Description
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
We’re going wild for animals this week. We find out how the Ibadan Zoo became one of Nigeria’s biggest tourist attractions during the 1970s. Our guest Harriet Ritvo, professor of history at MIT, looks back across the centuries to reveal the fascination that humans have always had for animals. And more on the environmental campaigner who became known as Lady Tarzan for her fight against illegal logging in the forests of India.
Plus, we hear from a journalist tortured in Iran's notorious Evin Prison in the wake of the 2009 protests against the Islamic regime. Also, why hundreds of thousands of Moroccans were ordered into the Spanish Sahara by their king. And finally, more on the Bolivian president who went on hunger strike to try to save his country.
Contributors:
Peaches Golding - wife of zoologist Bob Golding
Professor Harriet Ritvo – professor of history at MIT
Marcela Siles - daughter of former Bolivian president Hernán Siles Zuazo
Seddik Maaninou - TV cameraman
Francis Gillies – North Africa expert
Maziar Bahari - journalist
Jamuna Tudu – environmentalist nicknamed ‘Lady Tarzan’
(Photo: Imade the gorilla at Ibadan Zoo. Credit: bobgolding.co.uk)
We hear about the half-clay, half-grass exhibition match between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer. Argentinean creative entrepreneur and tennis fan Pablo del Campo tells Uma Doraiswamy how he made the iconic court possible in May 2000. Fiona Skille, professor of Sports History at Glasgow...
Published 11/16/24
We hear about Polish war hero Irena Sendler who saved thousands of Jewish children during the World War Two.
Expert Kathryn Atwood explains why women’s stories of bravery from that time are not as prominent as men’s.
Plus, the invention of ‘Baby’ – one of the first programmable computers. It was...
Published 11/09/24