Witness History Episodes Available now
The polio vaccine
Scientists in the US led by Dr Jonas Salk develop an effective vaccine against polio
The Ebola virus
The first documented outbreak of the deadly disease occurred in the 1970s in Zaire
The 'Spanish' flu
In 1918 an extremely deadly form of influenza killed millions around the world
The Major and the VW Beetle
How a British army officer saved Hitler's Volkswagen Beetle at the end of World War Two
Battling Soviet psychiatric punishment
One man's stand against the psychiatric abuse of political dissidents in the Soviet Union
Strikers in saris
How South Asian women workers won the support of the British trade unionist movement
The petrol that was poisoning children
The EU finally banned lead in petrol in 2000 - decades after the US, Canada and Japan.
Womenomics in Japan
Japan faces a demographic time-bomb. Could the answer be Womenomics?
Freeing American prisoners from Iran
The diplomacy behind the release of three US citizens who unknowingly hiked into Iran.
The last smallpox outbreak
Thousands of people died in the world's last major smallpox epidemic in India in 1974.
