Arney tells the story of one of the most shocking productions in cultural history.

PHOTO: The Finnish National Ballet staging a reenactment of Stravinsky's original production. (AP)

The life of the flamboyant pianist and entertainer, Liberace, has just been immortalised in a new US TV movie starring Michael Douglas. For Witness, Vincent Dowd speaks to the film-maker, Tony Palmer, who knew Liberace well.

PHOTO: BBC

In 2000, Israel caught the world by surprise when virtually overnight it withdrew from the territory it controlled in southern Lebanon. A senior United Nations official recalls the chaotic last 24 hours of Israel's presence on land it had occupied for nearly two decades.

(Image: Lebanese celebrating Israel's withdrawal. Credit: Associated Press)

In May 1963, leaders of 32 newly-independent African nations came together for the first time in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. At stake was the dream of a united Africa.

(Image: African leaders in Africa Hall, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on May 25, 1963. Credit: AP)

It is 40 years since the beginning of a Senate investigation which would eventually lead to Richard Nixon standing down as President of the USA. Senator Howard Baker was on the Watergate committee.

(Photo: Senator Howard Baker (left), Senator Sam Irvin, Sam Dash, Senator Herman Talmadge. Credit: Gene Forte/Getty Images.)

It is 35 years since the Italian Prime Minister was found dead in a car in Rome. He had been kidnapped by the Red Brigade, left-wing extremists, two months earlier.

(Image: Aldo Moro in captivity. Credit: Getty Images)

In May 1980 the British government published a booklet about how to survive nuclear war. The booklet, Protect and Survive, provoked public incredulity as well as fear. Anti-nuclear groups in the UK saw a surge in their membership.

(Image: Protect and Survive booklet)

In 1943, the Royal Air Force attacked a set of dams in Germany's Ruhr valley which were considered indestructible. Flying low and at night, the crews used special bouncing bombs to bring down two of their targets. The Dambusters mission was a huge propaganda success for Britain and later inspired a famous film.

Simon Watts talks to Johnny Johnson, one of the few survivors of the raid.

PHOTO: Johnny Johnson (far left) with the rest of 617 squadron (DAMBUSTERS) at RAF Scampton, Lincolnshire, 22 JULY 1943 (Imperial War Museum).

It is 21 years since the funeral of screen star Marlene Dietrich, who died in Paris at the age of 90. Her grandson Peter Riva remembers the woman behind the legend.

(Image: Marlene Dietrich)

The story of a journalist who was caught up in an attempt to overthrow Ethiopia's Soviet backed ruler, Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1989.

(Photo: Mengistu Haile Mariam in Ethiopia. AP Photo)

As rebellion swept across Europe, Polish demonstrators called for changes to the communist system. But the authorities in Warsaw didn't listen. Eugeniusz Smolar was a student leader at the time.

Photo: Genic (far right) and friends in discussion at a student meeting.

A new film of the great American novel premieres at the Cannes film festival this week. Hear from two people with close links to its author F Scott Fitzgerald.

(Image: F.Scott Fitzgerald. Credit: Associated Press)

The story of Jack Humble, whose ship was torpedoed while escorting a convoy inside the Arctic Circle. From 1941-45, Allied sailors and ships battled storms, bombers and U-boats to ferry war supplies to Russia in WW2.

(Photo: Frozen deck of a British warship on Arctic Convoy, Feb 1943. Credit: AP)

It is 60 years since one of England's footballing legends - Sir Stanley Matthews - led his team to FA Cup victory. Hear the story of that Blackpool versus Bolton final, and memories of the man himself.

(Photo: Stanley Matthews (2nd left) and members of the winning Blackpool team. Credit: PA)

In May 1969 the New York Times revealed that US war planes were secretly bombing Cambodia. It was a major escalation of America's war against the communist Viet Cong. Neither the US Congress nor the American public had been told. William Beecher was the reporter who broke the story.

Photo: An American B52 bomber in flight during the Viet Nam war.

In 1981 the British government was faced with prisoners on hunger strike. The Irish republican activists were demanding to be treated as political prisoners not criminals. Several of them died in Northern Ireland - hear from one who survived.

(Photo: Protestors wearing balaclavas in support of the hunger strike. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

Twenty-one years ago, a priceless modern art collection was donated to the US National Gallery of Art. The donors were Herb and Dorothy Vogel – a former postal worker and a retired librarian. They had spent over four decades building up the collection – which was crammed into their tiny Manhattan apartment.

