Speed of Sound and prosecuting Nazis

The History Hour

BBC

History, Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.4 • 879 Ratings

🗓️ 15 November 2025

⏱️ 62 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 aviation historian Dr Victoria Taylor.

We start with an archive interview of American Chuck Yeager who became the first pilot to fly faster than the speed of sound in 1947. Then, a couple who were caught up in the attack on the Bataclan theatre in Paris in November 2015.

We hear from a prosecutor in the Nuremberg trials in 1945 after World War Two.

France’s former finance minister recalls how an economic crisis in the 1970s led to the birth of the G7.

Next, how a heated NBA game in 2004 spiralled into one of the most infamous brawls in sports history.

Finally, we hear the story of the first ever underwater cabinet meeting in 2009.

Contributors:

Chuck Yeager - the first pilot to fly faster than the speed of sound.

Justine Merton-Scott and Tony Scott - a couple who survived the Bataclan attack in Paris.

Benjamin Ferencz - a prosecutor in the Nuremburg trials.

Jean-Pierre Fourcade - France's former finance minister.

Mark Boyle - radio broadcaster for the NBA's Indiana Pacers.

Mohamed Nasheed - former President of the Maldives.

(Photo: The first powered take off of Chuck Yeager's supersonic plane in 1947. Credit: Bettmann/Getty)

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.
1:29.6	She called me and told me, I'm doing Studio 54. She had already become a star in Paris. She came back a superstar.
	...

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