The writer of Mary Poppins

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 2000, contaminated drinking water in the small Canadian town of Walkerton triggered one of the country’s worst public health disasters.Heavy rainfall washed E. coli bacteria into the town’s water supply, but failures in testing and reporting meant residents continued to drink ...  Show more

On 30 April 1945 Adolf Hitler killed himself in a bunker in the German capital Berlin as Soviet Red Army soldiers closed in. But first he married his lover Eva Braun, and dictated his will. In 1989, Traudl Junge, one of Hitler’s secretaries who was in the bunker when he died, sha ...  Show more

During World War Two, an unconventional special force was formed. Known as the Chindits, they fought behind enemy lines in Burma, now Myanmar during 1943 and 1944 in the war against Japan.Their leader was the charismatic Orde Wingate, a British Army officer. This programme is mad ...  Show more

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. This week we’re looking at the history of space travel, including the 60th anniversary of the first ever space-walk by Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov. Also, the speech that woul ...  Show more

Irving Finkel is an expert on cuneiform — the oldest known writing system. He tells Steve the amazing story of how an ancient clay tablet unlocked the truth about Noah’s ark (and got Finkel in trouble with some Christians).