The History Hour

It’s been thirty years since the first fully democratic elections in South Africa, which saw the African National Congress take power in 1994.

But two years before that historic moment, white South Africans had to vote in a referendum that would decide whether or not to usher in a multi-racial government. We hear from President FW de Klerk’s then communications officer about how they helped “close the book on apartheid.”

Then we journey back to 1976 and hear about the Soweto Uprising, a student led protest against the enforced study of Afrikaans. Bongi Mkhabela who helped organise the peaceful march, tells us how it came to a bloody and tragic end.

Plus we take a look at the pivotal role played by women and girls in the lead up to the 1994 elections. Journalist and researcher Shanthini Naidoo tells us why women’s work and activism in the ANC is so often overlooked.

We hear from Oliver Tambo’s son about his father’s return to South Africa after 30 years in exile.

We also hear about the long overdue return of Sarah Baartman’s remains to South Africa, after over 190 years being kept in Europe, where she suffered horrific abuse while she was alive. This programme contains discriminatory language.

And finally, we learn about one of South Africa’s biggest popstars Brenda Fassie, from her friend, rival and admirer Yvonne Chaka Chaka.

Contributors: David Stewards – President FW de Klerk’s former communications advisor Bongi Mkhabela- Student organiser of the Soweto uprising Shanthini Naidoo- Journalist and researcher on women during apartheid Dali Tambo- Son of Oliver Tambo Diana Ferrus – Poet who helped bring Sarah Baartman home Yvonne Chaka Chaka- South African popstar

(Photo: Nelson Mandela after winning the election in 1994. Credit: Getty Images)

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.

It’s 10 years since the world’s deadliest outbreak of Ebola started in West Africa. We hear from a survivor and discuss the legacy of the epidemic with the BBC's global health reporter Tulip Mazumdar.

Plus, the first World War Two battalion to be led by an African-American woman. Major Charity Adams’ son tells her story.

We hear about the group of men arrested in Egypt in 2001 at a gay nightclub who became known as the Cairo 52.

We also hear about the avalanche on Mount Everest which killed 16 sherpas carrying supplies 10 years ago.

Finally, the train service between India and Bangladesh that lay dormant for 43 years which rumbled back into life in 2008.

Contributors:

Yusuf Kabba – an Ebola survivor from Sierra Leone Tulip Mazumdar - the BBC's Global Heath reporter. Stanley Earley – son of Major Charity Adams Omer (a pseudonym) - arrested and imprisoned at a gay club in Cairo Lakpa Rita Sherpa - helped recover bodies after the avalanche on Mount Everest in 2014 Dr Azad Chowdhury – on the inaugural Friendship Express

(Photo: Liberian Health Minister Burnice Dahn washes her hands at a holding centre for Ebola patients in 2014. Credit: Getty Images)

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.

It's 30 years since Edvard Munch’s painting, The Scream, was stolen from the national gallery in Oslo, Norway. We hear from the man who helped to recover it.

Our expert guest is historian and author, Susan Ronald, who explores the history of art heists in the 20th century.

Plus, a first hand account from Kampala terror attacks in 2010 and the mystery of St Teresa of Avila's severed hand.

Finally, we hear about the last World War II soldier to surrender. Hiroo Onoda was an Imperial Japanese Army intelligence officer who spent nearly 30 years in the Philippine jungle, believing World War Two was still going on.

Contributors: Kuddzu Isaac - DJ and Kampala terror attack survivor Charley Hill - Scotland Yard art detective and private investigator Susan Ronald - historian and author Sister Jenifer - the Mother Superior of the Church of Our Lady of Mercy, Ronda Hiroo Onoda - Japanese WWII soldier Christos and Ioanna Kotsikas - residents of Thessaly, Greece

(Photo: The Scream. Credit: Getty Images)

In 1998, the political parties in Northern Ireland reached a peace agreement that ended decades of war. We hear from Paul Murphy, the junior minister for Northern Ireland at the time. Plus, a cross-community choir in Bosnia and women pioneers from the worlds of finance and oceanography.

PHOTO: Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern (L) and British Prime Minister Tony Blair (R) pose with the mediator

Why the BBC started broadcasting to South and Central America, plus the My Lai Massacre, Brazil's careful transition to democracy, and Moscow's show trials in the 1930s.

Photo: Members of the BBC's Brazil service rehearsing in a London studio in 1943. Credit: BBC.

A landmark protest by deaf students in the US; the early fight for women's reproductive rights; the life and times of political thinker, Hannah Arendt; language and history in Azerbaijan, and Wonder Woman.

Picture: Student protestors, courtesy of Gallaudet University in Washington DC

How China's barefoot doctor scheme revolutionised rural healthcare; plus M*A*S*H, the ground-breaking American TV show that taught a generation about war; the assassination of the Swedish prime minister Olof Palme; the German and Russian soldiers who fought on the Eastern Front in the First World War; and the Angel of the North, a huge steel sculpture that has become an icon for the north-east of England.

Picture: Gordon Liu

How a young boy lived with a rare genetic disorder; plus "Ghana Must Go" - when 1 million Africans were expelled from Nigeria, battling the last major smallpox epidemic in India, reporting the Jimmy Swaggart scandal and the story behind the acclaimed novel "Infinite Jest" (Photo: David Vetter and his mother Carol-Ann Demaret Credit: Carol-Ann Demaret)

We hear from Mahnaz Afkhami, Iran's first ever minister for Women's Affairs, appointed in 1975. Plus, the so-called "headscarf revolutionaries" who fought for improvements in Britain's notoriously dangerous fishing industry, a member of the Viet Cong recalls one of the biggest battles of the Vietnam War, finding the lost notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, and the 1970s lesbian separatist movement in America.

