The first budget transatlantic flights

During the Vietnam War, North Vietnamese VietCong guerrillas built a vast network of tunnels in the south of the country as part of the insurgency against the South Vietnamese government and their American allies. The tunnel network was a key base and shelter for the North Vietna ...  Show more

In 1985, Father Robert Prevost arrived in the small northern Peruvian town of Chulucanas for his first missionary assignment. It was a rural community with unpaved streets, widespread poverty and frequent flooding caused by the El Niño weather phenomenon. For local boys like Héct ...  Show more

May 6, 1949. On the runway at Lindbergh Field in San Diego, a scrappy upstart called Pacific Southwest Airlines, PSA, is about to take its first flight. PSA is a budget airline—the world’s first. Other jet age carriers will offer luxury in the sky, but PSA does not. It’s exploiti ...  Show more

Today we take to the friendly skies to detail the fascinating history of air travel. From planes with piano bars and lounges to the current no frills varieties. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. 

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service on the history of travel. Our guest is Dr. Susan Houge Mackenzie, Associate Professor in the Department of Tourism at the University of Otago in New Zealand. First, we'll hear fro ...  Show more