(Photo: Herb and Dorothy Vogel. Copyright: Fine Line Media, Inc.)

On May 7th 1963, Luciano Pavarotti first perfomed on a British stage, in Northern Ireland. He was relatively unknown in those days but as a young singer who performed alongside him remembers, his talent shone out to everyone who heard him.

(Photo: Margaret Smyth as Kate and Luciano Pavarotti as Capt. Pinkerton, Belfast 1963.)

In May 1967 campaigning began across Australia to consolidate Aboriginal rights in the country. It took a referendum to change the constitution before they were regarded as legally equal citizens.

(Photo: Aboriginal man playing a didgeridoo. Copyright: BBC)

On April 30th 1945 as Red Army soldiers closed in on the German capital Berlin, Adolf Hitler killed himself. But first he married his lover Eva Braun, and dictated his will. Hear from one of the secretaries who was in the bunker when he died.

Photo: Getty Images.

In May 1968 Europe was rocked by demonstrations by students calling for a revolution. The protests had started a few weeks earlier in West Berlin, following the shooting of German student leader Rudi Dutschke.

(Image: Gretchen Klotz-Dutschke(L) Rudi Dutschke(R) Credit: Keystone/Getty Images)

In April 1959 Dame Margot Fonteyn was part of a bizarre plot to topple the government of Panama.

The ballerina's husband, Roberto Arias, the son of a former president, led the failed coup.

Dame Margot bought hundreds of uniforms for the rebellion in New York.

Photo: Dame Margot Fonteyn and her Panamanian husband (McCabe/Express/Getty Images)

In 1967, the world heavyweight champion, Muhammad Ali, refused to be indicted into the American military. His decision to follow his conscience and not serve in Vietnam galvanised radicals across the US.

Simon Watts speaks to Dr Nathan Hare about a visit by Muhammad Ali to Howard University at the height of the outcry over his refusal of the draft.

(Photo: Muhammad Ali in training. Credit: R McPhedran/Express/Getty Images)

It is 30 years since a German magazine and a British newspaper spent millions on what they thought were Hitler's private diaries. Although they had been verified by eminent historians, they turned out to be simple fakes.

Image: Hitler, Credit: Press Association

The acclaimed cellist and conductor who became a symbol of Catalan resistance to the regime of the Spanish dictator, General Franco. We hear from his widow Marta Casals Istomin. Photo: Pau Casals and his wife Marta, 1965. Hulton Archive/Getty Images

In 1943, a few hundred Jewish fighters rose up against the German army as it began its final push to erase all traces of Jewish life in the Polish capital. Krystyna Budnicka is one of the very few Jews who survived the Uprising. As her older brothers fought, she hid in a sewer beneath the ghetto.

Photo: STF/AFP/Getty Images.

In April 1975 the four-year rule of the brutal Khmer Rouge began in Cambodia.

Up to two million people are thought to have died - many summarily executed, or starved to death.

Youk Chhang survived. He was just 14 years old at the time.

(Photo: Youk Chhang, 2013)

In January 1965 Britain held a state funeral for the Prime Minister who led it through World War Two. His granddaughter Emma Soames spoke to Witness in 2011.

Photo: Press Association.

It is 70 years since a Swiss chemist stumbled upon the controversial hallucinogenic drug. His name was Dr Albert Hoffman. He thought it could be used in psychiatry but he later came to refer to LSD as his 'problem child'.

Photo: LSD tabs.Press Association.

April 1917 was one of the deadliest months for British pilots operating on the Western Front in World War One. We hear the story of a young British pilot who survived the world's first war in the air.

Photo: Dogfight over the Western Front. Hulton Collection/Getty Images.

How severely burnt Second World War airmen learnt to overcome their terrible injuries.

They were all patients of the revolutionary plastic surgeon, Sir Archibald McIndoe at a specialist burns unit.

Two of the surviving "guinea pigs" tell their stories.

Photo: Former airmen Jack Perry (left) and Sandy Saunders.

When Mao Zedong tried to force an industrial revolution in China, millions of people starved to death. What Mao called The Great Leap Forward - led to failed harvests and famine. A journalist whose father died of starvation during that time has gathered survivors' accounts and official records to try to paint a clear picture of what happened.

Photo: hotel workers building a back yard steel smelter during the Great Leap Forward. AFP/Getty Images

*** This programme contains graphic descriptions of violence which are very disturbing ***

In the early 1980s, thousands of Zimbabweans were tortured and killed by security forces loyal to the government of Robert Mugabe during a campaign against "dissidents". We hear a survivor's story.