Photo: Mahnaz Afkhami at the UN in 1975. (Mahnaz Afkhami)

The plane crash that killed eight of Manchester United's top players, the courage of the British Suffragettes, uncovering South Africa's nuclear secrets, plus tracking down Nazis in South America and the attack on a South Korean airliner ahead of the Seoul Olympics.

(Photo: Plane wreckage at Munich airport - AFP/Getty Images)

In January 1968, North Vietnamese troops and Viet Cong guerrillas launched a huge surprise attack on towns, cities and military bases across South Vietnam. The events of the Tet offensive had a profound impact on American public opinion and marked a turning point in the war.

Plus the roots of the Rohingya crisis, the birth of gospel music, Ireland's Bloody Sunday, and the end of corporal punishment in Britain.

Photo: Julian Pettifer reporting under fire near the Presidential Palace in Saigon, 31st January 1968 (BBC)

When North Korea and the US came close to war in 1968; plus Salvador Dali, re-creating Francis Bacon's studio, the first veggie burger and the origins of Lego Photo: Members of the USS Pueblo's crew being taken into custody. Credit: Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service

After Apartheid was abolished in the 1990s, South Africa set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to try to confront the legacy of its brutal past. We speak to Justice Sisi Khampepe, who served on the Commission. Plus, the inspiring story of the disabled Irish author, Christoper Nolan; an inside account of two of America's most famous presidential speeches; and the role of British women in World War I.

(PHOTO: Pretoria South Africa: President Nelson Mandela (L) with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, acknowledges applause after he received a five volumes of Truth and Reconciliation Commission final report from Archbishop Tutu. Credit: Getty Images.)

When France stopped Britain joining Europe in the 1960s, the boy who set a record for continuously staying awake, the launch of the first iPhone, hands reaching out in friendship between Britain and Germany after the Second World War, and a notorious massacre during Algeria's bitter internal conflict of the 1990s.

Photo: Charles de Gaulle, President of France, at a press conference on 14th January 1963 at which he said Britain was not ready to join the European Economic Community, now the EU (Credit: Central Press/Getty Images)

Mrs Yeltsin, on the day her husband shocked the world, half a century since the Mafia's grip on America was exposed, the 1999 protests in Iran - the biggest since the revolution - a student tells us how a photograph led to his death sentence and the Brazilian woman hijacker who took her kids along for the ride.

How Black activists invented a new holiday, flying around the world without refuelling, what not to do if you win a fortune, and the mountaineers who risked their lives climbing the spires of Leningrad during WW2. Then there's the obligatory Christmas board game - Trivial Pursuit.

Picture: Children at the first Kwanzaa celebration - courtesy of Terri Bandele.

One of the most successful American films of all time was released on Christmas Day 1962. Based on the best-selling book by author Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird starred Gregory Peck as a lawyer who stood against prejudice in the Deep South of the USA. Louise Hidalgo has been speaking to Gregory Peck's son Carey Peck.

Plus, the life of Indian independence leader BR Ambedkar; a short-lived period of peace in Somalia under the Islamic Courts Union; the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution in China; and the invention of WiFi.

Picture: Gregory Peck with Harper Lee in 1962 (Getty Images)

The African-American lab technician, Vivien Thomas, who pioneered surgery that saved millions of babies, Otis Redding remembered 50 years on from his tragic death, the killer smog of the 1950's London, the man brave enough to hypnotise Uday Hussein and the Australian Prime Minister - lost at sea.

(Photo: Vivien Thomas, US Surgical Technician, 1940) (Audio: Courtesy of US National Library of Medicine)

Fifty years since Aden gained independence from Britain, plus an amazing discovery under the oceans, a celebration of Finnish independence, Russian art punished by the Bolsheviks and the building of Mount Rushmore's famous statues.

Photo: Aden 1967 Copyright: Alamy.

In November 2006, the world was shocked by the murder in London of former Russian intelligence officer, Alexander Litvinenko. We hear from his widow Marina about his life and agonising death, and get an analysis of the case from Luke Harding, author of "A Very Expensive Poison". Also in the programme, an astonishing assassination plot during El Salvador's Civil War, a huge oil spill in Spain, and the purpose-built city in Siberia which was home to the Soviet Union's best scientists.

(PHOTO: Alexander Litvinenko in a London hospital a couple of days before his death in November 2006. Credit Getty Images.)

The secret battle for the holiest site in Islam in 1979; the coup that changed the Vietnam war, plus an East German musical icon, prosecuting Charles Manson and Toy Story's digital revolution. Photo: Fighting at the Grand Mosque in Mecca after militants seized control of the shrine, November 1979 (AFP/Getty Images)

The women searching for their loved-ones who went missing during the Lebanese civil war, plus the man who first discovered diamonds in Botswana, a pioneer of the Indian restaurant business in the UK, an exploding whale, and naked dancing in post-war London.

Photo: West Beirut under shellfire in 1982.(Credit:Domnique Faget/AFP/Getty Images)

Eye-witness accounts from the Russian Revolution of October 1917; the first dog in space; Sabah, one of the biggest 20th-century stars of the Middle East; the last journalist to interview Osama Bin Laden; and horror and heartbreak: memories of the First World War.

Picture: Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin addressing crowds in the capital Petrograd during the Russian Revolution of 1917. (Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The German monk who began a religious uprising; the book that made us think of humans as animals; how the murder of a Brazilian journalist by the secret police became a symbol of Brazil's military brutality; plus the Lebanese architectural dream that was overtaken by war and the fight that ended sex censorship online.

Photo: A portrait of Martin Luther by Lucas Cranach the Elder on display at the German Historical Museum in Berlin, Germany (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

How tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews escaped the Nazis by using false papers; what happened when abortion became illegal overnight in 1960s Romania; the murder of campaigning Nigerian journalist Dele Giwa; the creation of British satire magazine Private Eye; and the love affair between writers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.

