Algerian independence

The anti-Apartheid activist Steve Biko, leader of the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa, died in a police cell in 1977. The South African police claimed he'd gone on hunger strike and had starved himself to death, but he had only been in prison a matter of days. Helen ... Show More

John Howard Griffin, a white journalist, dyed his skin black to experience segregation in America's Deep South. John Howard Griffin wrote a book about his seven week experience.*** Listeners should be aware that some of the language in this programme reflects the historical conte ... Show More

In May 1992 the people of South Central Los Angeles took to the streets in fury at police brutality.They were angry that Los Angeles police department officers accused of beating a motorist called Rodney King, had been acquitted.Hear Rodney King's take on the beating, and the unr ... Show More

Sixty years after Algeria's independence from France, first-hand accounts of a traumatic 'birth of a nation': a female Algerian bomber who was part of the battle for Algiers; how the French military responded with brutal tactics; a massacre on the streets of Paris; and reprisals ... Show More

More than 200,000 Algerians fought for France during the war of independence, becoming known as Harkis. After Algeria's independence in 1962, the Harkis were treated badly by both the Algerians and the French. The FLN regarded the Harkis as traitors; while the French washed their ... Show More

Hundreds of thousands of French people who'd been living in Algeria for generations fled for safety to France in the summer of 1962. It was in the last days of the war of independence in the North African nation. Known as the 'Pieds Noirs', the new arrivals were not generally wel ... Show More

In the late 1950s a young Frenchman, who now goes by the name Ted Morgan, was conscripted to fight for France against Algeria's independence fighters. He served as an intelligence officer during the Battle of Algiers, and over sixty years later he is still haunted by what he saw, ... Show More

Zohra Drif was 21 years old when she planted a bomb that exploded at a busy ice-cream parlour in Algiers. The Algerian student targeted the venue in 1956 during her country’s war of independence with France, because she knew it would be frequented by European settlers. Dozens of ... Show More

During Algeria's War of Independence, a group of Algerian players secretly left their clubs in France to form their own national team. Some had already been selected to play for France in the upcoming World Cup Finals in 1958. In 2014, Saint Etienne striker, Rashid Mekhloufi, spo ... Show More

The French colonialists who returned to France after decades in Algeria, the Catholic welcome when the British army was first deployed to Northern Ireland, plus the US nuclear submarine that went under the north pole, Britain's last battle in China in WW2 and the introduction of ... Show More