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

bringing the past to life through striking first-hand testimony.

This week from the First World War a brutal siege in the desert. For food all we had was a

little horse meat and some flower mixed with dust. Even now many sepoys cannot

bring themselves to eat horse meat. Also from Britain's miners strike an unexpected welcome in the valleys.

And when you say to people,

know when the communities that the gays have been down,

oh, how are they?

Did you have a good time?

When are they coming again?

And from the 1960s, the shock of the velvet underground.

It caused a riot. People jumped up immediately and grabbed their kids, parents and

teachers and started pulling people out of there. That's all to come, but we

begin this week with a look at one of the explosive moments which came to define the first years of the 21st century.

The 9-11 attack on the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington set in train a sequence of events which in many respects

continues to rumble on today.

In response to the Al-Qaeda inspired assault on the American mainland, the U.S. launched a war against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan,

which had been playing host to the Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

While the Taliban were overthrown in relatively short order, clearly bin Laden himself was regarded as a key target.

And by December 2001, the focus had shifted to the mountains in eastern Afghanistan,

where anti-Taliban forces supported by intensive US

airstrikes and special forces on the ground were hunting their target.

...