
Witness History
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History as told by the people who were there.
Witness History
1d ago
Eva Peron – otherwise known as Evita - became an icon in 1940s Argentina, famous for her passionate speeches and populist rhetoric.
Born into poverty, she moved to Buenos Aries at the age of 15 to become an actress, and was soon starring in radio soap operas.
In 1945, she married Colonel Juan Peron, a rising figure in the Argentinian military, and supported his campaign to become president.
After he won the election, she set up the Eva Perón Foundation, to distribute money, food and medicines to the poor. It won her the adulation of Argentina’s working classes, although some believed she explo ..read more
Witness History
2d ago
On 10 December 1992, Australia’s Prime Minister, Paul Keating, addressed a crowd in a Sydney suburb called Redfern, to mark the UN’s International Year of the World’s Indigenous People. What started as a low-key affair, is remembered as one of the most powerful speeches in Australian history. It was the first time an Australian Prime Minister took moral responsibility for the horrors committed against Indigenous Australians.
The speech received significant backlash, but it’s often credited with paving the way for a later Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, to issue a formal apology to Indig ..read more
Witness History
2d ago
When Mary Fisher was diagnosed with HIV in 1991 she did not represent the typical stereotype of someone HIV-positive. She was white, heterosexual and contracted the disease in marriage. She used her platform at the Republican National Convention in Texas in 1992 to try and change people's treatment of those carrying the Aids virus.
The speech was broadcast live to millions of people via the major US TV outlets. She argued that she did not want her sons, aged four and two, to face stigma from the "whisper of Aids" once she had died.
It is ranked as one of the most important speeches in the US i ..read more
Witness History
4d ago
Dolores Ibárruri was nicknamed La Pasionaria for her fiery speeches to the anti-fascist forces during the Spanish civil war. The fighting had begun in July 1936. Troops, led by General Francisco Franco, launched an uprising against the democratically-elected government. These Nationalist rebels were backed by Adolf Hitler in Germany and Benito Mussolini in Italy.
On the other side were supporters of the Republican government, including Spain’s communist party, and Dolores was one of its leaders. She was already known for her speeches against fascism, but it was the civil war that sealed her re ..read more
Witness History
1w ago
In 1989, a dark teen comedy exploring self-harm and suicide flopped at cinemas.
Heathers would have to wait years before achieving cult status through home video tape releases.
Its stark portrayal of teenage life launched an age of more radical teen movies.
Actress Lisanne Falk played one of the ‘Heathers’, a titular trio of girls who ruled their school, until someone started taking them down.
She tells Drew Hyndman about Heathers’ journey to cult classic.
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 s ..read more
Witness History
1w ago
In 1998, a mysterious phenomenon turned many of the world’s most colourful coral reefs deathly white.
It was the first recorded global coral bleaching event in history, and ecologists blamed it on rising ocean temperatures caused by climate change.
Studies showed that when the oceans get warmer, it stresses the corals, causing them to expel the algae that give them their colour, and so turn white.
Since then there have been four global bleaching events, which have destroyed up to 20% of the world’s reefs, and threatened the economy, tourism and livelihoods of more than 30 countries.
Marine eco ..read more
Witness History
1w ago
In the early 1990s, as Cuba faced a devastating economic crisis, leading to severe food shortages and malnutrition, around 50,000 Cubans were inexplicably struck down with sight loss.
One of America's leading eye specialists, Dr Alfredo Sadun, was invited to the communist-ruled island by Fidel Castrol to help figure out what was going on. Mike Lanchin spoke to Dr Sadun in 2021.
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 shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes ..read more
Witness History
1w ago
In June 1944, a village in France was destroyed in just one day. German soldiers entered Oradour-sur-Glane and gathered the villagers together. They separated the men from the women and children and took groups to different locations of the village.
On that day, 642 were killed. Robert Hébras was just a teenager at the time.
Robert’s granddaughter, Agathe Hébras tells Gill Kearsley his powerful story, from the arrival of the soldiers to his escape and then his realisation that he was one of the few survivors of the massacre.
A warning, this programme contains descriptions of death.
Eye-witness ..read more
Witness History
1w ago
In 1966, at Johns Hopkins University in the US, a little-known glamorous French philosopher called Jacques Derrida took to the stage and eviscerated the prevailing philosophy of the day, making him an overnight sensation.
The following year, he published three hugely influential books making the case for his theory of “deconstruction”, which questioned the foundations of Western thought and knowledge.
Deconstruction’s influence can still be felt today: from calls to decolonise the curriculum, to experimental architecture, to feminist retellings of the classics. While the word “deconstruct” has ..read more
Witness History
2w ago
In 1981 the first major series of English lessons was broadcast on Chinese television.
President Deng Xiaoping had allowed private enterprise and was pursuing an era of “opening up” to the rest of the world. It followed a decade of educational turmoil when teachers had been castigated as bourgeois by the former leader Mao Zedong.
Kathy Flower presented the English education programme, Follow Me, several times a week at primetime. It was watched by an estimated 500 million people keen to get a taste of the English language and observe westerners on television. Kathy Flower recalls to Josephine ..read more