Botswana's Diamonds
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 17 November 2017
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Manfred Marx was the man who discovered the diamonds which transformed Botswana's economy. As a young geologist in 1967 his find in the Kalahari desert completely changed the country's fortunes after independence.
(Photo: Uncut diamonds. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless |
| 0:06.8 | searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the |
| 0:11.8 | telly we share what we've been watching |
| 0:14.0 | Cladie Aide. |
| 0:16.0 | Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming. |
| 0:19.0 | Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige. |
| 0:21.0 | And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less |
| 0:24.9 | searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds just before this |
| 0:30.3 | BBC podcast gets underway here's something you may not know. |
| 0:34.4 | My name's Linda Davies and I commission podcast for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:38.3 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely |
| 0:46.0 | engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:54.2 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories. |
| 0:57.6 | And that's just a few examples. |
| 0:59.4 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected. |
| 1:02.8 | Find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds. |
| 1:06.2 | Hello and thank you for downloading |
| 1:08.0 | Witness from the BBC World Service with me David Whitty. Going back to November 1968 and an announcement that changed the entire future of a nation. |
| 1:23.0 | De Beers, the mining company, told the world that they'd found diamonds in Botswana for the first time. |
| 1:29.0 | And it was all down to the perseverance of a prospecting team led by Manfred Marx. |
| 1:35.0 | It all came as a total surprise. |
| 1:37.8 | In the morning when I woke up I thought well this was just going to be another day. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