Photo: False Hungarian ID document (BBC)

How Jewish veterans fought fascism in post war Britain; plus investigating the death of Mozambique's president Samora Machel, we hear from a survivor of the Moscow theatre siege, inside the Cuba Missile Crisis and the mystery of Booker prize winner JG Farrell. Photo:British Fascist Sir Oswald Mosley speaking at a rally, Hertford Road, Dalston, London, May 1st 1948. (Getty Images)

In October 1967 the Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara was captured and killed in Bolivia - we hear from the CIA operative who was one of the last people to speak to him. Plus, the plan to rescue Italy's art from the Nazis; remembering a hero of Catalan nationalism; the policeman and friend who testified against OJ Simpson, and Madonna - the early years.

(Photo: Felix Rodriguez (left) with the captured Che Guevara, shortly before his execution on 9 October 1967. Courtesy of Felix Rodriguez)

Why the brutal killing of a young gay man in Wyoming prompted change, how white people came to terms with their past after segregation in deep south America, living alongside Israeli soldiers in Gaza, plus modern treasures uncovered in Iran and rediscovered Tudor treasures raised from the English seabed.

(Photo: Matthew Shepard with his parents, Judy and Dennis, on holiday at Yellowstone National Park. Courtesy of the Matthew Shepard Foundation)

Walking the Great Wall of China; the death of Pope John Paul 1 after just a month in the job; turning against a colonial power - how Guinea gained independence from France; the life and times of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, and the British Land Girls of World War Two.

(Picture: Yaohui Dong, Wu Deyu and Zhang Yuanhua on the Great Wall of China. Courtesy of Yaohui Dong)

Five remarkable stories of animals in recent history - from the guide dog who led her owner out of the World Trade Center on 9/11 to a ferocious shark attack to the locust swarm that flew more than 5000 miles across the Atlantic ocean.

Photo: a Great White Shark - Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

The run on a British bank which signalled the coming global financial crisis, a schoolboy arrested in East Germany for writing a letter, a doctor remembers the Sabra Shatila massacre in Beirut, and a Nigerian archaeological treasure trove.

Photo: Northern Rock customers queuing outside the Kingston branch, in order to take their money out on September 17th 2007. Credit: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

The search for a spirit world after WW1 that led people to believe that photographs of fairies were real. Plus Jamaica's worst train crash, France's last execution by guillotine, the man who saved the Proms and life in a giant greenhouse in Arizona - Biosphere 2.

Photo: Frances Griffiths and the "Cottingley Fairies" in a photograph made in 1917 by her cousin Elsie Wright with paper cut-outs and hatpins. Credit: Alamy

Princess Diana's brother remembers the passionate speech he gave at her funeral, and one of the doctors who treated her at the scene of her fatal car crash remembers her death.

Plus, how George Orwell wrote Animal Farm, the development of a revolutionary new 3D medical scanning technique, and the birth of the online auction site eBay.

Picture: Earl Spencer and Prince William at Princess Diana's funeral. Credit: Getty/AFP

In BBC archive recordings, veterans tell the story of how medical care dealt with the horrors of WW1. Plus when Germany put Nazis on trial, race riots in London's Notting Hill in 1958, and in East Germany in 1992. And the inventors of Botox.

Photo: Australian wounded on the Menin Road on the Western Front, 1917 (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

On this week's programme, how campaigners took on Nike in the 1990s, plus the Turkish invasion of Cyprus and the newspaper which defied Argentine's military dictatorship. We also find out more about nudism in East Germany and the great Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore.

PHOTO: Nike worker Cicih Sukaesih telling her story in America in 1996 (courtesy of Jeff Ballinger)

Ronald Reagan's joke about bombing Russia in the 1980s, the murder of a Palestinian cartoonist in London, communal violence in India a year before partition, the man who discovered the Great Pacific Garbage patch, and Florence Nightingale, in her own words and those of people who knew her.

Photo: American president Ronald Reagan in the 1980s at his desk in the White House, Washington DC. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Comedian and broadcaster Pete Price speaks about being subjected to horrific aversion therapy to "cure" him of his homosexuality in 1960s Britain. Plus the 99-year-old former aide to the Chinese nationalist leader, Chiang Kai Shek, a radical new approach to housing in the former USSR, the perils of deep sea commercial diving in the North Sea and how the Welsh fought for recognition of their language.

Photo: Pete Price (private collection)

Spooking fighters during the Vietnam War, building the Mont Blanc Tunnel, designing a Nintendo legend, the murder of Gianni Versace and archive voices from the 'Bonus Army' a protest movement of WW1 veterans which shook the US government in 1932.

Photo:Viet Cong guerrillas on patrol during the Vietnam War, 2nd March 1966: (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

A watershed moment for Canada's indigenous people as Mohawks take on the developers, the birth of UKIP in Britain, memories of the poet Irina Ratushinskaya who died earlier this month - plus dance music with ballet star Nureyev's defection and illegal raving in England's countryside.

(PHOTO: A Mohawk activist confronts a soldier. Credit: IATV NEWS)

In July 1947 a US rancher found some debris in the New Mexico desert - did it come from an alien spacecraft? Witness hears from the son of one of the US servicemen who investigated the incident, and from Dr David Clarke, expert on UFO history at Sheffield Hallam University.

Plus the first Tamil suicide bombing; a hoard of Anglo-Saxon treasure discovered in an English field; a sex scandal in the USSR during perestroika; and the first non-stop journey around the world in a hot air balloon.

PHOTO: Major Jesse Marcel at Fort Worth, Texas with balloon debris from the Roswell incident - copyright Alamy

In a tourism special we look at the original low-cost transatlantic airline, based in Iceland, the 1960s Hippie trail. Also the journey that led to the best selling Lonely Planet travel guides, political tensions caused by a luxury resort on the Red Sea and how Disney came to Europe.