Photo: Troops interrogate suspect in Matabeleland 1983.

The soul singer's April 1968 concert was held amid rioting and violence provoked by the assassination of Martin Luther King. But despite the fears of the city authorities, the streets of Boston were quiet the night James Brown and his band played. Listen to two people who were there.

(Photo: James Brown. Credit: AFP)

When the American billionaire Howard Hughes died in 1976, nobody had seen him in public for 20 years. Once dashing, powerful and almost unimaginably rich, Hughes slowly turned into the world's most famous recluse. Louise Hidalgo talks to the Californian journalist, Frank McCulloch, who met Howard Hughes face-to-face and stayed in touch with him for decades.

PHOTO: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

As the Vietnam war ended and Saigon fell to communist forces, the US tried to fly thousands of orphans out of the country. One of the planes full of children crashed shortly after take off. Hear from two survivors.

Photo: A North Vietnamese tank rolling through Saigon in April 1975. Credit: AFP/Getty Images

A family of real children inspired JM Barrie to write the story of Peter Pan and his Lost Boys. He first met them in Kensington Gardens in London. But their story is not a happy one. Photo: BBC The statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens.

Over 175 years ago, a society hostess called Caroline Norton began campaigning for the rights of married women. Her husband had stopped her from seeing her children and had accused her of having an affair with the Prime Minister of the day.

Image: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

On 24 March 1980, Archbishop Oscar Romero was shot dead while saying mass in San Salvador. His murder by a right-wing death squad, pushed El Salvador towards bloody civil war. Today, he is still revered by many Catholics as a saint.

Photo: A portrait of Archbishop Romero on a wall in San Salvador (AFP)

After their release in 1973, former US prisoners of war began to talk about the torture they had suffered at the hands of the Vietcong. One of the POWs who spent longest in Vietnamese prison camps was Everett Alvarez - hear his story.

(Photo: American prisoners of war leaving Vietnam in 1973 (AFP/Getty Images)

Discovered by chance by farmers digging a well, the secrets of the Qin Dynasty revealed after 2,000 years. We hear from the lead archaeologist responsible for one of the most important finds of the century, and what it tells us about the sophistication of the society at the time in China. Photo: FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images.

The communist dictator Nicolae Ceasescu ran one of the most feared secret police forces in Eastern Europe. When Carmen Bugan's father made a protest in the capital, Bucharest, the Securitate descended on her village. They recorded everything her family said and did from then on.

Photo: Carmen before the Securitate arrived.

In March 1963, the British Minister of War John Profumo stood up in Parliament to deny that he'd had an affair with a young woman who was also involved with a Russian spy. It was the first public acknowledgement of a sex scandal which engulfed the British government. Photo: PA

In December 2003 the former Iraqi leader was finally caught by American forces. He was found hiding in an underground bunker. Muwafaq al Rubaie helped to identify him, face-to-face.

Photo: AP/US Army

How one young Iraqi who took a job with the US military, was threatened with death as a traitor. Wisam worked as a delivery man and a translator for the Americans. He was sent a letter by the militias containing a bullet and told his days were numbered.

Photo: Wisam, Baghdad, 2009

In April 2003, Baghdad descended into chaos as American troops took control of the city. We hear the story of one Iraqi doctor who witnessed the lawlessness that engulfed Iraq's capital.

(Photo: Looters in Baghdad 11 April 2003. AFP/Getty)

John Crawford a college student and reserve soldier - was part of the US land invasion force that rolled into Southern Iraq in March 2003. Hear his story.

Photo: US soldiers on waiting on the border between Kuwait and Iraq. Scott Nelson/Getty Images

It is a decade since the US and its allies began their invasion of Iraq. For those living in Baghdad it meant three weeks of bombing and fear. Hear what life was like for an ordinary family in the capital.

Photo: Baghdad, March 20 2003, AFP/Getty Images

Two years ago Syria's conflict began with anti-government demonstrations in the southern city of Daraa. Citizens were driven to protest after children were arrested by the security services. Their crime - graffitti against Bashar al-Assad.

Photo: Demonstrators in Daraa later in March 2011. Credit: AP

The UN envoy who tried to secure the release of Western hostages in Lebanon. He allowed himself to be abducted by their kidnappers on the streets of Beirut, time after time. He managed to arrange for 11 hostages to be freed.

