Kultur & Gesellschaft
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Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by and curious about the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from how the Excel spreadsheet was developed, the creation of cartoon rabbit Miffy and how the sound barrier was broken.We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: the moment Reagan and Gorbachev met in Geneva, Haitian singer Emerante de Pradines’ life and Omar Sharif’s legendary movie entrance in Lawrence of Arabia.You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, like the invention of a stent which has saved lives around the world; the birth of the G7; and the meeting of Maldives’ ministers underwater. We cover everything from World War Two and Cold War stories to Black History Month and our journeys into space.
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Folge vom 24.05.2021The strike that shocked IndiaWhen one and a half million Indian railway workers went on strike for 20 days in 1974 it brought the country to a halt. Essential food, goods and workers were unable to reach their destinations. Despite this, the general public were largely sympathetic to the strike as they too felt a sense of anger at the government over the economy and allegations of corruption. Claire Bowes has been talking to union leader Subhash Malgi about why the government attempt to prevent the action with mass arrests and harassment backfired and to author Stephen Sherlock about how it became - what was at the time - the biggest strike in history and led to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's declaration the following year of a national state of emergency.Photo: Train from Darjeeling to Siliguri 1970. Credit: Paolo KOCH/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
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Folge vom 21.05.2021Fighting forced marriage in warIn 2009 a war crimes trial in Sierra Leone ruled that forced marriage was a crime against humanity. It was the first time a court had recognised that charge. The ruling came in a trial of three rebel leaders for crimes committed during Sierra Leone's civil war. The legal turning point came largely as a result of the testimonies of the women who had been victims. The prosecution argued that forced marriage should be considered a crime against humanity distinct from other forms of sexual violence. Farhana Haider has been speaking to the former chief prosecutor Stephen Rapp about the trials.Photo: Sierra Leone, repatriated refugees reaching Freetown January 2001 Credit: Ullstein Bild/Getty Images
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Folge vom 20.05.2021Saving the world's wetlandsIran hosted a meeting to save the world's wetlands in 1971. The Ramsar Convention - named after the village on the Caspian Sea where it was originally signed - is seen as the first of the modem global intergovernmental treaties on the sustainable use of natural resources. Claire Bowes has been speaking to the Belgian representative, Eckhart Kuijken, about the battle by conservationists to interest people and governments in the value of wetlands. He describes how his home country had no planning laws protecting natural landscapes until 1962 - so that many were lost to industry and agriculture.Photo: Hawizeh Marsh in Iran. Credit: courtesy of the Convention on Wetlands
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Folge vom 18.05.2021Striking in South Korea in 1980There were strikes and student protests across South Korea in May 1980. The military government responded with a brutal crackdown in the city of Gwangju and elsewhere striking workers faced arrest and even torture. Heongjun Park has been hearing from one of those strikers, Bae Ok Byoung, who worked in a factory making wigs in Seoul. She, and the other female employees had gone on strike demanding better working conditions, but after the industrial action ended she was jailed, tortured and then blacklisted for decades. This is a 2 Degrees West production. Photo: Labour activist Bae Ok Byoung talking to some of the workers at the wig factory in Seoul where she worked in 1980.