(Photo: An Icelandic Airlines advertisement from May 1973, in New York's Fifth Avenue (US National Archives)

Murder and conspiracy among Italy's elite, an Italian atrocity in 1930s Ethiopia, Christians in the Korean War, Japan hosts the first Body Worlds, and Asian Americans struggle against racism and violence in the 1980s. Photo: Robert Calvi, head of Banco Ambrosiano, who was convicted of fraud but released on appeal shortly before his murder (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

Phlyllis Schalfly, the woman who defeated a law to guarantee gender equality in the US; plus, the first performance of the Beatles hit "All You Need Is Love", a forgotten WW2 disaster, Berber rights in Algeria, and the volcanic eruption on the island of Montserrat.

PHOTO: American political activist Phyllis Schlafly smiles from behind a pair of podium mounted microphones, 1982. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Soldiers from both sides on the battle for Jerusalem; plus Robert Kennedy's assassination, the child who fought slavery in Pakistan, and the cousin of Anne Frank Photo:Israeli forces advancing in the Sinai desert during the Six-Day War, June 1967. (Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

How private citizens in Canada sponsored Vietnamese boat-people. Plus the first ever charity rock concert for Chernobyl, the actor who stared in a Hitchcock murder movie, America's first ever female rabbi and Mr Sanitation brings clean toilets in India. Photo: A Vietnamese boat crowded with refugees runs aground on the Malaysian coast. 1979 (BBC)

The 1954 US Supreme Court ruling that led to the end of racial segregation in US schools, the Iranian woman protestor whose death on film shocked the world; the start of the worldwide dieting franchise, Weight Watchers and who was Alexander Hamilton?

(Photo African American student Linda Brown, Cheryl Brown Henderson's eldest sister (front, C) sitting in her segregated classroom.Credit: GettyArchive)

The French minister tried for colluding with the Nazis, the USSR's version of James Bond, the beginning of China's economic boom, plus the first time Americans were told they were too fat - but that their wine was better than France's.

PHOTO: Maurice Papon in October 1997, shortly after his trial for war crimes opened. (Credit: Francois Guillot/AFP/Getty Images)

In the 1970s, Italian cosmetic surgeons Arpad and Giorgio Fischer developed the modern technique of liposuction, which involves sucking out fat from under the skin. The global cosmetic surgery industry is now booming and liposuction is one of the most popular procedures. Also in the programme, the little-known civil war in Tajikistan after the breakup of the Soviet Union, how French troops mutinied toward the end of World War One and the start of the legendary Magnum photo agency.

Photo: A doctor performs a liposuction at a hospital in Shanghai, China (Credit: AFP /LIU Jin)

In April 1977 a group of women in Argentina held the first ever public demonstration to demand the release of thousands of opponents of the military regime. It was the start of a long campaign by the women, who became known as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Also on the programme: the controversy surrounding Syria's presence in Lebanon, plus the pioneer of psychotherapy RD Laing, Bulgaria's attempts to crush Turkish language and culture, and we hear the shocking testimony of a survivor of Bosnia's notorious rape camps.

(Photo: Mirta Baravalle of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, with a black-and-white photograph of her daughter, Ana Maria)

Charlie Chaplin's son on his father's political views and his rocky relationship with his one-time adopted home, America. Plus the Hubble telescope produces the first clear pictures of the furthest galaxies; shaking off colonialism with the world's first festival for black artists; Japan launches a new way of learning the violin and tragedy in Latin America when American missionaries flying over Peru were mistaken for drug-runners.

(Photo: Charlie Chaplin as the Tramp in the 1925 film, The Gold Rush. Credit: Getty Images)

NTV was Russia's only nationwide independent TV station until it was taken over in April 2001. We hear from the head of the station at the time. Plus, Ethiopia's Red Terror; the Katyn massacre during WW2; a breakthrough for disability rights in the US with the 504 sit-in; and Sikh bus drivers in the UK win the right to wear turbans to work.

Photo: Life size puppets of Russian political leaders including President Putin, on the set of NTV's popular satirical television show "Puppets"; June 29, 2000. Credit: Oleg Nikishin/Newsmakers/Getty

The royal handshake that changed attitudes to AIDS, America enters WW1, plus Egypt's Facebook girl, Nagorno Karabakh and remembering Jane Fonda's workout (Photo: Princess Diana with an AIDS patient at the Middlesex Hospital April 1987. Credit REX/Shutterstock)

In 1994 the world's first genetically-engineered food went on sale in the US. It was a tomato, called the 'Flavr Savr' which stayed fresh for up to 30 days. Plus, a mysterious anthrax outbreak in the Soviet Union; the murder of a Catholic archbishop in El Salvador; and the Teletubbies turn 20.

Photo: Roger Salquist, former Chairman and CEO of Calgene (courtesy of Roger Salquist)

100 years since the Russian Revolution, Imperial Russia in colour, AIDS and the mystery of 'Patient Zero', when Indian sex workers marched for employment rights and the British Lord who fled the Nazis in Czechoslovakia as a six year old on the Kindertransport.

Photo: 12th March 1917: Barricades across a street in St Petersburg, as a red flag floats above the cannons, during the Russian Revolution. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Women in Kuwait win the right to vote, and the only women on the front line on the Western Front in World War One; battling smog in Mexico City in the 1980s, the artist Georgia O'Keeffe, and America's first incident of Islamic terror forty years ago.

