Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
This week we’re looking at the history of space travel, including the 60th anniversary of the first ever space-walk by Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov.
Also, the speech that would have been given if the Apollo 11 astronauts didn’t make their way back from the moon; the founding of the European Space Agency and how Brazil came back from tragedy to launch their fist successful rocket.
The Sky at Night’s Dr Ezzy Pearson joins us to tell us about the history of robot’s in space and the Soviet Union’s exploration of Venus.
Contributors:
Archive of Alexei Leonov – the first man to walk in space
Dr Ezzy Pearson – Features Editor for the BBC’s Sky at Night magazine
Felix Palmerio – engineer for Brazil’s space programme
Archive of William Safire – speechwriter for US President Richard Nixon
Bill Holland – former historian for NASA
Andrea Amaldi – grandson of Edoardo Amaldi, one of the founding fathers of the European Space Agency(Photo: Alexei Leonov on his first space walk in 1965. Credit: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)
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51:08
The Americans with Disabilities Act and the invention of GPS
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.We find out about the landmark protest in 1990 when wheelchair users crawled up the steps of the US Capitol Building in Washington DC, campaigning for disability rights.Our expert is Dr Maria Orchard, law lecturer at the University of Leeds, who has carried out research into disability and inclusion.We hear about the 2015 attack on the Bardo Museum in Tunisia's capital, in which 22 tourists were killed.Next, the Gambian woman who in 1997 began making bags and purses out of old discarded plastic and is now globally recognised as Africa's Queen of Recycling.The South African musical King Kong which opened to critical acclaim in 1959 and whose all-black cast defied apartheid.Finally, the invention of the Global Positioning System - GPS - in the late 1970s, which now keeps aircraft in the sky and supports banking transactions.Contributors:Anita Cameron - disability rights campaigner
Dr Maria Orchard - lecturer in law at the University of Leeds
Hamadi Ben Abdesslem - tour guide
Isatou Ceesay - environmental campaigner
Nelson Mandela - former President of South Africa
Marian Matshikiza - daughter of Todd Matshikiza, jazz pianist and composer
Professor Brad Parkinson - chief architect of GPS(Photo: 8 year-old Jennifer Keelan crawls up the steps of the US Capitol, 12 March 1990. Credit: AP/Jeff Markowitz)
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51:24
The invention of the shopping trolley and the Calais 'Jungle'
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service.We find out how Sylvan Goldman’s invention of the shopping trolley in 1930s America turned him into a multi-millionaire.Our expert is Rachel Bowlby, Professor of Comparative Literature at University College London, who is also the author of two books on the history of shopping.We hear about Toyota’s military pick-up trucks that transformed the 1987 north African conflict between Chad and Libya.The 2015 migrant crisis in Europe which led to thousands of people setting-up camp in the French port of Calais.Next, how US forces invaded the Central American state of Panama in 1989 to depose General Manuel Noriega.And finally in 1965 at the height of the USA’s civil rights struggle, the landmark legislation that was brought in to guarantee the rights of African Americans to vote.This programme contains outdated language which some people might find offensive.Contributors:
Charles Kuralt – a journalist for CBS News
Sylvan Goldman – inventor of the shopping trolley
Rachel Bowlby - Professor of Comparative Literature at University College London
Mahamat Saleh Bani - former officer in the Chadian Armed Forces
Enrique Jelenszky – lawyer
Jean-Marc Puissesseau - former President and Chairman of the Port of Calais
C T Vivian – US minister
George Wallace – former Governor of Alabama
Lyndon B Johnson – former President of the United States(Photo: A woman pushing a shopping cart, 1949. Credit: Bettman via Getty Images)
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50:55
Discovering the haemoglobin structure and the Nellie massacre
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service.We hear about the moment Dr Max Perutz discovered the haemoglobin structure.Our expert is Professor Sir Alan Fersht, who is a chemist at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology and knew Dr Perutz personally.We also hear about 22 Inuit children from Greenland's indigenous population who were sent to Denmark as part of a social experiment in 1951.Also, when mixed-raced children from the then Belgian Congo known as ‘métis’, were forcibly taken from their homes in 1953.When an eruption of violence in Assam led to an estimated 3,000 being killed in the Nellie massacre of 1983.Finally, the devastating impact of the 2010 tsunami in Chile and a woman who survived it.This programme contains outdated language which some people might find offensive.Contributors:
Lectures and programmes from the BBC archive
Professor Sir Alan Fersht - chemist at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology.
Helen Thiesen - a child in Denmark's Inuit children social experiment.
Marie-José Loshi - one of the mixed-race ‘métis’ who was forcibly removed from her home in the then Belgian Congo.
Bedabrata Lahkar - a journalist for the Assam Tribune newspaper at the time of the Nellie massacre.
Alison Campbell - a survivor of Chile’s 2010 tsunami.(Photo: Dr Max Perutz and Dr Paul Kedrew. Credit: Hulton Deutsch/Contributor via Getty Images)
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51:16
Death of a language and the world’s longest kiss
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service.We hear about the death of one of the oldest languages in the world, when an 85 year old woman died and took it with her in 2010.Our expert guest is Dr Mandana Seyfeddinipur, who is the Head of the Endangered Languages Archive which endeavours to preserve languages that are disappearing at “an alarming rate.”We also hear about the historian who helped bring a former Stasi officer to justice decades after he killed a man.Also the moment Bolivia elected its first ever indigenous president in 2005.The Thai couple that broke the world record for the longest kiss twice.Plus, it’s 60 years since the controversial black activist, Malcolm X was assassinated. We hear from a man who was in the audience in New York when it happened.This programme contains outdated and offensive language.Contributors:
Dr Anvita Abbi – linguist who documented one of the oldest languages before it died
Dr Mandana Seyfeddinipur – Head of the Endangered Languages Archive
Dr Filip Gańczak – the historian who helped convict a former Stasi officer of murder
Herman Ferguson who was in the audience when Malcolm X was assassinated
Álvaro García Linera – Vice President of Bolivia under Evo Morales for 14 years
Ekkachai – one half of the couple who broke the record for the world’s longest kiss(Photo: Boa Senior in Hospital. Credit: Anvita Abbi)
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