Witness History
BBC oral history from eyewitnesses; testimony cross-checkable against scholarship
10:05He Gave Up the Patent Royalties and Got American Homes Online Through Cable TV
In 1991, an Iranian-born engineer used the coaxial cable already in place to move data both ways in and out of the home, then donated the technology royalty-free to the telecom industry to become a global standard — he could have made billions from it.
10:57Norway's teachers refused to teach the Nazi curriculum, and the occupier lost the schools
Germany took southern Norway in four weeks but never took Norway's classrooms in four years: of 14,000 teachers, 12,000 refused to join the Nazi teachers' union, more than 1,000 were sent to camps, and when they came back they were still not members.
10:32Peace in Northern Ireland wasn't negotiated—it was cried into being by two women
In 1976, a car crash in Belfast killed three young children. Their aunt and a witness launched the Peace People movement, violence in Northern Ireland fell by 70%, and the two women won the Nobel Peace Prize.
10:29No Atrocities in the SS Officer's Album — Only Blueberries and Holidays
A private photo album kept by an SS officer records not atrocities but holidays, dinners and blueberry picking; it proves the men who carried out the killing knew exactly what they were doing, and it is a reminder that understanding the Holocaust means looking at the perpetrators.
10:12Water privatisation is not destiny: Uruguay's referendum on the right to water
On 31 October 2004, Uruguayans voted 64.7% in favour of writing ‘water is a natural resource essential to life’ into the constitution, and of restricting water supply to the state alone — making Uruguay the first country in the world to lock water privatisation out at constitutional level. The movement began with a tap being shut off in a coastal city.
9:15Thirty Thousand Canadians Moved: The Young Were Saved, the Old Lost Everything
From 1954, nearly thirty thousand people in Newfoundland, Canada, were moved from remote fishing villages to towns. The younger generation gained education and a way out; the old and the Inuit lost their homes, scattered until there was no way left to reach one another. Resettlement has no single verdict.
10:59Mandalay hinged on one call: drop the frontal assault, lay siege
In March 1945 British forces attacked Mandalay in Burma; against Fort Dufferin's thick walls and deep moat, the frontal assault failed. The division commander refused to keep storming it and switched to a siege, and the Japanese eventually abandoned the fort.