A bomb whose creation would tip the scales of global power.

A nuclear physicist who sought to redress the balance.

The bomb, a podcast from the BBC World Service.

These are two available now.

Hello and thank you for downloading this episode of the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service.

We're taking you back 42 years.

So when the shooting of a fictional oil baron gripped viewers internationally.

Claire Bose spoke to the late Larry Hagman who played J.R. on the American series Dallas in 2010.

More than a third of Americans could tell you where they were when this man was shot on the sofa.

It was March 21st, 1980, 9pm.

J.R. Ewing was a backstabbing manipulative Philandre.

In between times he ran an oil business.

The star of the TV soap opera Dallas, he was the character people loved to hate.

And in the last episode of the second series, he was shot.

As to who done it, well the list of suspects was endless.

Judging by tonight's episode, J.R. has so many enemies that almost anyone could have done it.

Would there are a whole bunch of people?

Hundreds, hundreds. I had not been a nice fellow.

At the betting shops, the supposedly dead Dusty, Suelland's ex-lovel, is the hot favourite at 6-4.

Suelland herself is 4-1 and J.R.'s brother Bobby is quoted at 10-1.

Larry Hagman played J.R. Ewing.

With a stetson a cigar and a greedy glint in his eye, the Texas oil baron's villainy became world-renowned.

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