Witness: Witness Archive 2015

In October 1981, President Anwar Sadat of Egypt was assassinated as he attended a military parade in Cairo. His widow Jehan, who was there, remembers that day; and tells Witness that she always knew he would be killed for being the first Arab leader to sign a peace treaty with Israel. Photograph: President Anwar Sadat (right) and his then deputy, Hosni Mubarak, at the military parade where moments later Sadat was gunned down by four army officers. (Credit: AFP PHOTO/AFP/GettyImages)

In 1985 government scientists discovered anti-freeze in bottles of fine Austrian wine. No one died, or fell ill from drinking the poisoned wine, but the country's reputation as a wine-producing nation was seriously dented. We hear from Heidi Schroek, a young Austrian wine-maker at the time. (Photo: Johannes Simon/Getty Images)

Between the 16th and 19th Centuries, hundreds of thousands of Europeans were captured by pirates known as the Barbary corsairs. Many spent the rest of their lives in slavery in North Africa. We hear the account of one English boy, Thomas Pellow, who was a slave of the Moroccan Sultan, Moulay Ismail, for 23 years. (Photo: Corsairs attack a ship off the Barbary Coast of North Africa, circa 1700. A lithograph by Collette. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

In October 1985 the Hollywood superstar became the most high profile celebrity to acknowledge he was suffering from Aids. Fellow actor Angie Dickinson remembers her friend. (Photo: Rock Hudson at the BBC)

In the autumn of 2005 a Danish newspaper published 12 images of the Prophet Muhammad. The pictures shocked local muslims, and went on to cause outrage around the world. Hear from Danish journalist Flemming Rose who published them, and Imran Shah a spokesman for the Danish Islamic Society. (Photo: Pakistani protestors burn a Danish flag in Multan, Pakistan. Credit: AP)

In 1996 a group of veteran musicians made an album that changed the image of Cuban music for ever. Some of the artists had come out of retirement for the occasion. Laoud-player, Barbarito Torres, remembers that ground-breaking recording session in Havana and his excitement at playing on the very first Buena Vista Social Club album, which went on to sell millions of copies around the world. (Photo: Members of the Buena Vista Social Club outside Carnegie Hall, July 1998. Credit: Donata Wenders)

Daisuke Inoue was playing in a band in Kobe Japan in 1971 when he invented the Karaoke machine. He came up with the idea for a customer who wanted to impress business clients by singing along to his favourite songs. (Photo: Heather from Eastenders sings karaoke)

The area which had housed Afghanistan's traditional musicians for generations was destroyed during factional fighting in 1992. Ustad Ghulam Hossain, master of the rubab instrument, had to flee the city with his family. Monica Whitlock has spoken to him about the music and the traditions which have been lost in the rubble. With thanks to Mirwaiss Sidiqi. Photo: Ghulam Hossain with his rubab.

In the 1970s, the psychedelic Czech rock band played an unexpected role in the resistance to communist rule. Their imprisonment by the authorities prompted playwright, Václav Havel, to form the human rights group, Charter 77. The organisation was at the forefront of the Velvet Revolution which led to the downfall of the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia in 1989. (Photo: Vratislav Brabenec (centre) and the Plastic People of the Universe in the 1970s. Credit: Redferns)

In 1966 the Belgian singer-songwriter suddenly announced on stage that he was going to stop performing. At the time, he was world famous, having sold tens of millions of records around the globe. The song Ne Me Quitte Pas was among his many hits. We hear from his daughter, France Brel. (Photo: Jacques Brel in Paris in October 1966. Credit: AFP)

In 1973 a Bronx DJ, known as Kool Herc, held a block party which would help change American music for ever. Hear DJ Kool Herc's story of that first all-nighter, and what happened next. Photo: DJ Kool Herc. Credit: Getty Images.

Jamaica’s musicians have had a profound impact on modern music. It’s best known for Reggae, but before that came Ska. Many of the early Ska stars came from an orphanage in Kingston, The Alpha Boys school. It was run by nuns who were keen to teach the children music, but they couldn’t have known that so many of the Alpha old boys would end up on the world’s stage. (Photo: Eddie 'Tan Tan' Thornton playing in London. Credit: Howard Denner/Photoshot/Getty Images)

In an act of defiance during World War Two, starving musicians in the besieged city of Leningrad performed Shostakovich's new Seventh Symphony. The piece was composed especially for the city, which had been cut off and surrounded by invading Nazi troops. During the siege an estimated one million civilians died from starvation, exposure, and the bombardment by German forces. Hear archive recordings of Ksenia Matus who played the oboe in the orchestra, and hear from Sarah Quigley, the author of a novel about Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony. Dina Newman reports. (Photo: Official Soviet picture of Dmitri Shostakovich working on his famous Seventh ("Leningrad") Symphony. AFP/Getty Images)

We hear from farmer Michael Eavis, who began the Glastonbury music festival in 1970 and whose family still runs it today. (Photo: The first Glastonbury festival on Worthy Farm in 1970)

In September 1978 in the heat of Iran's revolution, the country's top musicians decided to join the popular uprising. After the massacre of demonstrators by the Shah's armed forces in Jaleh Square, state employed musicians went underground and started recording revolutionary songs. These songs became some of the most iconic in recent Iranian history. Bijan Kamkar remembers how the group secretly produced music in a basement. (Photo: Bijan Kamkar, on the far left, with a group of Iranian musicians. Courtesy of Bijan Kamkar)

The story of the great South African singer who spent 30 years in exile. She was invited to the United States in 1959 and became an overnight star, but was blocked from returning home by the South African apartheid regime. Known as Mama Africa by her millions of fans, she had a remarkable life and career performing around the world. Only after Nelson Mandela was freed, did she finally return home. (Photo: South African singer Miriam Makeba performing at the Olympia in Paris in 1964. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

In 1985 a benefit concert was held for farmers living in one of the world's richest countries, the US. The money went toward preventing suicides and helping farmers keep their land. In 2014, Witness spoke to the main organiser, the Country music legend Willie Nelson. (Photo: Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings by Paul Natkin/Photo Reserve, Inc)

The story of how the Pakistani Qawali singer became an international music sensation. Photo: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan performing in California in 1993 (AP Photo)

The Monkees were the world's first 'manufactured' boy band - created especially for a TV show. Hear from the man who directed that show - Bruce Kessler. (Photo:The Monkees. Credit: NBC Television/Getty Images)

When the great Egyptian singer died in 1975, millions attended her funeral in Cairo. Her stepson has been talking to Witness about that day, and about her life and art. Photo: Umm Kulthum in 1967 Credit: Associated Press