90 years of the BBC World Service

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes.We hear a survivor's incredible archive account of living through the Siege of Paris in 1870. Sydney Snell was in her 80s when she recorded her memories with the BBC in 1946.Our guest Professor Beatrice Heu ...  Show more

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes.American artist Keith Haring's bold 1986 mural on the Berlin Wall and British naturalist Gerald Durrell's 1950s mission to save species from extinction.We discuss other examples of art which aim to bring pe ...  Show more

It is the 90th anniversary of the BBC World Service. Broadcasting to countries behind the Iron Curtain without a free or independent media between 1947 and 1991 was arguably the service’s finest hour. The corporation was on the front line of the information war as the BBC’s forme ...  Show more

Michael Wood discusses the BBC’s Domesday Project, David Reynolds reflects on Operation Barbarossa, Angus Konstam considers the fate of Captain Kidd and the new CEO of the Nation Archives comments on the organisation’s future plans. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more ...  Show more

In the first programme of a new series, Andrea Catherwood discusses BBC coverage of the Queen’s funeral with Royal Correspondent Jonny Dymond and the BBC’s Director of Journalism, Jonathan Munro.Kate Bush’s musical renaissance featured in a recent Archive on 4. We put two young l ...  Show more