Blood diamonds and the meeting between Florence Nightingale and Aga Khan III

The History Hour

BBC

Personal Journals, History, Society & Culture

4.4 • 912 Ratings

🗓️ 28 February 2026

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We begin with the trial of the former President of Liberia, Charles Taylor. It was claimed that he traded in arms and ammunition in return for so-called blood diamonds.

Our guest, gemmologist James Evans discusses the creation of synthetic diamonds.

Next we head to Syria where a group of young men in the besieged town of Darayya came together to build a secret library during the civil war.

Plus the start of the Second World War in the Pacific when Japanese troops landed in what was then northern Malaya.

We hear about a meeting between two of the most prominent figures in history from around the turn of the last century. Florence Nightingale and the Aga Khan, Sir Sultan Muhammed Shah.

Our sporting story takes us back to the summer of 1952 when the first Olympics of the Cold War era took place. Czechoslovakian army officer Emil Zatopek achieved a unique feat.

And finally, the moment when Spain's fledgling democratic government appeared to be under threat.

Contributors:

Brenda Hollis - Chief prosecutor at the Charles Taylor trial. Malik Alrifaii - Volunteer who helped run the Syrian library. Dorothy Variyan -Lived under Japanese rule during the occupation of the Malay peninsula. Aga Khan III, Sir Sultan Muhammad Shah - BBC archive interview from 1950. Richard Asquith - Emil Zatopek's biographer. Joaquin Almunia - Former Vice President of the European Commission

Presenter: Max Pearson

(Photo: Charles Taylor (rear C) appears in court in 2006. Credit: Rob Keeris/Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:07.0	I'm no longer ravenous. I'll no longer eat until I fall asleep.
0:11.0	The Hunger Game, a new five-part series exploring the meteoric rise of weight loss drugs.
0:16.0	It's been an incredible story with these drugs.
0:18.1	The uptake, the amount of product that's been sold, the amounts of money
0:21.2	is cost. What the drugs do, how they work, and the knock-on effects of their widespread use.
0:26.5	We'll be sitting here in three years' time going, oh, it caused problems that we're now going to have to
0:31.6	fix. The Hunger Game with me, Professor Gilesio. Listen first on BBC Sounds.
0:40.9	We did something that no one else had ever done.
0:45.6	There was such a excitement and energy about this moment.
0:48.1	It opened the door for everything that rapidly followed.
0:49.2	Witness history.
0:52.1	History as told by the people who were there. I was walking in space.
1:10.8	The first man ever to do so, I felt almost insignificant, like a tiny ant compared to the immensity of the universe. Witness History from the BBC World Service. Listen now. Search for Witness History, wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
1:18.7	Hello and welcome to The History Hour with me, Max Pearson,
1:23.3	featuring interviews from Witness History and Sporting Witness on the BBC World Service.
1:27.4	Coming up from the darkest days of the Syrian Civil War, a secret library in a besieged town.
1:30.5	We felt like, yeah, we are human again.
1:32.7	We have some freedom under siege.
1:34.7	We have the ability to go to a place that we love, to discuss things that we love without any restrictions.
1:41.2	Plus an extraordinary meeting between Florence Nightingale and the Arga Khan over tea in London
1:46.7	in 1898, and the Japanese invasion of northern Malaya in 1941.
	...

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