Witness History Episodes Available now
50 years since the Soweto Uprising
A former schoolgirl remembers the demonstration that sparked the Soweto Uprising in 1976
The Georgian exodus from Abkhazia
In 1993, separatist forces took Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia
Hussein of Jordan: The survivor king
In 1970 King Hussein of Jordan escaped unharmed after gunmen opened fire on his motorcade
The inspiration for Chekhov's Three Sisters
In 1897, Paul Shishkoff lived next door to the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov.
Picasso and the Surrealist summer
In 1937 some of the 20th Century's best known Surrealist artists are on holiday in France
Mstislav Rostropovich: Virtuoso cellist
In 1978, Rostropovich lost Soviet citizenship for “unpatriotic activity”
Nelson Mandela's incarceration at Robben Island
In 1964, Nelson Mandela was put in the maximum security prison on Robben Island
The creation of Inspector Montalbano
In March 1994, the first Inspector Montalbano mystery, The Shape of Water, was published
The protests that sparked the Tiananmen Square massacre
How mass student demonstrations in May 1989 led to bloodshed in Beijing
Australia's first Big Thing
In 1963, a giant sculpture of a Scotsman began one of the country's quirkiest phenomena
