Oct 4

India's nine day tea strike and the birth of the Excel spreadsheet

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History episodes.Tea expert Sabita Banerji talks about the history of tea in India. We look back at how women teapickers in 2015 fought for justice - and improved the lives of thousands of tea plantation workers.We hear the ... Show More

59m 20s

Sep 27

The origins of Indian cinema and the start of Scouting

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History episodes taking us from India to Texas. Professor Sunny Singh, author of A Bollywood State of Mind, discusses the origins of Indian cinema in 1912. And we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of Bollywood ro ... Show More

1 h

Sep 20

The fight against sexual harassment in Egypt and Omar Sharif enters the world stage

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History episodes, all with an Egyptian theme.We find out more about the 2014 fight against sexual harassment. And we hear from Professor Nicola Pratt, an expert on Middle East feminism about the significance of that moment i ... Show More

59m 58s

Nov 2021

The South African football star murdered for being a lesbian

Eudy Simelane was a star of the South African women's national football team and a gay rights activist. In 2008, she was pursued by a group of men after leaving a pub close to her home in the township of Kwa-Thema. She was gang raped and stabbed to death. She was 31 years old. He ... Show More

8m 55s

Apr 2023

The Assassination that Ended South African Apartheid

The assassination of Chris Hani was a pivotal moment in the dismantling of South African apartheid. On the 10th of April, 1993, he was shot dead as he returned to his home in a quiet suburb of Johannesburg. Negotiations between Nelson Mandela's party and the ruling apartheid gove ... Show More

28 m

Mar 2021

The Sharpeville massacre

In March 1960, the South African police opened fire on a crowd of demonstrators in the township of Sharpeville, killing 69 people and injuring nearly 200 more. The massacre outraged black South Africans, leading to a radicalisation of anti-apartheid organisations such as the ANC ... Show More

9m 3s

Apr 2024

Soweto uprising: Children who marched against apartheid

When South African schoolchildren marched in protest against having to study Afrikaans in 1976, they were gunned down by the police.The killings sparked a cycle of protests across the country against the racist apartheid regime.In 2010, march organiser Bongi Mkhabela told Alan Jo ... Show More

9m 52s

Oct 2023

South Africa win Rugby World Cup

South Africa's men's rugby team made history by winning a fourth World Cup title. How did they achieve it, and what does it mean for the nation and the African continent? A BBC investigation reveals that some school teachers in Kenya are still administering corporal punishment, d ... Show More

30m 59s

Mar 2024

95. La fin de l'apartheid en Afrique du Sud

En 1990, Nelson Mandela est enfin libéré de sa prison où il se trouvait depuis 27 ans !Il avait été emprisonné pour avoir dénoncé et lutté contre l’apartheid, le système terrible de séparation entre les blancs et les noirs dans son pays, l’Afrique du Sud.Mises en place en 1948, c ... Show More

14m 19s

Oct 2021

Britain's World War Two 'Brown Babies'

During World War Two, tens of thousands of African-American US servicemen passed through the UK as part of the war effort. The black GIs stationed in Britain were forced by the American military to abide by the racial segregation laws that applied in the deep south of the US. But ... Show More

10m 45s

Apr 2024

BBC OS Conversations: Sudan's war - One year on

Sudan has experienced a year of civil war. It’s been described by the United Nations as “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history”. Over the past 12 months, we’ve heard from people in Sudan living through the violence and destruction. More than 14,000 people hav ... Show More

23m 20s

The South African football star murdered...