Witness History

In the 1950s, secretary Bette Graham from Texas was struggling to cope with her new electric typewriter.

“My fingers would hang heavy on the sensitive keyboard and the first thing I'd know, I'd have a mistake with a deposit of carbon which I simply couldn't erase,” she said.

A budding artist, she wondered if there was a way she could paint over her typos.

At home, in her kitchen, the single mum cooked up the first correcting fluid. It...

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, the ultimate Bollywood romance was released to critical acclaim in October 1995, becoming the longest-running movie in Indian cinema history.

The premiere was held at the Maratha Mandir cinema in Mumbai, since then it’s been screened there every day for the past 27 years, stopping only briefly during the Covid pandemic.

Actress Kajol, who played Simran, starred opposite Shah Rukh Khan and they both became...

In 1971, 13 men sat down in a Paris office to launch what would become one of the world’s best known humanitarian organisations: Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors without Borders.

The men were among hundreds of volunteers responding to an appeal by the French medical journal, Tonus, after a major cyclone devastated East Pakistan.

The campaign sparked the idea for the charity. The 13 founders – two journalists and 11 doctors – drew...

In the early 1900s, while serving in the British Army, Lord Robert Baden-Powell laid the foundations for what would become one of the largest international youth movements, Scouting.

His vision was to create an organisation that would build friendships, experiences, and skills for life.

Gill Kearsley used archive to trace the origins of the movement through Baden-Powell’s own words.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. W...

In 1962, Egyptian actor Omar Sharif made his Hollywood debut in Lawrence of Arabia, a sweeping epic that would become one of cinema’s most popular films.

Using archive recordings, Gill Kearsley tells the story of the movie legend’s transformation into the enigmatic Sherif Ali and brings to life the moment he stepped into the desert and onto the world stage.

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

In the early 1960s, Unesco appealed for scientists to go to Egypt to save antiquities that were threatened by the construction of one of the largest dams in the world, the Aswan High Dam on the River Nile.

Professor Herman Bell answered that call from the UN. He spoke to Louise Hidalgo in 2020.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have sha...

In 2014, Egypt’s outgoing president, Adly Mansour, issued a decree which categorised sexual harassment as a crime punishable by a minimum six-month jail term and a fine of 3,000 Egyptian pounds which is around $60.

It was a move campaigners welcomed, saying it was the first step towards ending an endemic problem.

Among those who made the change happen was Engy Ghozlan, co-founder of HarassMap, an online tool to report harassment.

Sh...

In 1979, Egypt’s former first lady Jehan Sadat helped lead a campaign to grant women new rights to divorce their husbands and retain custody of their children.

Married to President Anwar Sadat, she wanted to play a more active role than the wives of previous leaders and told her husband it was his duty to make Egypt more equal for women.

After some persuasion, he issued decrees improving the divorce status of women despite facing a...

In June 2012, Mohamed Morsi, representing the Muslim Brotherhood, became Egypt's first democratically elected president.

In 2022, Ben Henderson spoke to Rabab El-Mahdi, chief strategist to one of Morsi’s rival candidates.

She described what it was like to be involved in the first election of its kind, how Morsi tried to recruit her, and the personal impact of political campaigning in a polarised country.

Eye-witness accounts brought t...

In September 1935, the Nuremberg Laws were introduced in Nazi Germany.

In 1938, seven-year-old Lotte Hershfield and her family left their home in Breslau, which was part of Germany and is now known as Wroclaw in Poland.

Their journey took them across continents by ship, train and on horse and cart.

They eventually arrived in Manila, the capital of the Philippines, one of the few places welcoming Jewish refugees fleeing persecution.

As...

On 11 September, 2001, a small Canadian town called Gander became a haven for thousands of airline passengers and crew stranded after the 9/11 terror attacks.

The attacks on the World Trade Center had forced the closure of US airspace leaving many flights unable to land. Within hours, 38 planes with 7,000 passengers, had been diverted to Gander, effectively doubling the town's population. But what happened next showcased the extraor...

In 1969, a satirical book, The Peter Principle, suggested promotion led to incompetence.

It was written by a Canadian Professor of Education, Dr Laurence J Peter and playwright Raymond Hull.

The book was a parody of management theory, but its core message struck a chord with many: “In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence".

It became an instant classic, selling millions of copies around the world.

I...

On 23 March 1933, the Enabling Act was passed in Germany, handing Adolf Hitler unchecked power. It became the legal foundation of his dictatorship.

But in that moment, one voice spoke in defiance.

Otto Wels, chairman of the Social Democratic Party, stood alone in the Reichstag: “Freedom and life can be taken away from us, but not honour.”

His words were the last to be spoken freely in the German parliament.

This is the story of the spe...

In 1977, Nigeria hosted the largest festival of African arts and culture there had ever been. About half a million visitors attended, as well as 16,000 delegates including Stevie Wonder and Miriam Makeba.

Dozens of African nationalities, and people from the African diaspora were represented.

Headed by a military dictatorship, Nigeria spent hundreds of millions of dollars hosting nationwide events and building a new national theatre a...

In 2008, Lithuanian student Milda Mitkutė realised she had too many clothes when she was moving out.

She told her friend Justas Janauskas and together they came up with a website to sell them.

It later became Vinted, the online marketplace, which now has more than 500 million items listed for sale across 23 countries.

Milda speaks to Rachel Naylor and tells her that they originally forgot to add a ‘buy’ button.

Eye-witness accounts b...

In September 2014, the world's first baby was born to a mother with a transplanted womb, making headlines around the globe.

Malin Stenberg had the pioneering surgery over a year earlier when she received the donated organ from a family friend, giving birth to her son Vincent at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Sweden.

Reena Stanton-Sharma speaks to Prof Pernilla Dahm-Kähler, who was a member of the talented team whose dedication wo...

During World War Two, an unconventional special force was formed. Known as the Chindits, they fought behind enemy lines in Burma, now Myanmar during 1943 and 1944 in the war against Japan.

Their leader was the charismatic Orde Wingate, a British Army officer.

This programme is made in collaboration with BBC Archives. It contains outdated and offensive language.

Produced and presented by Gill Kearsley.

Eye-witness accounts brought to...

On 3 November 1961, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) was founded, bringing all existing aid work under one single agency. A key proponent of it was Barbara Ward, a pioneering British economist and journalist who had the ear of presidents and prime ministers across the world. Later known as Baroness Jackson, she spoke to the John F Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum Oral History Program in 196...

In September 1985, the wreck of the Titanic was discovered around 400 nautical miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, during a joint American-French expedition.

It had remained undisturbed, 13,000 feet underwater in the North Atlantic Ocean, since it sank during its maiden voyage in 1912.

The team spotted a boiler using a remotely controlled deep-sea vehicle, called Argo, and a robot named Jason, which led them to the site of t...