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.

Hello, you're listening to the BBC World Service and now witness history with me Lucy Burns.

Today we're going back to 1969 and the start of a program serving free breakfasts to school children in California,

which was more controversial than it sounds

because it was run by the revolutionary political organization,

the Black Panther Party.

We're gone to what I believe.

Eggs, toast, bacon, milk, oranges,

milk, oranges, apples, those little individual boxes of cornflakes.

Once a week we'd have pancakes.

This is the Reverend Earl Neal.

He's an Episcopal priest.

In 1969, he was leading St Augustine's Church in a deprived area of Oakland, California,

and he helped set up their program providing free breakfast for local children.

The need that was obvious providing free breakfast for local children.

The need that was obvious was that there were children who did not have breakfast.

They had hunger pangs, poor performance in schools.

...