Somalia's civil war and golf on the moon

The History Hour

BBC

History, Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.4 • 879 Ratings

🗓️ 24 June 2023

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History stories.

Ahmed Mohamed Hassan, a fighter pilot in the Somali air force defied orders to bomb civilians in 1988. Explaining more about the Somali civil war and its legacy is BBC Monitoring's regional analyst Beverly Ochieng.

Also, the demonstrations in East Germany that triggered martial rule in 1953.

From the archive, Sam King recalls arriving in England on the Empire Windrush in 1948, one of 802 pioneering Caribbean migrants.

Plus, the 1994 raid on a gay nightclub in Melbourne, Australia, where more than 400 people were strip-searched and detained.

Finally, in 1971 Alan Shepard, the commander of Apollo 14 became the first and only person to play golf on the moon.

Contributors: Ahmed Mohamed Hassan on being a fighter pilot in the Somali air force Beverly Ochieng, BBC Monitoring's Horn Of Africa analyst Helmut Strecker on his recollections of the protests in East Germany Sam King on the Empire Windrush Gary Singer on the raid of Tasty nightclub Laura Shepard Churchley on her father Commander Alan Shepard

(Photo: Refugees in Somalia's civil war. Credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	In our restless world, the news never stops.
0:03.2	Millions there are affected by hunger, the economy has collapsed.
0:07.0	And sometimes positive stories can get a bit lost.
0:10.0	The Happy Pod is a special weekly episode from the Global News Podcast full of inspiring
0:16.0	audio and positive news stories from around the world.
0:19.2	A really good vibe, you know?
0:20.5	I've got some good news for you.
0:22.1	Listen now by searching for the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service wherever you get your
0:27.3	podcasts.
0:28.3	Hello and welcome to the History Hour Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Max Pearson,
0:39.0	the past brought to life by those who were there.
0:42.0	This week, tension in 1950s East Germany.
0:45.0	They moved into position in front of the government ministries building.
0:49.0	The tanks closed ranks and started moving towards the people.
0:52.0	The only thing to do was run.
0:54.0	Plus we have the first of the Windrush generation of immigrants to the UK from the Caribbean,
1:00.0	a 1990s raid on a gay nightclub in Australia which had a lasting legacy. a on the moon. When we were watching at 2 o'clock in the morning I really thought I was seeing things.
1:18.0	That's all coming up later in the podcast. But first we're going to the Hall of Africa in the
1:25.4	late 1980s. A civil war in what was then northern Somalia, with rebels seeking to overthrow
1:30.7	the government, was fast moving, and as Rob Walker reports it left
1:34.6	individuals in the Somali armed forces with some life-changing decisions to make.
1:39.7	The fighting is between the government and the main rebel grouping the Somali
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.