Photo: the first women candidates for parliamentary elections in Kuwait in 2006, Aisha al-Rashid (R) and Rola Dashti (C) (Credit: Yasser al-Zayya/AFP/Getty Images)

Life with Mother Teresa among the poorest of the poor in Calcutta, how the World Health Organisation came to realise that obesity was a global problem and Eleanor Roosevelt in the White House. Plus the immortal cells of Henrietta Lacks - a remarkable story of one woman's impact on medical research.

(PHOTO: AP Mother Teresa holds a child in 1978)

In the 1930s, a group of German-American Nazi sympathisers known as the German American Bund held rallies and summer camps across the US. Also, the lawyers who helped Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic defend himself against war crimes charges and how vandals attacked Denmark's famous Little Mermaid Statue.

From speed-dating to gay romance, from divorce to bigamy we look at recent changes in the way society perceives love and marriage. Plus - an expert view on how to make sure your love endures.

Photo: A heart hanging over Carnaby Street in London. Credit: BBC.

This week how American cities like San Francisco became safe havens for undocumented immigrants, the story of Tilikum and first recorded killing of a human by an orca whale, discovering DNA, the ship wreck that gave locals whiskey galore and Kenya's smash hit song - that got everyone singing in Swahili.

(Photo: Supporters of Sanctuary Cities demonstrating in San Francisco, January 2017. Credit: AP)

Former South African police minister on ending apartheid, eyewitness to Black Hawk Down, landmark sexual harassment case in India, the last South American war and a record breaking solo trek across the Antarctic Picture: Anti-apartheid protestors demonstrate in Cape Town on the same day that President de Klerk announced the lifting of the ban on the ANC and the release of all political prisoners, including Nelson Mandela (Credit: RASHID LOMBARD/AFP/Getty Images)

On 26 January 1972 four Aboriginal men began a protest outside Parliament House in Canberra, Australia. They erected a beach umbrella on the grass and called it an 'embassy'.

Plus, the murder of five lawyers in Madrid in 1977, which became a turning point in Spain's return to democracy; the invention of the microwave oven; Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; and 75 years of the BBC's longest-running programme, Desert Island Discs.

The epic mini-series about slavery in the US hit TV screens in January 1977. We hear from actor Leslie Uggams, who played the character Kizzy, recalling how "Roots" revolutionised perceptions about African-American history. Plus: when peace deal ended El Salvador's brutal civil war, the murder of prominent Turkish Armenian journalist, Hrant Dink, life in the world's largest refugee camp, and how Dungeons and Dragons came about.

(Photo: Actors LeVar Burton, Todd Bridges and Robert Reed in Roots. Credit: Alamy)

In 1997, the Princess of Wales made a high-profile visit to a landmine clearance programme in Angola. Her trip is credited with boosting the campaign for a global landmine treaty signed later that year. Also, the man who rewrote the rules on transitions of power in the USA, the first woman to wear a headscarf into the Turkish parliament and the triumph of British espionage that changed the course of World War One.

PHOTO: Princess Diana in Angola in 1997 (Credit: Alamy)

The early American Communists, a North Vietnamese tunneler who helped outsmart the Americans and win the war in Vietnam, plus the pyramid scheme failure in Albania which left gun-toting children on the streets. Also how five American missionaries paid the ultimate price after seeking out a remote tribe in Ecuador but left a lasting legacy, and the petition signed in Czechoslovakia which helped bring about the end of communism.

Photograph: Ella and Bert Wolfe (courtesy of the Hoover Institution Archives

December 1991 saw the end of 70 years of communist rule and the collapse of the Soviet Union. We hear from two of the key signatories of the dissolution treaty, a witness to the ensuing crisis in one of the newly independent states, and from an American nuclear expert who helped clean-up the former USSR. Also, the performance artist protesting about the growing divide between rich and poor, and the first editor of Vogue magazine in Russia.

Photo: The leaders of Ukraine and Belorussia, alongside Russian leader Boris Yeltsin, at the ceremony formally dissolving the USSR in December 1991, Credit: AP

The controversial death in police custody of Italian anarchist, Giuseppe Pinelli, the Irish playwright and novelist Samuel Beckett how Greece and Turkey almost came to war over a tiny rocky island in the Aegean sea, also the experimental film-maker Derek Jarman and how on Christmas day in 1968 Apollo 8 became the first spacecraft to leave the Earth's orbit and travel to the moon.

Photo:Giuseppe 'Pino' Pinelli, with his wife Licia and his daughters Silvia and Claudia. Credit: The Pinelli Family.

The life and untimely death of a Basque separatist fighter, resisting the Nazis in Lithuania, a medical breakthrough that prevented babies from dying in their cots, the grand old lady of Brazilian TV soaps, and the Hindu milk miracle.

Photograph: Maria Dolores Gonzalez Katarain, known as Yoyes, who was the first woman to join the leadership of the separatist group, ETA

A special edition of the programme remembering some of the women that history has overlooked. From women warriors to women scientists. From rural women, to factory workers we bring you the stories of women who made a contribution to history - and who deserve to be remembered.

The shooting of Bob Marley in 1976, the resistance of the Mirabal Sisters, how Ralph Nader made Americans safer, discovering Colombia's ancient Lost City and when Le Corbusier built Chandigarh - India's 1950s modernist marvel. Photo: Bob Marley, 1970s (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)

This week, the French Miners' strike of 1948, 50 years since the launch of the Cabaret musical, the Silk Letters Movement of British India, the plane-spotters jailed for spying and how to save baby elephants!

(Photo: French President Francois Hollande welcomes former striker Norbert Gilmez during a ceremony at the Elysee Palace in Paris. September 2016. Credit:Reuters.)

It is 25 years since Indonesian troops attacked protestors in the East Timorese capital, plus the impact of The Satanic Verses on British society, smuggling endangered birds out of the jungles of South America, a palace burns in Madagascar and the inspiration behind James Bond's theme tune.

