Main content

Witness History Episodes

  1.

    The Hama massacre

    It is 30 years since thousands of Syrians were killed by their own army.

  2. Diane Blood

    Winning the chance to conceive a child using sperm from her dead husband

  3. Dickens in America

    How a visit to America in 1842 became a turning-point in the career of Charles Dickens.

  4. Bloody Sunday

    It is 40 years since 13 civil rights marchers were killed in Northern Ireland.

  5. The sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff

    It was the worst maritime disaster in history.

  6. The Challenger disaster

    In January 1986 a space shuttle launch went horribly wrong.

  7. The rise of Hitler

    On 25 January 1933 the last legal communist march was held in Berlin.

  8. Japanese soldier in hiding

    In January 1972 a Japanese soldier was found in the jungle of Guam.

  9. Jackson Pollock

    It is one hundred years since the great American abstract painter was born.

  10. The Wannsee conference

    It is 70 years since senior Nazi officials met to plan the killing of European Jews.

  11. Roe v Wade

    In January 1973 abortion was legalised across the USA.

  12. The Warsaw ghetto

    On 18 January 1943 German soldiers began a final drive to empty the Polish capital of Jews

  13. The Great Brinks Robbery

    In 1950 a Boston gang stole over $2.5m and they almost got away with it.

  14. Vietnam draft pardon

    In January 1977 President Jimmy Carter said draft dodgers could come home.

  15. Folsom Prison Blues

    In January 1968 the country legend Johnny Cash recorded a concert in a high-security jail.

  16. Perez de Cuellar goes to Baghdad

    In January 1991 the UN Secretary General tried to avert the first Gulf War.

  17. Zola and the Dreyfus affair

    In 1898 the novelist Emile Zola took up the cause of a Jewish prisoner - Alfred Dreyfus.

  18. The death of Emperor Hirohito

    When the Japanese Emperor died in 1989 it marked the end of an era.

  19. Crossing the Rubicon

    Over 2000 years ago Julius Caesar made a decision which changed European history.

  20. Charter 77

    Taking you back 35 years when an opposition movement began in Czechoslovakia.

  21. Project Stormfury

    Fifty years ago the USA launched an ambitious attempt to control the weather.

  22. The Hollywood blacklist

    A list of radicals in the US entertainment industry was published more than 60 years ago.

  23. The capture of the USS Pueblo

    In January 1968 an American spy ship was captured by North Korean forces.

  24. Birth of the Euro

    How millions of Europeans celebrated the launch of the euro in 2002.

  25. US troops in Iraq

    All US troops have now left Iraq. We take you back to when they first invaded in 2003.

  26. The Creation of Tetris

    One of the most popular computer games ever was invented in Moscow in 1984

  27. Enid Blyton and the BBC

    The difficult relationship between the BBC and the children's writer, Enid Blyton.

  28. The release of Sakharov

    In December 1986 the Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov was allowed to return to Moscow.

  29. The sinking of the Scharnhorst

    She was one of Germany's greatest battleships during World War II.

  30. The Christmas Truce

    On Christmas Eve 1914, during World War I, British and German soldiers stopped fighting.

  2. 1
  3. …
  4. 129
  5. 130
  6. 131
  7. 132
  8. 133
  9. …
  10. 154