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Witness History Episodes

  1.

    The man who first published Harry Potter

    The man who spotted the potential of the boy wizard books in 1996

  2. Chairman Mao's Little Red Book

    The collected thoughts of China's communist leader that became an unexpected best-seller

  3. The release of Nelson Mandela

    The day that South Africa's anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela was freed

  4. The Native American casino boom in the US

    How a small Californian tribe won the right for Indian communities to host gambling.

  5. Witnessing the birth of a new language

    In the 1980s deaf children in Nicaragua invented a completely new sign language

  6. Cixi: China's most powerful woman

    The Empress Dowager Cixi ruled for 47 years until her death in 1908.

  7. London's first black policeman

    Norwell Roberts endured years of racist abuse within the Metropolitan police

  8. The Treaty of Rome

    The document which formed the basis for what is now the European Union was signed in 1957

  9. The first self-made female millionaire

    Madam C. J. Walker was born to former slaves and created a black beauty business.

  10. The ancient oak tree that taught the world a lesson

    A tree in Kew Gardens survived the storm of 1987 and revolutionised gardening.

  11. Reforming India's rape laws

    The overhaul of India's rape laws followed the fatal gang rape of a student in Delhi.

  12. The Way Ahead group: Modernising the Royal Family

    The Way Ahead group was set up in the 1990s to make Britain’s monarchy more relevant

  13. The frozen zoo

    Since 1975, San Diego Zoo has been deep-freezing cell samples from rare species

  14. The discovery of whalesong

    In the 1960s whales were being hunted to extinction.

  15. Silent Spring: A book that changed the world

    Silent Spring examined the effect of pesticides on the environment

  16. How the dodo died out

    A flightless bird, the dodo was extinct just decades after being discovered by Europeans

  17. The mystery of the disappearing frogs

    How scientists discovered that a deadly fungus was killing off amphibians.

  18. The killing of Osama Bin Laden

    The US tracked down the al-Qaeda leader to a city in northern Pakistan in 2011

  19. The story of George Stinney Jr

    How a 14-year-old boy became the youngest person executed in the USA in the 20th century

  20. The woman who negotiated peace with a rebel group

    The female negotiator who agreed a deal with Muslim rebels in the Philippines.

  21. Storming the Stasi HQ

    After the fall of the Berlin Wall East German citizens stormed the secret police HQ

  22. Britain's National Trust

    How some of the great stately homes of Britain were saved from demolition and decay

  23. The battle for Fallujah

    A US Marine's account of the massive operation against Iraqi insurgents in 2004

  24. The Computers for Schools revolution

    In 2009, Uruguay became the first country to give every schoolchild a laptop computer.

  25. The murder of environmentalist Chico Mendes

    The killing of the man who'd become a powerful symbol of the fight to save the Amazon

  26. The exodus of Kashmiri Hindus

    In January 1990 over 100 000 Hindus fled the Kashmir valley

  27. German atrocities in Poland during WW2

    The memories of a survivor of Nazi atrocities in the final months of the war in Europe

  28. East Germany's punks

    How the communist secret police, the Stasi, tried to crush a youth subculture.

  29. The battle for the Woman in Gold

    How an elderly refugee fought the Austrian government to get back a painting by Klimt

  30. Desmond's: A sitcom that changed Britain

    Desmond's was the most successful black sitcom in British TV history

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