Witness History
Witness History is a short BBC World Service podcast about history that takes you inside big moments from the past through first-hand testimony and archive. Each weekday, in around nine minutes, we revisit one moment that helped shape the world and hear it through the voice of someone who was there. Scientists, artists, campaigners, soldiers, leaders and everyday people tell their true stories.
When you subscribe to Witness History, you’ll be taken inside turning points in world affairs, from West Africa’s fight back against Boko Haram in 2015, to the behind-closed-doors talks that led to the US-Cuba “thaw” and the surprise announcement of restored relations.
You’ll discover what it was like to experience disasters and how people recovered from them, including the Tabasco floods in Mexico, Portugal’s worst train disaster, and the huge clean-up after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.
You’ll explore culture and ideas too: Sweden’s Expedition Robinson, often credited as the first modern reality TV game show; the friendship between The Beatles’ George Harrison and Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar; and the night a tiger attack brought Las Vegas superstars Siegfried and Roy’s show to a sudden end.
And if you’re curious about inventions, we’ll tell you how air fryers, BlackBerry, YouTube, Alexa, GPS, superglue, the shopping cart (shopping trolley) and bubble tea were created.
If you’re new to Witness History, the appeal is simple: real voices, one strong true story, and a fresh way to understand today through events from history – all in the time it takes to enjoy a cup of tea or a walk around the block. Join millions of BBC World Service podcast listeners around the globe and enjoy the insight, context and detail Witness History will bring you.
© BBC 2026 · more info
Artwork and data is from the podcast’s open RSS feed; we link directly to audio · Read our DMCA procedure
See more
This podcast may use tracking and attribution, dynamic content insertion and is insecure
Stats: Statistics are produced by BBC to help Witness History to understand how many downloads it is getting, or how many people are listening. Your device’s IP address and user agent is used to help calculate this figure. Here is more detail about podcast statistics.
Tracking and attribution: BBC or its partners may connect the fact you listened to this podcast to an action elsewhere on the internet. For example - it may spot a device that downloaded an episode of Witness History later visited the website of an advertiser; or it may track that a device that listened to Witness History also listened to a different show. This form of attribution is used to measure advertising effectiveness.
Dynamic content insertion: BBC may use limited data that they know about you - the device you’re using, the approximate location you’re in, or other data that can be derived from this, like the current weather forecast for your area - to change parts of the audio. Witness History may do this for advertising or for other forms of content, like news stories.
Witness History is able to use the above tools since its podcast host or measurement company offers this service. It doesn’t mean that this individual podcast uses them, or has access to this functionality. We use open data.
This uses an insecure connection. This podcast uses an HTTP, not HTTPS, address for its audio files. These are not encrypted, and may allow people who can see your internet traffic - like your internet service provider, employer or even your government - to know that you listen to this podcast.
Here’s more about insecure links and unique domains.
Listen and follow
Apple PodcastsOther shows you may enjoy
How this works
These shows are recommended by this creator within their RSS feed, or are recommended by others in theirs. We use podroll for this. Here are the most recommended.Information for podcasters
- Podcast GUID:
352bcc44-fa4c-5ba3-bd4a-e428647c389e - This podcast doesn’t have a trailer. Apple Podcasts has a specific episode type for a trailer, which also gets used by many other podcast apps: but there isn’t one correctly marked in the RSS feed from BBC.
- This podcast appears to be missing from Truefans. We list all the podcast directories to be in.
- See this podcast’s listener numbers, contact details and more at Rephonic
- Validate this podcast’s RSS feed with Livewire, Truefans or CastFeedValidator