Photo: Giandomenico Picco in 1991. VT Freeze Frame.

In March 1921, Marie Stopes opened Britain's first birth control clinic in London. The Mother's Clinic in Holloway offered advice to married mothers on how to avoid having any more children. Hear testimonies on the early days of birth control in Britain from the BBC archive. Picture: Popperfoto/Getty Images.

In March 1978 thieves stole the body of Charlie Chaplin from a cemetery in Switzerland. They demanded a ransom of one million Swiss francs from the family of the silent movie star. After a two-month police hunt, the grave robbers were arrested and the body recovered.

In 1959 the people of Tibet turned against Chinese occupying forces. Their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, escaped across the border to India. A shortlived battle for independence followed.

Photo: Tibetan monks surrender their arms to members of the Chinese army (April 1959). AFP/Getty Images.

In 1975 a US airman told his superior officers he was gay, to challenge the ban on homosexuals in the military. His name was Leonard Matlovich - and he quickly became the most famous gay man in the USA.

Fifteen years ago a new "wonder" drug was first approved for use. It marked a breakthrough in the treatment of male impotence. We speak to two men who helped develop Viagra.

One man's mission to bring fun back to the battle-scarred Swat Valley in Pakistan. We speak to Matee Ullah Khan, ski enthusiast the pioneer instructor behind a local ski school in Malam Jabba.

It is 25 years since violence broke out in the city of Sumgait in Azerbaijan. Anti-Armenian riots had to be put down by Soviet soldiers. They were a forewarning of the war that would split the region following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

It's 70 years since 173 people were crushed to death at an air-raid shelter in east London during World War II. They were killed as they sought refuge in an underground train station. Sixty-two children were among the dead. We hear from one of the children who survived.

Photo: Londoners sheltering from an air-raid in an underground train station, during World War II (Getty Images).

Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor tells the story of electing Pope Benedict at the Papal Conclave in April 2005. Cardinals are due to gather again to elect his successor.

Forty years ago, American Indian activists staged a protest against the US authorities. A siege began which lasted for over two months. One of the activists, Russell Means, spoke to the programme two years ago - he died in October last year.

Photo: Dennis Banks (L) and Russell Means (R) during the siege. Credit: AFP

In 1993, Islamic extremists planted a huge bomb in the car park of the World Trade Center in New York. The blast killed six people and opened up an enormous crater, but the bombers failed to bring down the skyscraper. Witness speaks to a member of the World Trade Center security staff about the forerunner of 9/11.

PHOTO: Damage inside the World Trade Center (Reuters)

In 1994 Edvard Munch's famous painting The Scream was stolen from a Norwegian art museum. It was recovered in a daring undercover operation by British detectives. Photo: Getty AFP.

It's seventy years today since three German students were executed for trying to protest against Hitler. They called themselves the White Rose.

Photo: Domenic Saller

In 1963, three young Welsh nationalists took up arms against the construction of a controversial dam.

The Tryweryn dam would flood a Welsh valley to provide water for an English city.

Photo: Protestors rally against construction of dam.

In 1986, four days of huge public protests brought down President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines. Kate McGowan, in Manila, talks to the leading Filipino novelist, Jose Dalisay, about the demonstrations. This edition of Witness was first broadcast in 2011.

PHOTO: A rebel soldier points his gun at a portrait of Ferdinand Marcos during the uprising. (ROMEO GACAD/AFP/Getty Images)

In 1963, a frustrated American housewife, Betty Friedan, published one of the key texts in feminist thought. With its call for women to leave the home and enter the workplace, The Feminine Mystique paved the way for the women's liberation movement and became a bestseller. It called for a shakeup of the job market with maternity pay and subsidised childcare. Jo Fidgen speaks to two of Betty Friedan's children, Johnathan and Emily. The programme also contains archive recordings of Friedan herself.

Photo: The Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.

In 1995, archaeologists in Egypt's Valley of the Kings made a remarkable discovery.

Alex Last has been speaking to Professor Kent Weeks, who led the team working on the lost tomb of KV5.

Photo: Surveying inside KV5. Copyright: Theban Mapping Project

In February 2003, international protests against plans for war in Iraq reached their height. Millions demonstrated in cities across the world, but some peace activists took things further by driving to Baghdad itself in a small fleet of buses. They planned to act as "human shields", protecting Iraqi civilians against the imminent bombing campaign.

Witness speaks to Joe Letts, a British bus driver who became one of the leaders of the campaign.

