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Jun 2023
52m 50s

Somalia's civil war and golf on the moon

Bbc World Service
About this episode

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History stories.

Ahmed Mohamed Hassan, a fighter pilot in the Somali air force defied orders to bomb civilians in 1988. Explaining more about the Somali civil war and its legacy is BBC Monitoring's regional analyst Beverly Ochieng.

Also, the demonstrations in East Germany that triggered martial rule in 1953.

From the archive, Sam King recalls arriving in England on the Empire Windrush in 1948, one of 802 pioneering Caribbean migrants.

Plus, the 1994 raid on a gay nightclub in Melbourne, Australia, where more than 400 people were strip-searched and detained.

Finally, in 1971 Alan Shepard, the commander of Apollo 14 became the first and only person to play golf on the moon.

Contributors: Ahmed Mohamed Hassan on being a fighter pilot in the Somali air force Beverly Ochieng, BBC Monitoring's Horn Of Africa analyst Helmut Strecker on his recollections of the protests in East Germany Sam King on the Empire Windrush Gary Singer on the raid of Tasty nightclub Laura Shepard Churchley on her father Commander Alan Shepard

(Photo: Refugees in Somalia's civil war. Credit: Getty Images)

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