The History Hour

In partnership with the BBC 100 Women list, we have a selection of stories about inspiring and influential women from around the world. Scientist Katalin Karikó, who won the Nobel Prize and helped sa...

We hear from Magnus Carlsen, who in 2014, became the first player ever to win all three world chess titles in one year, achieving the highest official rating of any player in history. Woman grandmaste...

During the early years of Syria’s brutal civil war, the neighbourhood of Yarmouk, close to the Syrian capital Damascus, bore the brunt of the government’s viciousness. Known as ‘the Pianist of Yarmouk...

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 i...

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 pro...

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes. For nearly 40 years, Siegfried and Roy wowed audiences in Las Vegas with death-defying tricks involving white lions and tigers...

First, on its 50th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons, we hear from Luke Gygax, whose father created the fantasy role-play game. We also hear from Dr Melissa Rogerson, senior lecturer and board games r...

We hear about the Sunflower Movement in Taiwan in 2014. Brian Hioe, an activist who occupied Parliament in Taipei, recalls the events. We hear from Nino Zuriashvili, one of the protesters at the Rose ...

We start with the world's first general purpose electronic computer, the ENIAC, built in 1946 by a team of female mathematicians including Kathleen Kay McNulty. We speak to Gini Mauchly Calcerano, dau...

We start our programme in 1973, when two men claiming to be Colombian guerrillas hijacked a plane making it fly across Latin American for 60 hours. Edilma Perez was a former fight attendant for SAM ai...