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Witness History Episodes

  1.

    The creation of Greenwich Mean Time

    Experiments by John Flamsteed in the 17th Century led to the time zone being created

  2. My dad created Dungeons & Dragons

    In 1974, Gary Gygax created the fantasy roleplay game.

  3. Bonga Kwenda: Music banned in Angola and Portugal

    Outspoken supporter of Angolan independence, Bonga Kwenda was forced into exile in 1972

  4. Ethiopia's 1984 famine

    In 1984, a news report on a famine in Ethiopia led to a global fundraising campaign

  5. I found the first dinosaur remains in Antarctica

    In 1986, Argentinian geologist Eduardo Olivero discovered a new kind of Ankylosaurus

  6. The fight to stop skin lightening in India

    In 2013, Kavitha Emmanuel began campaigning to stop skin lightening in India

  7. Eight years trapped on the Suez Canal in Egypt

    After the Six Day War in 1967, 14 ships were stuck on the Great Bitter Lake

  8. Dyke and Dryden: Cosmetic kings

    In 1969, Dyke and Dryden started one the most successful black British businesses

  9. Fleeing Afghanistan alone as a child

    Dr Waheed Arian escaped poverty and war in Afghanistan to begin a new life in the UK

  10. The Rose Revolution in Georgia

    In 2003, demonstrators stormed the parliament building in Tbilisi, holding flowers

  11. The Sunflower Movement

    In 2014, more than 500,000 Taiwanese people protested against a new trade deal with China

  12. 'Robocops’ in the Democratic Republic of Congo

    Handmade robots were installed in DRC's capital city Kinshasa to direct traffic

  13. How the QR code was invented

    In 1994 Japanese engineer Masahiro Hara designed a square of data, now known as a QR code

  14. The world's first general purpose electronic computer

    In 1946, one of the world’s first electronic computers was unveiled in the USA.

  15. WABOT-1: The first humanoid robot

    Scientists at Waseda University in Japan built the world's first humanoid robot in 1973

  16. Eliza: When chatbots started

    1966 saw the invention of Eliza, which is said to be the first chatbot

  17. The longest plane hijacking in Latin America

    In 1973, two men pretending to be Colombian guerrillas hijacked a plane for 60 hours

  18. The speech that inspired the Law of the Sea

    In November 1967, the Maltese diplomat, Arvid Pardo, gave a historic speech at the UN

  19. South Africa’s nuclear weapons

    In 1989, South Africa became the first country to make and then dismantle nuclear weapons

  20. Cambodia war crimes

    Kerry Hamill mistakenly sailed into Cambodian waters and was killed by the Khmer Rouge

  21. Kristallnacht: The night of broken glass

    In 1938, the Nazis launched a violent anti-Jewish attack, known as Kristallnacht

  22. The Estonia ferry disaster

    In 1994 the Estonia ferry sank off Finland in one of Europe's biggest shipping tragedies

  23. South Africa’s first inter-racial marriage

    For almost 40 years, marriage between people from different ethnic backgrounds was banned

  24. Arrested for 'immorality' in South Africa

    Dr Zureena Desai was arrested in South Africa for breaking the Immorality Act

  25. Why Tupac was fired from Menace II Society

    In 1993, the Hughes brothers released their debut movie

  26. India's Mars Orbiter Mission

    India placed a satellite into orbit around Mars on its first attempt in 2014

  27. Designing the Google logo

    Brazilian artist and designer, Ruth Kedar’s story of designing the Google logo.

  28. The discovery of New Zealand’s first dinosaur

    The discovery of New Zealand's first dinosaur by Joan Wiffen

  29. India’s plague outbreak

    In 1994, hundreds of thousands of people fled the city of Surat

  30. Camouflaging Leningrad

    In 1941, landmarks were painted and covered in the Russian city during World War Two

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