4.4 • 879 Ratings
🗓️ 4 November 2023
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Tony Kapcia, Emeritus Professor at the University of Nottingham's Centre for Research on Cuba. He tells us about the history of Cuban foreign policy.
We start with Aleida Guevara's memories of being sent from Cuba to provide medical aid in the Angolan Civil War during the 1980s. Then, the French scientist Francoise Barre-Sinoussi explains how HIV was discovered in 1983.
In the second half of the programme, we hear how Australian scientist David Warren invented the black box flight recorder in 1962, which made flying safer. An Ecuadorian politician explains how she tried to save the country's Yasuní National Park. And the actress Jane Seymour recounts how she played the role of Freddie Mercury's bride at the Fashion Aid event in 1985.
Contributors: Tony Kapcia - Emeritus Professor at the University of Nottingham's Centre for Research on Cuba. Dr Aleida Guevara - daughter of Che Guevara. Francoise Barre-Sinoussi - scientist who helped identify HIV. Jenny and Peter Warren - children of David Warren, inventor of the black box. Bill Schofield - former colleague of David Warren, inventor of the black box. Ivonne A-Baki - Ecuadorian politician tasked with saving the Yasuní National Park.
(Photo: Aleida Guevara with her father, Che, and Fidel Castro in 1963. Credit: Imagno via Getty Images)
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0:00.0 | Sport, but not as you know it. |
0:03.0 | Nothing is ever quite as expected. |
0:05.0 | Amazing sports stories from the BBC World Service. |
0:08.0 | If the story is wriggly, contentious, or hard to tame, I'll cover. |
0:13.0 | Listen now, wherever you get your BBC podcasts. |
0:16.0 | Hello and welcome to the History Hour Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Max Pearson. |
0:27.0 | We're going to hear a collection of the latest witness history episodes, including the first |
0:31.7 | scientist to identify the HIV virus. |
0:35.0 | And of course it was moving to see those people terrible to know that they will die, |
0:41.0 | but in addition, most of them were rejected. |
0:45.0 | Plus the birth of the Black Box flight recorder. |
0:48.0 | In a world where aircraft travel is increasing very rapidly all you can say is that it's saved tens of thousands of lives |
0:56.4 | over these years. And an attempt to save Ecuador's rainforests from the hands of big business. |
1:01.8 | This is the music of the Amazon at night. |
1:05.0 | So it was magical. |
1:07.0 | You know, you believe in God, you believe in creation |
1:10.0 | when you are in a place like that. |
1:12.0 | That's all coming up later in the podcast. |
1:14.3 | First though, the witness history team here on the World Service |
1:16.6 | prides itself on uncovering hidden nuggets |
1:19.3 | about some of the most significant figures |
1:21.0 | from the last 100 years of world history. and here's one relating to a true icon of the 20th century. |
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