Witness: Archive 2011

The picnic planned as a demonstration for European integration that ended with hundreds of East Germans escaping to the West through the Iron Curtain. We talk to one of the organisers of the picnic, on the border between Austria and Hungary in 1989, that prefigured the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

During the 1930s the people of the US faced widespread economic hardship. We hear from two people who remember that time.Bert Stolier was ten years old when the stock market collapsed in 1929.

It is 60 years since The Goon Show first hit the airwaves. A surreal comedy, much of it was written and performed by the comedian Spike Milligan.His producer Charles Chilton remembers him.

On 13 August, 1961 East German soldiers and construction workers began work on the Berlin Wall.At first many Berliners couldn't believe that they would be permanently cut off from one another.It was to stay in place for almost 30 years.Photo: Associated Press

In August 1979 the seaside town of Brighton decided to open a nudist beach.It was the first place in Britain to agree to allow naked bathing.At first it was a very divisive idea, which shocked some of the locals.

It is 10 years since the closure of the world's first music-sharing website - Napster.It had been created by teenager Shawn Fanning. He talks about its beginnings, and the music industry campaign that finally shut it down.Photo: Associated Press

How one man endured exile after the British expelled his people from the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia to make way for an American military base.Image: Science Photo Library

He was a Canadian sporting superstar but in 1988 he was sold to an American team.The negotiations surrounding the sale of the ice-hockey player became known simply as 'The Trade'When he left Canada even non-sports fans felt the pain.Photo: Getty Images

In 1972 the dictator Idi Amin announced that all Asians had 90 days to leave Uganda.Nurdin Dawood, a teacher with a young family, didn't at first believe that Amin was serious.But soon he was desperately searching for a country to call home.Photo: Idi Amin - Press Association

In 1947 a Norwegian adventurer sailed across the Pacific on a wooden raft.Thor Heyerdahl had built the raft using only materials available to Americans before Columbus arrived on the continent.His son and his biographer talk about that extraordinary journey.Photo: Kon-Tiki Museum

In August 1980 a huge bomb destroyed much of Bologna train station in Italy. 85 people were killed, and hundreds were injured.Right-wing extremists were eventually convicted of planting the bomb.A survivor talks about that day. Photo: Associated Press

The story of a child who dreamed of world peace. She wrote a letter to the leader of the Soviet Union and found herself invited to summer camp on the Black Sea.This programme was first broadcast in 2010.Photo: Samantha Smith with Young Pioneers, Credit: Getty images

On 1 September 1969, a military coup in Libya toppled the King and brought to power Colonel Gaddafi - for many Libyans, the only leader they have ever known. In contrast to today's long-drawn out and bloody struggle for power, it was all over very quickly in 1969.Photo: Getty Images

It is 30 years since the launch of the first 24 hour music TV channel.It was to revolutionise the way that music was consumed and promoted - and the way that people watched television.Witness History hears from one of the founders of MTV.Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic’ and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his be

The story of one of the most dramatic labour disputes in British history - the union take over of shipyards on the Clyde when thousands of jobs were threatened in 1971.Photo: Sam Barr (2nd left), Jimmy Reid (2nd right) and colleagues in London for negotiations with the government.(Press Association)

Sixty years ago a young art historian got to know the greatest painter in the world.John Richardson met Picasso in the South of France in 1951.Photo: AFP/Getty

It is almost exactly 40 years since two young Australians had what has become a famous encounter with a lion in the depths of the African bush.John Rendall and Anthony Bourke had come across "Christian" late in 1969, at what was then a zoo in the upmarket London department store, Harrods.Alan Johnston speaks to John Rendall about their decision to release him into the wild in Kenya and the extraordinary moment that became a YouTube sensation.

It was the first international telecommunications satellite.It is almost 50 years since viewers in Europe and America sat down to watch the first transatlantic broadcast.Brian Oakes (right) was one of the engineers who made it happen.

In July 1959 two Cold War leaders argued over whose system was best.But who won the argument when Nikita Khrushchev and Richard Nixon went head to head in public?And why were they talking about kitchen appliances?Photo: AP

In 1961 hundreds of Jewish children were smuggled from Morocco to Israel.They pretended they were going on a summer holiday to Switzerland.We hear from one of the organisers of the trip, and one of the children who left his family behind.