Hello and welcome to the History Hour Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Max Pearson,

the past brought to life by those who were there. In today's episode 60 years on the Hungarian

uprising. This is Hungary falling, the last remaining station.

For the sake of God, then freedom hell Hungary.

Plus a 1960s scandal that rocked France.

It's brought to light some of the activities of the French secret police

who are alleged to have taken part in the kidnapping of Benbaka at midday in the center of Paris.

And Crash Bang Wallop, the men who helped Marvel Comics conquer the world.

He gets very animated.

He'd jump up on the chair or couch or something, you know,

and gesture around and grab something to turn it into

Thor's Hammer. That's all to come but before that we're going to hear some extraordinary

testimony from men who have experienced just about the worst of what life can be.

It was a hundred years ago that the term shell shock first began to be used.

It applied to soldiers who had been exposed to the horrors of service in the trenches of the First World War and who

later developed a range of debilitating physical and mental symptoms.

Much work has since been done into the psychological effects of exposure to war and associated trauma.

Nowadays the term post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD is all too familiar.

Prevention, care and treatment have all improved immeasurably. But using BBC Archive Recordings,

Alex Last has been hearing how those first cases of Shell Shock came to light in the First World

War.

After heavy bombardment, I've seen great, strong, healthy men come down from the line, crying like children terrified with obsessive fear.

...