Boris Yeltsin's Surprise Resignation
The History Hour
BBC
4.4 • 913 Ratings
🗓️ 6 January 2018
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Mrs Yeltsin, on the day her husband shocked the world, half a century since the Mafia's grip on America was exposed, the 1999 protests in Iran - the biggest since the revolution - a student tells us how a photograph led to his death sentence and the Brazilian woman hijacker who took her kids along for the ride.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the History Hour podcast from the BBC World Service with me Max Pearson, the past brought to life by those who were there. |
| 0:08.0 | This week a 1970 hijacking in protest at Brazil's military in which one of the hijackers took her children along for the ride. |
| 0:17.0 | Well, I sung to them, played with them, told them lots of stories. |
| 0:22.0 | Sometimes we let them run along the aisle. played with them, told them lots of stories. |
| 0:22.8 | Sometimes we let them run along the aisle so as to tire them out. |
| 0:26.5 | Plus it's just over 50 years since a small town American policeman |
| 0:30.7 | discovered just how big the Italian mafia was in the USA and |
| 0:34.6 | we'll meet the Indian American spelling champion who blazed a trail for South Asians |
| 0:40.0 | in the US. That's all coming up but we begin by taking you back to a key moment in global politics |
| 0:46.7 | on the last day of 1999 when the Russian President Boris Yeltsin went on national television to apologize for his failures |
| 0:55.8 | and to announce his resignation, taking the world by surprise. |
| 1:00.2 | Boris Yeltsin always said he would see out his full term in office. |
| 1:04.0 | Today he told Russians he changed his mind. |
| 1:07.0 | The man who once stood a strider tank to defend democracy in Russia used the last day of the millennium to announce his resignation as president. |
| 1:14.5 | It was undoubtedly a dramatic moment and one which would have a profound impact on the years which have followed. |
| 1:20.6 | Dina Newman has spoken to Boris Yeltsin's widow, Naina Yeltsinah, about that day. |
| 1:28.6 | It was an unusual day, New Year's Eve and Boris was due to record his New Year's address to the nation, so he woke up earlier than usual. |
| 1:38.0 | He carefully chose his suit and dye and was putting on his coat. He turned to me and said, |
| 1:45.0 | Naina, I am going to resign. Watch my address on TV. |
| 1:50.0 | At first it was hard to grasp the news in the first few seconds and then I |
| 1:58.5 | literally grabbed him, hugged him, kissed him, my God, this is happiness. This burden of responsibility would be lifted |
| 2:09.0 | from his shoulders. He would be back with his family. There would be no more night calls. |
... |
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