Witness
Summary: History as told by the people who were there. Witness talks to people who lived through moments of history to bring you a personal perspective on world events. Broadcast on weekdays.
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- Artist: BBC World Service
- Copyright: (C) BBC 2015
Podcasts:
In September 1964, a groundbreaking new boutique opened in Swinging London.
Very rare recordings of Kenyan veterans of WW1. They were recruited by the British to fight against German colonial forces in East Africa.
In the summer of 1978 a British woman became the last known victim of smallpox
In summer 1964 writer Ken Kesey and his Merry Band of Pranksters drove across America experimenting with LSD.
In 1954 the president of Brazil, Getulio Vargas, chose to die rather than submit to the military.
In August 1944, a US Air Force plane crashed into a village in northwest England, killing 61 people. Over half the victims were children.
How Iran and the US decided to stop supporting the Iraqi Kurds in 1975 in their struggle for autonomy.
In August 1947, British India was divided into two new countries - India and Pakistan. But millions of people found themselves on the wrong side of the new borders.
Listen to archive of some of the war correspondents who covered the liberation of Paris in Aug. 1944
Dambudzo Marechera was a Zimbabwean writer famous for his explosive behaviour. On August 18th 1987 he died of an AIDS-related illness after living rough in Harare.
In 1994, 'Carlos the Jackal' was arrested in Khartoum after decades on the run. We speak to a former CIA operative, Billy Waugh, who tracked him down.
In Aug 1964, a young Scottish anarchist was arrested in Madrid for his part in a plot to assassinate the Spanish dictator, Gen. Franco.
The cast and crew remember the making of the legendary Hollywood musical.
Mary Wilson of The Supremes talks about how the Motown group began taking the US music charts by storm in the summer of 1964.
How thousands of Polish prisoners tried to flee the USSR after being freed when the Nazis invaded Stalin's Russia in the summer of 1941.