Witness History: Archive 2014

It is 60 years since William Golding's acclaimed novel was first published. The story, of schoolboys marooned on an isla... Read more

In June 1989 the communist authorities in China crushed a huge pro-democracy protest in Beijing. Demonstrators, most of ... Read more

In early 1967, the American guitarist, Jimi Hendrix, took London by storm. His flamboyant style and new ways of playing... Read more

It has been 50 years since the Civil Rights Act passed through the United States Congress, guaranteeing new rights for A... Read more

Cuban exiles, backed by the US government, tried to overthrow Fidel Castro in April 1961. But their mission ended in dis... Read more

In July 1904, the great Latin American poet Pablo Neruda was born in a remote town in the south of Chile. Witness presen... Read more

It is 60 years since the great British mathematician died. He is believed to have killed himself after he was put on tr... Read more

In April 1979 the brutal Ugandan ruler, Idi Amin, was ousted by invading Tanzanian troops and members of the Ugandan opp... Read more

In November 1945 the first major war crimes trials in history opened in the German city of Nuremberg. Witness talks to t... Read more

In May 1995 a brutal war raged in the Russian republic of Chechnya. As Russian forces fought to retain control of the ca... Read more

In February 1944, nearly half a million Chechen and Ingush people were deported from the North Caucasus on the orders of... Read more

In May 1939 more than 900 Jews, many of them young children, fled Nazi Germany aboard a luxury cruise liner. They were t... Read more

The heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was killed in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. He - and his ... Read more

In 1991 the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated. The grandson of the founder of modern India, Jawaharla... Read more

In May 1974, the West German chancellor Willy Brandt was forced to resign after it was revealed that one of his aides wa... Read more

In July 1969, United States Senator Edward Kennedy was involved in a car accident on Chappaquiddick Island in which a yo... Read more

Senator Joseph McCarthy made it his mission to purge communists from American public life - but in April 1954 he was the... Read more

In November 1974, West German band Kraftwerk released their seminal album Autobahn. They would go on to become one of th... Read more

In April 1945, thousands of Italians crowded into a Milan square to see the body of the wartime fascist dictator, Benito... Read more

In 1960, Brazil opened a new capital city in its remote central plains. Designed by the modernist architect Oscar Niemey... Read more