PHOTO: The "human shields" on their way to Iraq. (Getty Images)

In February 1942 Britain's stronghold in South East Asia fell to the Japanese. Tens of thousands of Commonwealth soldiers were taken prisoner. They were sent to prison camps across the region and set to work. Maurice Naylor worked on the Thai-Burma railway until World War Two ended.

In the 1990s, the Algerian military was locked in a brutal struggle with radical Islamists. Its estimated that more than 150,000 were killed. The conflict was marked by massacres of entire villages. We report on the massacre of Sidi Hamed.

(Photo: Women mourn victims in Sidi Hamed. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

In February 1993, a two-year-old boy called James Bulger was murdered in Liverpool. CCTV pictures showed two 10-year-olds leading James from a shopping centre towards his brutal death on a railway embankment. Witness speaks to Superintendant Albert Kirby, the officer in charge of one of the most sensitive investigations in British police history.

PHOTO: Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, the killers of James Bulger. (Press Association)

It is fifty years since the suicide of American poet Sylvia Plath. Hear from the friend Plath stayed with the weekend before she died.

(Photo: Sylvia Plath. Credit: Rex Features)

It is 30 years since the Derby winner was abducted from a stud farm in Ireland. He was one of the most extraordinary racehorses of the time. Hear from one of the men who tried to help negotiate his release.

Photo: Shergar, with Walter Swinburn in the saddle. Press Association.

It's 100 years since the French writer, Marcel Proust, published the first volume of his modern masterpiece, Remembrance of Things Past.

In this edition of Witness, Proust's friend, Prince Antoine Bibescu, recalls his conversations with the author and Proust's maid, Celeste Albaret, remembers his final hours.

The recordings are from the BBC archive.

Witness also hears from Michael Wood, Professor of French at Princeton University.

PHOTO: Getty Images

Thirty years ago, Nigeria ordered up to 2 million illegal immigrants to leave the country within a few weeks.

The majority were Ghanaian.

In February 1992 a group of Venezuelan army officers tried to overthrow the government. After failing to capture President Carlos Andres Perez, and under threat from the airforce, they gave up. One of the coup leaders was Hugo Chavez.

Photo: Chavez after his release from jail,1994. Credit: Bertrand Parres/AFP/Getty Images

It is 70 years since German troops lost their battle to take the Soviet industrial city. They had spent a harsh Russian winter fighting from house to house on starvation rations. Eventually they were cut off from their supply lines and forced to surrender.

Photo: Red Army troops in Stalingrad, January 1943. Keystone/Getty Images.

In January 1948, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated just three months after India gained independence. His murder came amid the turmoil of Partition, but millions of Indians and Pakistanis united to pay tribute to a man known as 'Great Soul'.

Lady Pamela Hicks, the daughter of Britain's last viceroy to India and a mourner at the funeral, recalls the fateful day Mahatma Gandhi was laid to rest.

PHOTO: Keystone/Getty Images

In January 1698, the young Peter the Great began a three-month visit to London. During his stay, the young Tsar got drunk and pursued actresses, but also found time to study British technology closely.

Peter left London determined to turn Russia into a more western nation equipped with a Navy to rival England's.

The story of the tsar's visit is told through contemporary accounts and from Professor Anthony Cross, author of Peter the Great Through British Eyes.

Image: Peter the Great. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

In January 1887 work began on one of the world's best known landmarks - The Eiffel Tower. Many important Parisians were hugely opposed to it. Some 300 artists rallied in protest calling it "A dizzyingly, ridiculous tower dominating Paris."

Undeterred, Alexandre Gustave Eiffel pressed ahead with his vision and eventually his critics became increasingly silent.

Photo: BBC>

In 2002, a huge weapons store exploded in Lagos, Nigeria, raining down explosives on the packed city.

More than a thousand people died, thousands more fled their homes.

We speak to some of the survivors.

Photo: AFP

In early 1967, the American guitarist, Jimi Hendrix, took London by storm.

His flamboyant style and new ways of playing the electric guitar enthralled everyone from the Beatles to Eric Clapton.

His English girlfriend, Kathy Etchingham, recalls her relationship with a man who would become a musical legend.

PHOTO: Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

In January 1946 a young woman was given Hitler's will to translate into English. She had been sent to post-war Germany as part of the occupying forces. It was the culmination of her work for the British Army intelligence corps. Her name was Rena Stewart.

Photo: Rena, front row, second from the left, in Germany in 1946.

Forty-five years ago an American spy ship was captured by North Korean forces.

