Italian history
The History Hour
BBC
4.4 • 913 Ratings
🗓️ 14 February 2026
⏱️ 61 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Scottish writer, editor and music programmer Arusa Qureshi.
We start in 1989 when the British rock band Pink Floyd played a highly controversial concert in Venice.
Then, we cover Dr Rita Levi-Montalcini whose bedroom experiments won her the Nobel Prize.
We hear from a man who worked on the Mont Blanc Tunnel, which opened in 1965.
A survivor describes Florence's devastating flood in 1966.
Finally, the story of how the actress Gina Lollobrigida interviewed Cuba's leader Fidel Castro.
Contributors:
Fran Tomasi and Andrea Pattaro - witnesses to Pink Floyd's Venice concert.
Arusa Qureshi - Scottish writer, editor and music programmer.
Franco Cuaz - Mont Blanc Tunnel's first operations manager.
Antonina Bargellini - survivor of the Florence flood.
(Photo: Pink Floyd performing in Venice. Credit: Andrea Pattaro)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. |
| 0:05.6 | Oh, hello. You have chosen a BBC podcast, but before you listen to it, we thought you might like our podcast too. |
| 0:12.1 | You might. You might. It is called Sightraught with me Nick Grimshaw. |
| 0:15.2 | And me, Annie Mack. And we talk about the week in music. |
| 0:18.2 | All the news, all the cultural happenings in the UK and beyond. |
| 0:22.2 | And great guests. |
| 0:23.3 | And it's on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:24.7 | Yes, where you can also enjoy lots of playlists, music mixes and live radio. |
| 0:29.9 | Everything from my six music breakfast show to Radio 3 Unwind. |
| 0:34.5 | But obviously start with our podcast, sidetrack. |
| 0:36.3 | Obviously. |
| 0:36.7 | Obviously. |
| 0:38.2 | So if you like music, |
| 0:39.1 | listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:41.5 | From the brilliant and bizarre. |
| 0:44.1 | It was really surreal. |
| 0:45.0 | It was a surreal kind of atmosphere there. |
| 0:47.1 | You couldn't really see anybody. |
| 0:48.3 | To the shocking and unexpected. |
| 0:50.4 | I'm just wondering, what are we going to do now? |
| 0:52.5 | This was really my worst fear. |
| 0:54.3 | He found 100% horse meat that was labelled as beef. |
... |
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