Ice Bucket Challenge
Witness History
BBC
4.5 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 2 August 2024
⏱️ 11 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 2014, the ice bucket challenge craze took over the internet.
Millions of people including sports stars and celebrities filmed themselves being doused in ice cold water for charity.
Nancy Frates' son Pete helped to make the ice bucket challenge become a phenomenon. Nancy tells Gill Kearsley the poignant story of how the challenge went from a simple idea to world news.
Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.
Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic’ and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they’ve had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America’s occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.
(Photo: Pete Frates takes part in the ice bucket challenge. Credit: Barry Chin/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This was in a impregnable fortress. The only way you get out was in a wooden box. |
| 0:05.0 | The controversial maximum security prison impossible to escape from. |
| 0:09.0 | One of the duties of a political prisoner is the escape. |
| 0:12.0 | The IRA inmates who found a way. |
| 0:14.4 | I'm Carlo Gableer, and I'll be navigating a path through the disturbing inside story |
| 0:21.5 | of the biggest jailbreak in British and Irish history. |
| 0:25.0 | The narrative that they want is that this is a big achievement by them. |
| 0:28.5 | Escape from the maze, listen first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:35.0 | You're listening to the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service with me Jill Kursley. |
| 0:45.6 | I'm taking you back to 2014 when the Ice Bucket Challenge was taking over the world. Is the craze sweeping the US and the internet, |
| 0:59.0 | people being doused, |
| 1:01.0 | or dousing themselves with ice cold water. |
| 1:09.0 | As I watched my son being taken away from me every single day I heard and saw him take |
| 1:15.3 | this diagnosis and turn it into something about others when one day I couldn't even |
| 1:20.9 | move I was so paralyzed with grief. He looked at me and he said, |
| 1:25.0 | mom, we're going to work really hard and we're going to make a dent in this, but I need you |
| 1:30.6 | to understand something. |
| 1:32.8 | This is not going to be in time for me. |
| 1:35.9 | This is going to be so that no other family ever has to go through this. |
| 1:48.1 | That's Nancy Freitas, whose son Pete helped to make the ice bucket challenge become a worldwide phenomenon. Pete was a popular college baseball player who was known for his kindness. |
| 1:56.0 | In 2012 he was diagnosed with ALS. |
| 2:00.0 | Emetrophic lateral sclerosis is a neurological disease. Now in Europe it's known by |
... |
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