Discovery of the first exoplanets and the goalie who killed a seagull

The History Hour

BBC

History, Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.4 • 879 Ratings

🗓️ 7 June 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service.

Our guest is Dr Jeni Millard, a science presenter, astrophysicist and astronomer.

First, how two astronomers announced they had discovered the first two planets outside our solar system.

Then, German twins Frederik and Gerrit Braun on building Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg, which is now a world-famous destination visited by celebrities like Adele and Sir Rod Stewart

And in 1949, South Africa’s first feature film, Jim Comes to Jo’burg, also known as African Jim, aimed at black audiences was released, launching Dolly Rathebe’s career.

Finally, how a goal kick in 1970, meant to pick out a striker, instead hit and killed a seagull in a Dutch football match. The dead bird was later stuffed and now resides in the club’s museum.

Contributors:

Alex Wolszczan - astronomer Dale Frail - astronomer Roland Reisley - resident of Usonia Dolly Rathebe - actor Eddy Treijtel - goalkeeper

(Photo: A gull on a football pitch. Credit: Ray McManus/Sportsfile via Getty Images)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Why does some big successful brands go bust?
0:05.7	Toast is back for a new series, taking a look at the decisions that often left investors burnt.
0:11.6	I'm Sean Farrington, a BBC business journalist. I'll be hearing about the hype.
0:15.6	They're going to do the deal that makes them the most money at that point of time.
0:19.7	And I'm picking what went wrong, talking to owners and employees to ask, what can we learn?
0:25.4	It was being undercut by similar rivals.
0:28.4	It just couldn't survive.
0:30.3	Toast. Listen first on BBC Sounds.
0:45.7	Hello and welcome to The History Hour from the BBC World Service with me, Max Pearson, the past brought to life by those who were there.
0:55.8	This week, a hundred years old and still living in Eusonia, the utopian community built in the 1940s by the famed American architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
1:01.1	His idea was to have these houses connect with nature, scattered like jewels.
1:04.1	There were no fence or hedgerow between them.
1:08.0	And that site plan was published in every newspaper in the United States.
1:11.9	Also, the German twins behind the world's largest model railway.
1:17.4	So I called my brother Garrett, and at first he was really annoyed that it was disturbing him.
1:19.8	And then I just told him I had the idea.
1:23.1	We're building the biggest model railway in the world.
1:28.1	And from 1949, the actress who became known as the South African Billy Holiday.
1:34.5	Oh, I went to Joburg, the golden city, or why did I go there for?
1:36.7	Don Swanson was impressed.
1:39.7	He said, oh, this is the girl I want.
1:41.2	That's coming up later in the podcast. First, though, a story that looks way beyond our fragile
	...

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