Juan Carlos becomes King of Spain and ending the Bosnian war

The History Hour

BBC

History, Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.4 • 879 Ratings

🗓️ 22 November 2025

⏱️ 61 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 Mercedes Peñalba- Sotorrío, a senior lecturer in modern European history at Manchester Metropolitan University, England.

We start with the death of General Francisco Franco in 1975 ending 36 years of dictatorship over Spain.

Then, we use archive to hear how King Juan Carlos reclaimed the Spanish throne in 1975 and led the country to a democracy. This episode was made in collaboration with BBC Archives.

We hear from a Social Democrat politician about Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to suspend asylum rules for Syrians fleeing war in 2015.

How the Bosnian war ended with the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995.

Next, how a substitute fielder ran out the Australian captain in the fourth test of the 2005 Ashes, turning the game in England's favour.

Finally, we use archive to hear about cold war diplomacy in the Geneva summit in 1985.

Contributors:

José Antonio Martínez Soler - a journalist.

King Juan Carlos - the former King of Spain (from archive).

Aydan Özoğuz - a Social Democrat politician and former minister of state for immigration.

Milan Milutinović - a negotiator in the Dayton Peace Accords.

Gary Pratt - a fielder in the England cricket team in the 2005 Ashes series.

Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev - The former US President and former Soviet leader (from archive).

(Image: King Juan Carlos, 1975. Credit: Jacques Pavlovsky/Sygma via Getty images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.
0:07.0	Hello, I'm Emma Barnett. For most of my career, I've been on live radio, and I love it.
0:13.3	But I've always wondered, what if we'd had more time? How much deeper does the story go?
0:19.2	I remember having this very sharp thought
0:21.7	that what you do right now, this is it.
0:24.3	This defines your life.
0:26.0	I'm ready to talk and ready to listen.
0:28.3	I'm insulted by how little the medical community is ever bothered with this.
0:33.9	Ready to talk with me, Emma Barnard, is my new podcast.
0:37.0	Listen on BBC Sounds. A moment in time
0:39.9	captured by what they heard. I heard some people making phone calls. Okay, which one way would
0:44.2	you like at Teterborough? What they saw. I put my head down. I saw the movie of my life. Start
0:49.5	going through my head. What they smelt. I still remember the smell of the fresh fish.
0:54.4	And I completely lost my appetite.
0:57.8	Moments captured which last for a lifetime.
1:01.3	Scientists have made the atomic bomb.
1:03.9	That sort of flash set on fire, the birds, and they all fell down without their feathers on.
1:08.6	The way was clear for Hitler to realize all his demonic plans.
1:15.6	Stories from people with first-hand accounts of events that have shaped our world.
1:21.8	At the end, Kissinger called me into his office and he said, he did a good job.
1:27.0	I left the office with tears in my eyes.
1:29.9	She called me and told me, I'm doing Studio 54.
	...

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