Disability History special

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. First, the story of the Belgian teenager who exposed a scandal within the country’s Royal Family in 1999. Our guest, Professor Kate Williams takes us through some other royal sc ...  Show more

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service.We start with the launch of Expedition Robinson in Sweden in 1997 and discuss how reality TV began around the world with our guest Misha Kavka, Professor of Cross-Media Culture a ...  Show more

In the final part of his series, Peter White reveals the birth of a modern disabled identity in the 19th century - through the lives of some extraordinary independent blind women. Peter says, 'I'm used to people describing me as disabled. Fair enough, I can't see. But I do wonder ...  Show more

How has America historically defined physical disabilities? How have disability rights activists achieved hard-fought wins? And how does the current debate over mask mandates and pandemic restrictions leave out those with disabilities or chronic illness? Heather and Joanne discus ...  Show more

All wars, in a practical sense, center on the destruction of the human body, and in Bodies in Blue: Disability in the Civil War North (University of Georgia Press, 2019), Sarah Handley-Cousins, a clinical assistant professor at the University at Buffalo, shows how disability was ...  Show more

In December 1995, the first disability rights legislation was passed by India's parliament. An estimated 60 million people, almost six percent of India's population, are affected by physical or mental disabilities. Farhana Haider spoke to Javed Abidi who led the campaign to chang ...  Show more