The Arab Spring of 2011

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. We learn about how Play-Doh evolved from a cleaning product to a childhood favourite and the creation of one of the best-selling board games of all time, Catan. Our guest is the e ...  Show more

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. We learn about how a Norwegian businessman brought salmon sushi to Japan in the 1980s. Our guest is cookbook author Nancy Singleton Hachisu, who tells us more about the history ...  Show more

In the early months of 2011 demonstrators took to the streets across the Arab world in what became known as the Arab spring. In February, protests in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi soon turned into an armed revolt seeking to overthrow the dictator, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. S ...  Show more

In 2011 Egyptians took to the streets calling for the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak, whose regime had been in power for nearly 30 years. Their uprising was part of a wave of pro-democracy protests in the Arab world aimed at ending autocratic rule. Women were at the forefro ...  Show more

Protests erupted across the Arab world in 2011, people wanted change, an end to tyranny and dictatorship. But in Syria the unrest, and its put down by the authorities, led to civil war, years of violence and the survival of the Assad regime. One eye witness to events was Rami Jar ...  Show more

The Arab Spring erupted eleven years ago when a wave of "pro-democracy" protests spread throughout the Middle East and North Africa. The effects of the uprisings reverberated around the world as regimes fell in some countries, and civil war began in others. This week, we remember ...  Show more