Witness History

An estimated 2 million stents are implanted into people’s hearts around the world each year – making it one of the key treatments for heart disease.

The treatment was invented by Argentinian doctor Julio Palmaz, who credits a piece of metal being left by a construction worker in his home as inspiration for the structure of the stent.

Collaborating with a US Army cardiologist and getting funding from the owner of a fast-food chain...

The 1977 murder of Father Rutilio Grande sent shockwaves through El Salvador. The 48-year-old Jesuit priest was an outspoken champion of the poor in the deeply divided central American nation.

In the immediate aftermath of his murder, the Archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero, took the unprecedented step of holding just one single mass, ordering all other churches in his archdiocese to cancel theirs. Romero also refused to atten...

In May 1974, scratch cards went on sale for the first time in the US State of Massachusetts.

Free giveaway and coupon games from stores had been commonplace across the USA during the 1950s and '60s – but players could easily cheat.

The mathematician John Koza was hired to make the games more secure; he succeeded in making the modern-day scratch card. He tells Johnny I’Anson how he convinced the state-run lotteries to use his inve...

In the 1980s, scientists made a discovery that would eventually lead to the development of drugs now used worldwide to treat diabetes and to help people manage obesity through weight loss injections.

One of the key scientists behind this breakthrough was Svetlana Mojsov. She discovered that a hormone called GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) plays an important role in how our bodies respond to food.

Svetlana’s work laid the foundation ...

Sonny Roberts, a Jamaican carpenter, arrived in Britain in the 1950s. It was a time of racial disharmony, including the Notting Hill riots and the murder of Kelso Cochrane. In this tense atmosphere, black musicians struggled to make a name for themselves. Then in 1961, Roberts set up the UK’s first black-owned music studio, Planetone, in a basement in Kilburn.

The studio gave the Caribbean community a musical platform. In later yea...

In 2004, the Kenyan ecologist Wangari Maathai became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Wangari Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977, a grass-roots organisation empowering local women to plant trees. It spread to other African countries and contributed to the planting of over 30 million trees. In 2016, Alex Last spoke to her daughter, Wanjira.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness Hist...

In 1958, the British oil tanker, SS San Flaviano, was sunk in the harbour of Balikpapan, Indonesia, while a rebellion was underway against President Ahmed Sukarno.

It’s reported the bomb was dropped by a CIA pilot authorised to aid the rebels, but confirming their involvement has required some investigating.

Megan Jones has been looking into it and speaking to Joseph McCorry who was forced to evacuate the ship after seeing the bomb...

The first Moomins story about a family of nature-loving white round trolls was published in 1945 during World War Two. The Moomins and the Great Flood was created by writer and artist Tove Jansson as a source of comfort during bleak times.

It highlighted the struggles of those who’d been displaced by war introducing readers into the lives of Moomintroll, Moominmamma and Moominpappa.

Tove's tales and illustrations, featuring the cud...

In 1995, a single 30-something woman with big knickers and blue soup first appeared in a weekly column, published by British newspaper The Independent.

Initially written anonymously by journalist Helen Fielding, Bridget Jones quickly became a cultural icon, as she tried to make sense of life and love.

The book, Bridget Jones’s Diary, became a best-seller in 1996 and the character has gone on to feature in three more books and four fi...

In 1965, two writers were accused of publishing anti-Soviet material abroad.

The arrest of Yuli Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky was seen as symbolic of the new era in the Soviet Union.

The liberal leader Nikita Khrushchev had been ousted in favour of hardliner Leonid Brezhnev, and dissenting political views were being cracked down on.

In a moment considered the start of the dissident movement in the Soviet Union, hundreds of protesters d...

In 1961, the Argentine poet and short story writer Jorge Luis Borges won the Formentor Prize for literature.

Borges’ stories were characterised by mind-bending plots often featuring labyrinths, dreams and fables.

Following his recognition in 1961, his reputation grew to such an extent that he is regarded as one of the most influential Latin American writers in history, as Ben Henderson reveals using BBC archive.

Eye-witness accounts b...

Published in 1991, Faceless Killers was the first of Henning Mankell’s crime novels featuring police inspector Kurt Wallander. The series changed the world of crime writing, introducing gritty social realism. The Wallander novels helped establish Scandinavia as the epicentre of crime fiction.

Henning Mankell’s former agent Anneli Høier speaks to Ben Henderson about the rise of Nordic Noir.

Extracts from Faceless Killers are read by ...

In 2001, a few months after 9/11, economist Jim O’Neill was working at Goldman Sachs when he wrote a report about which countries might become big players in the world economy.

That’s when he came up with the name BRIC - short for Brazil, Russia, India and China.

At first, nothing much happened.

But in 2009, those countries took his idea and ran with it, holding their first summit.

Since then, the group has grown, adding South Afri...

Eighty years ago, in the autumn of 1945, World War II surrender ceremonies took place across the Japanese Empire.

The one in China was held at the Forbidden City in Beijing bringing an end to eight years of occupation. Thousands of people watched the incredible moment Japanese generals handed over their swords. The United States, China, Russia and the United Kingdom were all represented. John Stanfield, now 105, is the last survivin...

On 10 October 1961, a volcanic eruption threatened the population of Tristan da Cunha, a British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic, and all 264 islanders were evacuated to the UK.

Two years later, the majority voted to return.

In an interview she gave to the BBC in 1961, Mary Swain describes what it was like to survive the preceding earthquake and landside and be relocated to the other side of the world.

Produced and presente...

In 2009, the Indian government launched a national competition to find a design for the Indian rupee.

With more than 3,000 entries and five finalists, the winning design was announced on 15 July 2010.

The designer was by Udaya Kumar Dharmalingam, a student at the Industrial Design Centre at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. He speaks to Surya Elango.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for thos...

Before streaming and catch-up TV, owning a video recorder was one of the only ways to watch on-demand entertainment.

In 1975 Sony launched Betamax with its half-inch-wide tape capable of recording 60 minutes of television. It was the length of most American shows - the perfect run-time. But in 1977, JVC released its VHS: it was bigger and bulkier, but capable of taping a full two-hour movie. That extra time turned out to be a game...

It’s 30 years since American football star OJ Simpson was acquitted of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.

Ron Shipp was a close friend of OJ Simpson's and also a police officer, he decided to testify against him in the criminal trial.

In 2017, Ron spoke to Rebecca Kesby about why he wanted to testify.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by t...

On 2 October 1963, American photographer Stanley Tretick took the best picture of his life – a photo of President John F Kennedy working at the Resolute Desk in the White House, with his two-year-old son ‘John-John’ peeking out a secret door underneath.

The photo was published in Look magazine a month later, days after the President was assassinated.

Rachel Naylor uses the transcript of an interview with Stanley, provided by the Jo...