Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.

What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.

You're listening to the BBC World Service.

This is the Witness History Podcast with me Rebecca Kessby. We go back through the archives this week to some of our favorite programs

over the past 10 years.

One I remember vividly is the story of Euro-Disney,

Disney's first theme park in Europe just outside Paris but from

the outset the venture was beset with problems in 2013 I spoke to the first

CEO of Euro Disney Bob Fitzpatrick.

It's the spring of 1992 and the Magic Kingdom has come to Europe.

A matinong, I should declare

Euro-Tisney official-a-mau-Uver.

At last a flamboyant opening ceremony and fireworks

after years of turbulent relations between American-owned Disney and the Paris authorities.

The French describing Disney as arrogant, Disney regarding the French as impossible. The man given the job of forcing the fairy tale into reality

was Bob Fitzpatrick, president of the California Institute for the Arts, but persuaded out of the cozy American cultural elite by the desperate

Disney management. Bob had a reputation as a man who could get a job done and most importantly he was a fluent French speaker.

What intrigued me was the opportunity to do it less badly than somebody who didn't care about France and didn't care about Europe and other cultures.

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