Witness: Witness Archive 2015

In 1995 two of the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's son-in-laws defected to Jordan. What secrets did they bring with them? Witness talks to former chief weapons inspector for Iraq, Rolf Ekeus, who debriefed Hussein Kamel, the son-in-law who'd overseen Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programme for Saddam. Rolf Ekeus failed to persuade him later not to return to Baghdad, where he and his brother were both killed. Photograph: an undated portrait of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (sitting) and his family in Baghdad. General Hussein Kamel and his brother Colonel Saddam Kamel are on the far left. Credit: AFP/Getty Images

On 9 August 1965 Singapore announced it had left the Federation of Malaysia and become an independent sovereign state. Explaining the separation at a news conference, the prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, was overcome with emotion. (Photo: Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. Credit: Associated Press Archive)

On 6 August 1945 an American bomber dropped a nuclear bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Tens of thousands of people were killed immediately. Witness presents a vivid first-person account from the BBC archives, of a young Japanese schoolgirl who survived the attack. (Photo: The destruction left by the atomic bomb in Hiroshima. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

In August 1996, a group of Iranian writers were invited to a literary event in neighbouring Armenia. They boarded a bus to take them to Yerevan - but there was a plot to kill them all before they reached their destination. The scandal has been linked to a bigger plot known as The Chain Murders of intellectuals in Iran in the 1990s. Shahryar Mandanipour, one of the writers on the bus, remembers. (Photo: Iranian writer Shahryar Mandanipour, courtesy of S. Mandanipour)

In July 1973 the King's cousin, in Afghanistan, staged a coup against him. It brought to an end centuries of monarchy and for the first time established a republic in the country. Twelve officers were in charge of carrying out the long-planned coup. Zia Majid was one of them and still remembers the day vividly. (Photo: Coup leader Daoud Khan, centre, Zia Majid standing on the right)

In August 1978 an Australian doctor successfully fitted a multi-channel cochlear implant to a patient. It was a breakthrough moment for deaf people around the world. The doctor, Professor Graeme Clark, had a deaf father, and dedicated his professional life to helping people hear again. Photo: the first patient, Rod Saunders (left) and Graeme Clark with the implant. Credit: The Bionic Institute.

In August 1960 the controversial Oscar-nominated psychological thriller was released. Witness presents archive recordings of its director, Alfred Hitchcock and of the film's star, Janet Leigh. (Photo: Janet Leigh in the shower scene from Psycho, 1960. Credit: AP)

In July 1964, a white actor and a black actress, kissed, live, on a British TV show. The show was called Emergency Ward 10. The actress was Joan Hooley. She remembers the public reaction to that embrace. (Photo: Joan Hooley today. Credit: Made in Manchester)

On 1 August 1944, the Warsaw Uprising against the Nazi occupation of Poland began. Hundreds of thousands of people died during the fighting and Poland's capital was almost completely destroyed. Among the underground fighters were children, many of them members of the Scout movement. Andrzej Slawinsky was one of them. (Photo: Insurgents on the streets of Warsaw, 1944. Credit: HO/AFP/Getty Images)

Seven former soldiers have been arrested in Chile for the burning to death of a student, Rodrigo Rojas, during protests against the rule of Gen. Augusto Pinochet in July 1986. Carmen Quintana, who was with Rojas that day, was also attacked and burnt by the soldiers; but she survived. In 2013 she spoke to Witness about her terrible ordeal. (Photo: Anti government protests in Chile, April 1987. Credit: JOSE DURAN/AFP/Getty Images)

In July 1945 Labour won a surprise victory, defeating Britain's war-time leader Winston Churchill. The victorious government introduced radical changes, including the creation of a welfare state establishing a National Health Service. Witness hears the memories of two veteran politicians, Peter Carrington and Denis Healey. (Photo: Labour leader and newly-elected Prime Minister, Clement Attlee with his wife Violet, July 1945. Credit: Keystone/Getty Images)

In July 1999, around a 10th of the black population in the Texas town of Tulia was arrested on drug charges. The only evidence was the word of an undercover agent. That was enough for many of the defendants to be convicted and sentenced to long prison terms. The case brought Tulia to national attention and led to accusations of racial bias in America’s war on drugs. (Photo: Main Street in Tulia. Credit: Getty Images)

In July 1979 Iran's new Islamic government closed down Tehran's red-light district, and demolished all the buildings. Around 1500 prostitutes were working there at the time. Iranian novelist Zakaria Hashemi remembers the sleepless nights of the district, as well as the day it was leveled to the ground. (Photo: Woman in Tehran's red-light district, 1970s. Courtesy of Kaveh Golestan Estate)

In the 1950s the CIA started attempting to brainwash psychiatric patients. They wanted to develop methods which could be used against enemies in the Cold War. Hear from one man whose father was experimented on in a Canadian psychiatric hospital.

In 1950, Brazil hosted the World Cup and were the overwhelming favourites to win the tournament at the last match at the Maracana Stadium. But, in a defeat that hurts to this day, the Brazilians lost to Uruguay 2-1. Sporting Witness talks to Alcides Ghiggia, who scored the winning Uruguayan goal at what became known as the 'Maracanazo'. (Photo: Alcides Ghiggia celebrates the winning goal. Credit: AP)

The first ever nuclear weapon was detonated by scientists in the USA on 16 July 1945. The secret initiative to develop the atomic bomb was nicknamed the Manhattan Project. Hear from two scientists, Roy Glauber and Ben Bederson who worked on the project in the closed city of Los Alamos in the desert of New Mexico. (Photo: A nuclear explosion in the desert in the US. Credit: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.)

Soldiers recount their experiences of poison gas attacks on the Western Front during World War One in BBC archive recodings. Poison gas was first used as a weapon in 1915 and by the end of the war, gas had killed 90,000 soldiers and affected one million. (Photo: Gas casualties of the British Army 55th Division on the Western Front, dated 10 April 1918. Credit: Lightroom Photos/TopFoto)

The first person to win two Nobel prizes for her pioneering research into radioactivity. Working with her husband, Pierre, Marie Curie identified two new elements Polonium and Radium. Their discoveries paved the way for modern treatments of cancer and other illnesses. Photo: Marie Curie in her laboratory. Courtesy: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

In the last days of World War II, an American warship, the USS Indianapolis, was torpedoed in the Pacific. For days, no one came to the survivors' rescue. Left adrift in shark-infested waters, hundreds of sailors died. We hear from Loel Dean Cox one of the few who survived. (Photo:Naval History and Heritage Command)

The Nigerian opposition leader died suddenly just days before his expected release from prison in July 1998. MKO Abiola appeared to have won Nigeria's presidential election in 1993, but the vote was annulled by the military, and Abiola was later arrested. He'd been held by the military regime for more than four years, but following the death of General Abacha, he was due to be released. We hear from former US diplomat, Ambassador Thomas Pickering, who met Abiola shortly before he died. Photo: Chief MKO Abiola after his arrest by the military regime of Sani Abacha in 1994/ STR/AFP/Getty Images