The killing of Osama Bin Laden

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.We hear how a French curator uncovered lost documents showing that the Nazis researched the Bayeux Tapestry during World War Two. Our guest, Professor Catherine Clarke, takes us th ...  Show more

Max Pearson presents a collection of science fiction themed Witness History stories from the BBC World Service.Our guest is Lisa Yaszek, Regents' Professor of Science Fiction Studies at Georgia Tech in the USA.Actor Peter Coyote looks back on the making of E.T. the Extra-Terrestr ...  Show more

The US tracked down the al-Qaeda leader to a city in northern Pakistan in May 2011. Special operations troops were sent to capture or kill Bin Laden in a top secret raid in the dead of night. The Americans did not tell their Pakistani allies about the raid beforehand. Gabriela Jo ...  Show more

When US forces finally tracked down terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden -- living in Pakistan, likely with support of the ISI -- he was killed and, according to the official story, buried at sea. So why doesn't everyone believe this is true? When did Osama Bin Laden actually die? ...

His poetry celebrated a cosmic struggle of violence and glory, but his end was far from a medieval power play. Why did Osama bin Laden spend his final years in a secluded compound in Pakistan, attempting to manage a global terrorist organisation while living a surprisingly mundan ...  Show more

On the 9th of September 2001 the Afghan fighter Ahmed Shah Massoud who led the opposition to Taliban rule, was killed by a suicide bomber. Just two days later, Al Qaeda carried out their attacks in the USA. In 2011 Louise Hidalgo spoke one of Ahmed Shah Massoud's friends who was ...  Show more