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History as told by the people who were there. All the programmes from 2015.
In 1984 a group of lesbians and gay men organised a benefit concert to support striking coal-miners. They sent the money they raised to a mi...
There was a frenzy of celebrations on New Year's Eve 1999. But amid the partying, there was also some anxiety over the effects of a potentia...
In 1935, Alexei Stakhanov, a coal miner, became a Soviet celebrity. He invented a more efficient coal production method and started a moveme...
In December 1916, the infamous mystic, Grigori Rasputin, was murdered by Russian aristocrats. Rasputin, a Siberian peasant and wandering hol...
In 1846, a group of pioneers were trying to reach California by wagon train when they were trapped by snow over the winter - and some were f...
On Christmas Day 2003, an unmanned British space craft called Beagle 2 was due to touch down on Mars and begin searching for evidence of lif...
In December 1946, the classic Christmas film "It's a Wonderful Life" had its premiere in Hollywood. Starring Jimmy Stewart, the movie's mess...
In 1982 the world's best selling album was released. Thriller included hits such as Beat It, Billie Jean and Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' as...
One of the 20th century's most scandalous books was published in 1955. Lolita, by Russian émigré Vladimir Nabokov, tells the story of the re...
In December 1945, one of America's most famous miltary commanders, General George S Patton, died from injuries sustained in a car crash, jus...
In December 1995, the first disability rights legislation was passed by India's parliament. An estimated 60 million people, almost six perce...
In the mid-1970s, English classical actor Anthony Daniels was asked to audition for a role as a droid in a new science fiction film by a lit...
In 1974, a Hungarian architect, Ernő Rubik invented his best selling puzzle. Over the next forty years, more than 350 million Rubik's Cubes...
When Bangladesh fought for independence from Pakistan, thousands of Pakistani troops were sent to fight in what was then called East Pakista...
In December 1960, while the Ethiopian emperor, Haile Selassie, was out of the country, his Imperial Bodyguard took over the capital Addis Ab...
On December 11th 1965, seminal alternative rock band the Velvet Underground played their first gig at a high school in New Jersey. Rob Norri...
In December 1965, three members of the Ku Klux Klan were found guilty over the murder of white civil rights activist, Viola Liuzzo, in one o...
After the Taliban fell from power in Afghanistan in the winter of 2001, the hunt for Osama bin Laden began in earnest. One American in parti...
In 1915, an Anglo-Indian attempt to capture Baghdad from the Ottoman empire ended in disaster. Thousands of British and Indian troops spent...
In the 1980s Angola was a front line in the Cold War between communism and the West. In 1987 tens of thousands of Cuban soldiers were sent t...
On 3 December 1967, two brothers carried out the world's first heart transplant operation. Christiaan and Marius Barnard were both working a...
On 7 December 1941, Japan launched a surprise attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbour, Hawaii. Thousands of American servicemen died in...
How a devastating air raid on the Italian port of Bari during World War Two led to the deadly release of mustard gas. Winston Churchill orde...
In 1984 General Muhammadu Buhari's military regime launched an unusual campaign to clean up Nigeria. Under the policy, Nigerians were forced...
In November 1938, the SS commander Heinrich Himmler ordered the construction in Nazi Germany of the only concentration camp built specifical...
In the 1940s the Royal Navy intercepted dozens of Jewish refugee ships trying to reach British-controlled Palestine. It was part of British...
In the 1990s the Cuban economy came close to collapse after the fall of the Soviet Union. The end of the millions of dollars in Soviet aid m...
In November 1971, a man calling himself Dan Cooper hijacked a plane flying from the US city of Portland to nearby Seattle. He demanded $200,...
In late November 1979, a mob inspired by Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini set fire to the US Embassy in Islamabad. Those inside fled to the steel l...
In autumn 1953, a new literary magazine was launched in London that would become the magazine of choice of the English-speaking liberal inte...
In 1973, Erica Jong, a young feminist author from New York, wrote a groundbreaking novel about female sexuality, called Fear of Flying. Phot...
Indian film star Shabana Azmi remembers playing a lesbian in the controversial Bollywood film, Fire, in 1998. (Photo: Shabana Azmi. Credit:...
In 1986, dozens of Kenyans were detained and accused of belonging to an underground opposition movement called Mwakenya. They were taken to...
On 13 November 2001, the Taliban administration collapsed in Afghanistan. Northern Alliance fighters, aided by American air strikes, had dri...
On 12 November 1991, Indonesian troops opened fire on independence activists in East Timor's capital, Dili. British cameraman Max Stahl film...
Romany of the BBC was a pioneer naturalist broadcaster of Roma Gypsy origin. His programmes were popular in the UK in the 1930s and 40s. Din...
Following the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984, India was gripped by anti-Sikh riots. Thousands...
On 9 November 2005, three hotels in Jordan's capital were targeted by suicide bombers. Nearly 60 people were killed in the country's worst t...
In November 1975, a huge crowd of Moroccans marched into the desert colony of Spanish Sahara to claim it from Madrid. About 350,000 people t...
On 7 November 1917 Lenin and his Bolshevik party overthrew the Provisional Government led by Alexander Kerensky. Dina Newman presents Kerens...
In October and November 1942, the Allies fought a famous battle against German and Italian troops close to the small Egyptian village of El...
Using archive recordings we tell the story of Britain's most famous hangman. During the 1940s and 50s, he was responsible for the execution...
In the 1930s, many parts of Britain were suffering the effects of the Great Depression. But conditions were particularly harsh in the town o...
In 1930, the USSR created a Jewish Autonomous Region in Siberia, as a homeland for Soviet Jews. Dina Newman talks to someone who grew up the...
In October 1929, Wall Street crashed and the greatest depression the world had ever seen began. Harry Leslie Smith tells Witness his story o...
World-famous prima ballerina Alicia Alonso talks to Witness about her long and successful career on the stage, and how in 1959 she founded t...
In 1945 the English physicist was exposed as a nuclear spy for the Soviet Union. Alan Nunn May had been working on Britain's top-secret nucl...
In October 1945, countries ratified the founding charter of a new organsation, the United Nations, that it was hoped would ensure there was...
In October 1975, 90% of all women in Iceland took part in a nationwide protest over inequality. Vigdis Finnbogadottir, later Iceland's first...
In October 1995 during Sri Lanka's brutal civil war Tamil Tiger rebels attacked a remote Sinhalese village. Witness hears from a survivor an...