(Photo: East Timorese activists preparing for the protest that ended in tragedy. Copyright: Max Stahl)

A mass child sex abuse trial on a remote island in the Pacific that shocked the world, a controversial Kurdish song, the birth of Rolling Stone magazine, men versus computers, and street fighting in San Salvador in the 1980s

Photo: Adamstown, seen in this June 2003 photo of Pitcairn Island (AP)

On this week's programme, how pioneering American woman war reporter, Dickey Chapelle, was killed in Vietnam; plus two very different perspectives on Mao's China, Mexican writer Octavio Paz and the escape which made Harry Houdini's name.

PHOTO: Dickey Chapelle during a US Marines operation in 1958 (Credit: US Marine Corps / Associated Press)

World War One veterans describe Shell Shock and Prof. Edgar Jones of Kings College on the psychiatric cost of war; plus Hungary's 1956 uprising, how French intelligence was rocked by the abduction of activist Mehdi Ben Barka, the history of Marvel Comics and London's Big Bang. Photo: French troops shelter during bombardment, 1918. (General Photographic Agency/Getty Images)

One of the world's worst nuclear disasters, the most notorious prison riot in America, Second World War internment in Australia, resistance in apartheid South Africa, and one of Britain's most celebrated artists, Stanley Spencer, through the eyes of his daughters.

Photo: The Mayak nuclear reprocessing plant in 2010. Credit: European Pressphoto Agency

On 1 August 1966, student Charles Whitman shot dead 14 people and injured another 32 in America's first mass shooting at a university. Plus, the oldest arts festival in the Middle East; how President Reagan smashed the power of the trade unions; and meeting JD Salinger, the reclusive author of "The Catcher in the Rye".

PHOTO: Associated Press.

In this week's programme, we hear personal accounts of two fronts in America's Cold War fight against communism: Guatemala and Russia itself. Plus, the earthquake in China that killed a quarter of a million; riots in the English city of Liverpool; and remembering Picasso in his prime.

PHOTO: Army officers opposed to President Arbenz go over a map of the territory on their push to Zacapa and then to Guatemala City, July 1954. (AP Photo)

Socialism in Tanzania, the man who assassinated the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, the crash of the Soviet supersonic jet Concordski, 20 years to build a road and Date Rape

(Photo: Tanzanian women cultivating the soil. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

Executives of the German company that made the drug Thalodomide go on trial. Plus, Chechen rebels negotiate peace with President Yeltsin; the Israeli airlift of 14,000 Ethiopian Jews; Hands Across America, the day millions of Americans formed a human chain to try to end poverty; and the execution of the Queen of England, Anne Boleyn.

Photograph: A Thalidomide child undergoes rehabilitation, 1963 (Credit: Keystone/Getty Images)

Chernobyl, the world's worst nuclear disaster; the funeral of Charles Darwin, whose theory of evolution changed the world; plus, the impact of being accused during the McCarthy era in America, and two style icons of the Sixties, the Mini and Yves St Laurent.

Photo: a Swedish farmer wears protective clothing because of contamination from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster (Credit: STF/AFP/Getty Images)

Russia's revolutionary feminist, British women after the First World War, poisoning in the Balkans, a miscarriage of justice in Britain, and the world's worst aviation disaster

The World War One battle that traumatised France; the Austrian mountaineer who wrote Seven Years in Tibet; how Christian Dior revolutionised fashion with the 'New Look'. Plus, how Foot-and-Mouth disease broke the hearts of British farmers and the botched assassination which humiliated the Israeli Secret Service.

(Photo: French Troops under fire at Verdun. Credit: General Photographic Agency/Getty Images)

The birth of the Prozac generation, the battle to save Afghanistan's ancient artworks and death and violence in the Spanish embassy in Guatemala. Plus we hear about an American political corruption scandal and the launch of the Disney classic, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

The launch of space shuttle Challenger goes horribly wrong, Rupert Murdoch goes to war with his print unions, Australia's 18th century penal colonies, Sharia law in Nigeria, and Batman comes to TV.

Photo: Christa McAuliffe (left) and Barbara Morgan. Credit: Nasa

The 1982 release of the world's best selling album; plus the untimely death of General George S Patton; the former child star Karolyn Grimes on the film It's A Wonderful Life, the Beagle 2 mission to Mars, and Vladimir Nabokov's scandalous book, Lolita.

(Photo: Michael Jackson and assorted zombies in the video for Thriller in 1983. Credit: 01/01/1983 Publicity Handout)

The hunt for Bin Laden in the mountains of Afghanistan; a Ku Klux Klan trial in 1965; the siege of Kut in World War 1; an unexpected alliance in 1980s Britain with Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners; and seminal alternative rock band the Velvet Underground's first gig.

(Photo: Afghan fighters look out over a smoking valley after a US B-52 aircraft bombed a front line position in the mountains of Tora Bora in north-eastern Afghanistan. Credit: Associated Press)

Suicide bombings in Amman; a massacre in East Timor that was a turning point on the road to independence; the fall of the Taliban; anti-Sikh riots in India; and the BBC's first wildlife broadcaster

Angie Dickinson remembers her friend, the Hollywood superstar who became the most high profile celebrity to acknowledge he was suffering from Aids; plus one of the founding members of Cuba's Buena Vista Social Club, the Danish cartoon controversy, remembering Kabul's musicians' quarter and the birth of Karaoke.

Photo: Rock Hudson at the BBC.

In this programme: Korea split along the 38th parallel, child prisoners of the Japanese during World War Two, the notorious Devil's Island penal colony, the man who published Harry Potter and Sue the T-Rex skeleton.

Photo: Korea 38th parallel Credit: AFP

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.

