Bungee jumping and the Benidorm boom

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

On 12 November 1988, the world’s first commercial bungee jumping site was opened near Queenstown, New Zealand.AJ Hackett and Henry Van Asch started out bungee jumping as a hobby with friends. They developed the bungee ropes and rigging system and found the perfect site – the hist ...  Show more

In the 1950s, the transformation of the sleepy little town of Benidorm began when Pedro Zaragoza was appointed mayor. He started by getting pipes built to allow running water, then went on to pass a decree which allowed women to wear bikinis. Now, every year millions of tourists ...  Show more

The rise and fall of Butlin's, Benidorm and Franco, class, package holidays, bikinis, mass tourism and sunbathing. The third episode in our holiday series has it all - join Tom and Dominic as they discuss the history of modern holidays in the post First World War era. Join The R ...  Show more

Welcome to the first of four episodes on the history of holidays: Byron's Grand Tour; The Invention of Mass Tourism; Sun, Sea and Sex; and Roman Holidays. In the first episode, Tom and Dominic explore the adventures of Byron, Boswell and their peers contemporaries to foreign lan ...  Show more