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

Max Pearson history as told by the people who were there. This week growing up in Iraq when your parents are friends with

Saddam Hussein. I would go to school and my classmates would talk about how their fathers were

executed the night before.

I'm hearing horror stories and I know at night I'm going to see him.

Plus the extraordinary story of how America tested vaccines for venereal diseases on unsuspecting Guatemalans.

I mean I'm a pretty hardened researcher if you do any kind of work on history of medicine

you kind of get used to the horror stories. This was pretty horrific.

Also, the man who invented the asthma inhaler and the archaeologist who dug up England's most hated

king. You could see that there was a hole in the top of the skull. There were also holes on the cheek as well. So clearly this person had had a violent death.

That's all coming up later in the podcast. But first an incident from 20th century America which has been seen

as one of the key moments in the long history of resistance to big government. For this

we're going to the Pacific Northwest in August 1992, where a standoff unfolded involving

a fugitive from the law and federal agents.

It ended with an 11-day siege and three people dead.

Those events would become a touchstone for the far right

and a rallying cry for the American militia movement.

Lucy Burns has the story of Ruby Ridge. If I had it to do over again, knowing what I know now, I would make different choices.

I'd come down from the mountain for the court appearance.

If I could change, believe me, I'd give my life to have my son and wife back.

Randy Weaver was the man at the center of the siege at his cabin on a mountain rage in Idaho called Ruby Ridge.

He spoke to a Senate hearing about the incident in 1995.

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