It has been 50 years since Abba won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest, so we're exploring Swedish history. Also in 1974, Sweden became the first country in the world to offer paid parental leave that was gender neutral. One father who took the leave tells us about this pioneering policy. We hear from one of the inventors of Bluetooth. The technology was named after Harald Bluetooth, a Viking king. Our expert guest is Eva Krutmeijer, Swedish science writer and co-author of the book ' Innovation, the Swedish Way’.

Plus, the invention of the three-point safety belt for cars, that is estimated to have saved more than one million lives around the world, and the story behind Sweden’s Cinnamon Bun Day. Finally, 1974 was just the beginning for the Swedish quartet, Abba, who shared their name with a herring company. By the end of the decade, they were one of most recognisable music acts of the 20th century. Contributors: Per Edlund - one of the first fathers in his town to take split paid parental leave Sven Mattison - one of the inventors of Bluetooth Eva Krutmeijer - Swedish science writer and co-author of the book 'Innovation, the Swedish Way' Gunnar Ornmark - stepson of Nils Bohlin who invented the three-point safety belt for cars Kaeth Gardestedt - who came up with the idea of Sweden's Cinnamon Bun Day Görel Hanser - manager of Abba (Photo: Abba in 1974. Credit: Anwar Hussein/Getty Images)

It's 75 years since the founding of Nato. In 1949, a group of 12 countries formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to block the expansion of the Soviet Union.

Professor Sten Rynning, the author of Nato: From Cold War to Ukraine, talks about some of the most significant moments in Nato's history.

It's 30 years since the beginning of the Rwandan genocide. We hear from one of the survivors, Antoinette Mutabazi. This programme contains disturbing content.

Plus, Riyaz Begum reflects on Britain's Mirpuri migration, Janet Heimlich, daughter of Dr Henry Heimlich talks about the origins of the Heimlich Manoeuvre and Adam Trimingham, Brighton based journalist and nudist David Johnson recall the arrival of Britain's first nudist beach.

(Photo: British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin signs the North Atlantic Treaty. Credit: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.

To mark 50 years since the discovery of the Terracotta Army, we're exploring modern Chinese history.

We hear from the man who helped to modernise the Chinese language by creating a new writing system. It's called Pinyin and it used the Roman alphabet to help simplify Chinese characters into words.

Our expert guest is the writer, Mark O'Neill, whose book 'The Man Who Made China a Literate Nation' forms the basis of a great discussion about historical language changes throughout history.

Plus, a first hand experience of life in labour camps during Mao Zedong’s cultural revolution and the women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial army during the 1930s. This programme contains disturbing content.

Contributors: Mark O'Neill - writer Zhou Youguang - linguist Jingyu Li - victim of Mao Zedong's labour camps Peng Zhuying - survivor of sexual slavery Yuan Zhongyi - archaeologist Dr Li Xiuzhen - archaeologist Simon Napier-Bell - manager of Wham

(Photo: Terracotta Army. Credit: Getty Images)

First, we go back to 1992, when off the coast of Ireland, a Swiss geology student accidentally discovered the longest set of footprints made by the first four-legged animals to walk on earth.

They pointed to a new date for the key milestone in evolution, when the first amphibians left the water 385 million years ago.

Dr Frankie Dunn, who is a senior researcher in palaeobiology at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History in the UK, then dives into landmark discoveries in geological history.

Plus, the story of Winifred Atwell, a classically-trained pianist from Trinidad who was admired by Queen Elizabeth II and Sir Elton John. She became one of the best-selling artists of the 1950s in the UK.

Then, how the Guarani, an indigenous language of South America, was designated an official language in Paraguay’s new constitution, alongside Spanish.

Also, the lesser known last eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 1944.

Finally, Indian badminton player Rajeev Bagga who has won 14 gold medals at the Deaflympics. In 2001, he was given the ‘Deaflympian of the Century’ award.

Contributors: Iwan Stössel - Swiss Geologist. Dr Frankie Dunn - Senior Researcher in Palaeobiology at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History in the UK. David Olivera - Paraguayan Linguist and Anthropologist. Angelina Formisano - Evacuated from the village of San Sebastiano during the 1944 eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Rajeev Bagga - Indian Badminton Player.

(Picture: Illustration of a tetrapod from the Late Devonian period. Credit: Christian Jegou/Science Photo Library)

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.

We first hear about Uruguay’s tale of David v Goliath - when a tobacco giant took South America's second-smallest country to court over its anti-smoking laws.

Uruguay’s former public health minister María Julia Muñoz describes the significance of the ban and its fallout.

And we shed some light on the wider history of the use of tobacco, its long and controversial history, with Dr Sarah Inskip, a bio-archaeologist at the University of Leicester in the UK.

Plus, the largest search operation in aviation history - ten years on, little is known of the fate of MH370 and the 239 people on board.

Also, Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe on how her sewing school in northern Uganda served as a place of rehabilitation for child soldiers escaping Joseph Kony’s Lord's Resistance Army.

Then, the Carnation Revolution - how Europe’s longest-surviving authoritarian regime was toppled in a day, with barely a drop of blood spilled.

Finally, in August and September 1939, tens of thousands of children began to be evacuated from Paris. Colette Martel, who was nine at the time, describes how a pair of clogs made her feel welcome.

Contributors: María Julia Muñoz - Uruguay’s former public health minister. Dr Sarah Inskip - A bio-archaeologist at the University of Leicester in the UK. Ghyslain Wattrelos - Whose wife and two children were on flight MH370. Adelino Gomes - Witness of the 1974 Carnation Revolution. Colette Martel - Child evacuee in World War Two.

(Photo: An anti-tobacco installation in Montevideo. Credit: Reuters/ Pablo La Rosa)

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. We first hear about a bloodless war between Denmark and Canada, that involved whisky.