The crew of USS Pueblo were held for almost a year, but they found small ways to resist.

'Skip' Carl Schumacher, a 24 year-old 1st Lieutenant, who was on board USS Pueblo, describes their ordeal.

Photo: USS Pueblo's crew taken by North Korean military.

At the end of World War Two, millions of people in the west of Nazi-occupied Netherlands faced starvation.

The lucky ones survived on watery bread, potato peel or tulip bulbs.

Witness speaks to one Dutchman who lived through what became known as the Hunger Winter.

PHOTO: Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

It is 19 years since the heir to the Syrian presidency died in a car crash. His younger brother Bashar, would eventually become the next President. Hear from someone who knew him well.

Photo: AP Wire.

Thirty years ago, the former Gestapo chief, Klaus Barbie, was arrested in Bolivia.

He had been in hiding in South America since 1949.

Nazi hunters, Serge and Beate Klarsfeld, helped track him down.

Photo: Klaus Barbie on his way to court in Lyon, France (AFP)

In the 1960s, the Ghanaian football team dominated Africa, winning tournament after tournament.

Known as the Black Stars, they were an exciting attacking force which President Kwame Nkrumah hoped would help promote African unity.

But in 1965, the Ghanaians faced an uphill struggle in the final of the Africa Cup of Nations in Tunis.

Their star striker, Osei Kofi, remembers the match for Witness.

PHOTO: Osei Kofi speaking to the BBC.

In 1973 the landmark decision was made in the US Supreme Court which made abortion legal. Hear from the young lawyer who brought the case. Her name was Sarah Weddington and she was fresh out of law school.

Photo: Sarah Weddington.

It is 120 years since the birth of the great Expressionist painter. Born near Minsk he lived most of his life in Paris. His works influenced Western artists for decades after his death in 1943.

Image: La Jeune Anglaise. Credit: Musee de l'Orangerie, Paris.

For nearly 40 years, the US government conducted an experiment on a group of African-American men without their knowledge - to see what would happen if their syphilis was left untreated.

Photo: US National Archive.

When the earthquake and tsunami of December 2004 hit Indonesia, over 130,000 people died.

Dendy Montgomery was living in the city of Banda Aceh which was laid waste by the disaster.

Photo:People in Banda Aceh try to save a man from the waters of the tsunami. AFP

Islamist rebel groups in Northern Mali recently announced a ban on music in all areas under their control. We take you back to the first Festival in the Desert in 2001, which launched Tuareg music on the world scene. Photo: Tuareg at first Festival in the Desert. Copyright Andy Morgan

In 1944, in the middle of World War Two, the Yugoslav partisan leader found sanctuary on a tiny island in the Adriatic Sea. His resistance to German occupation had made him a target and he was taken there for his own safety by the British. After the war he went on to lead Communist Yugoslavia until his death.

Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

It is 45 years since the Country and Western star played his first gig in a high-security jail. But the singer had been interested in prisoners' lives for years. His drummer remembers the day they first set foot in the prison.

Photo: Johnny Cash - BBC.

In January 1999, a combined rebel force invaded the capital of Sierra Leone, Freetown.

Despite the presence of a Nigerian-led intervention force, the rebels took much of the city.

Thousands were killed.

We talk to a former rebel soldier who was there. Some listeners may find his account disturbing.

Photo: Nigerian ECOMOG troops in Freetown Jan 1999 AFP/Getty Images

In January 1967 the record-breaking driver was killed at the helm of his jetboat Bluebird.

Donald Campbell crashed trying to beat his own water speed record.

His only daughter, Gina, remembers her legendary father.

Photo: Campbell's boat "Bluebird" summersaulting before sinking in Coniston Water. (PA)

In January 1953, Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" had its premiere at a small avante-garde theatre in Paris.

With its long pauses and lack of plot, the play was revolutionary.

Simon Watts talks to Beckett's biographer and friend, Professor Jim Knowlson of Reading University.

PHOTO: Samuel Beckett visting the BBC in 1977.

How a young American scientist began the work that would show how our climate is changing. His name was Charles Keeling and he meticulously recorded levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. His wife Louise and son Ralph remember him.

Photo: John Giles/PA Wire

It is 35 years since the South African newspaper editor was forced into exile. He had shown that the police had killed anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko. After he published the story, he and his wife and children had to leave South Africa in fear for their lives. It would be more than 10 years before he could return home.

Photo: Donald Woods and Nelson Mandela. BBC