In 1984, the two nations were disputing the ownership of the tiny Hans Island, just off the coast of Greenland. It might be the friendliest territorial dispute ever.

We hear from Tom Hoyem and Alan Kessel, politicians on either side.

And we have historian Ditte Melitha Kristensen, from the National Museum and Archives of Greenland, to shed some light on the history of the country.

Plus, how Peruvian archaeologist Walter Alva discovered the richest tomb ever found in the America’s: the final resting place of the ancient ruler, the Lord of Sipan.

Also, we go back to the 1960s when 1,500 Torah scrolls appeared at a synagogue in London.

And a Crimea double-bill. We go back to 2014 when Russia annexed the Ukranian peninsula, and then back to the 1980s, when it was used as a holiday camp for children across the Soviet Union.

Contributors: Tom Hoyem— Minister for Greenland in Denmark. Alan Kessel— Assistant Deputy Minister for Legal Affairs in Canada. Ditte Melitha Kristensen — Greenland historian. Walter Alva— Archaeologist. Phillippa Bernard — Founder member of Westminster Synagogue. Maria Kim Espeland — One of the thousands of children who visited the Artek holiday camp.

(Photo: Greenland. Credit: Thomas Traasdashi/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images)

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. We hear about the famous ski resort, Whistler Blackcomb.

In 2003, the venue won its bid to host the Winter Olympic Games for the first time. Hugh Smythe, known as one of the ‘founding fathers’ of Whistler, has been sharing his memories of the mountain. We also have former Winter Olympian and BBC presenter, Chemmy Alcott, to walk us through the long history of skiing.

Plus, how the tiny island nation of American Samoa suffered the worst defeat ever in international football.

Also, the shocking creation of a two-headed dog by a Soviet scientist.

The murder of transgender woman in Honduras during a military coup in 2009.

And, a long-running dispute over the final resting place of Christopher Columbus’ ashes.

Contributors: Hugh Smythe — One of the ‘founding fathers’ of Whistler. Chemmy Alcott — Former Winter Olympian and TV presenter. Nicky Salapu—American Samoa goalkeeper. Igor Konstantinov — Consultant cardiothoracic surgeon. Claudia Spelman — LGBT activist. Angelita Baeyens — Human rights lawyer. Samuel Bisono — Tour guide and historian.

(Photo: Whistler Blackcomb ski resort. Credit: James MacDonald/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.

We hear about the Juliet Club in Verona, Italy. The club has been replying to mail addressed to Shakespeare’s tragic heroine, Juliet since the early 1990s.

Professor Lisa Bitel talks about the traditions of Valentine’s Day.

Plus, how the small Irish town of Gort became known as ‘Little Brazil’ because it's home to so many Brazilians. The World War Two escape line that fooled the Nazis and the stadium disaster that shocked Egypt.

And the story of the food supplement used by soldiers during the Nigerian civil war that became a drink enjoyed in more than 70 countries around the world.

Contributors: Giovanna Tamassia - daughter of Giulio Tamassia, one of the founders of the Juliet Club. Professor Lisa Bitel - Professor of History & Religion at the University of Southern California, USA. Lucimeire Trindade – resident of Gort, Ireland. Keith Janes – son of captured a British soldier. Christine Lepers – daughter of a French resistance fighter. Mahmoud Al-Khawaga – former footballer with Zamalek. Peter Rasmussen – creator of the drink Supermalt.

(Photo: Giovanna Tamassia from the Juliet Club. Credit: Leonello Bertolucci/Getty Images)

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service telling stories about inspirational black women.

In 1973, the Battle of Versailles pit up-and-coming American designers using black models against the more traditional French. We hear from Bethann Hardison, one of those black models, about how the capital of couture, Paris, became the stage for this defining moment in the history of fashion.

Professor Adrienne Jones, a fashion expert at the Pratt Insitute in New York, explains the cultural significance of the event, and what changed in the world of fashion afterwards.

Plus, the story of the UK’s first luxury Afro-Caribbean hair salon, Splinters, which opened as recently as the 1980s. Charlotte Mensah, known as the ‘Queen of the ‘fro’, recalls what it was like to work there. Part of her story includes an account racial bullying.

Also, archive interviews tell the story of how Rosa Parks defied racist segregation laws in the United States. It contains outdated and offensive language.

We hear how a Nigerian lawyer took on the country’s Sharia courts to overturn a death sentence.

And the tragic story of Lucha Reyes, one of Peru’s most beloved singers.

Contributors: Bethann Hardison- a model who competed in the Battle of Versailles. Prof Adrienne Jones- from the Pratt Institute in New York. Hauwa Ibrahim- one of the first female lawyers from northern Nigeria. Polo Bances- saxophonist who played alongside Lucha Reyes.

(Photo: Bethann Hardison and Armina Warsuma arriving in France. Credit: Photo by Michel Maurou/Reginald Gray/WWD/Penske Media via Getty Images)

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.

We hear about Cyberia - the first commercial internet café which opened in London in 1994. Director of the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford, Professor Vicki Nash, talks us through other notable landmarks in the internet’s history. Plus how the Covid N95 mask was invented by a scientist from Taiwan in 1992.

Also how Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff was punished for his writing on liberation theology. Staying with Brazil, we hear how poor rural workers occupied land owned by the rich, resulting in violent clashes in 1980.

And the world's first global seed vault, buried deep inside a mountain on an Arctic island.

Contributors: Eva Pascoe – a founder of Cyberia internet café Prof Vicki Nash – Director of the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford Peter Tsai – inventor of N95 mask Leonardo Boff – Brazilian theologian Maria Salete Campigotto – Landless Workers Movement protestor Dr Cary Fowler – founder of Doomsday seed vault

(Photo: People using Cyberia in 1994. Credit: Mathieu Polak/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images)