Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Dr Elizabeth Abbott, writer, historian and author of the book, "Sugar: A Bittersweet History".

First, we confront the dark history of sugar.

We hear how a researcher in the 1990s uncovered the unethical aspects of Sweden’s Vipeholm experiments in the 1940 which led to new recommendations for children to eat sweets just once a week.

And, how Mexico, a country which had one of the highest rates of fizzy drink consumption in the world, approved a tax on sugary soft drinks in 2013.

Then an event which shaped the second half of the last century - On 14 May 1955, the leader of the Soviet Union and Heads of State from seven European countries met to sign the Warsaw Pact.

Plus, the story of how two rival electricity pioneers, Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison brought electricity to the world.

Finally, we hear from Finnish singer Marion Rung on winning the 1980 Intervision Song Contest, the USSR’s answer to Eurovision.

Contributors:

Dr Elin Bommenel - academic

(Photo: sugar cubes and fizzy drinks, Credit: Anthony Devlin/Press Association)

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Rubina Raja, professor of classical archaeology and art at Aarhus University in Denmark.

First, we go back to May 2015, when the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria was about to fall to Jihadist fighters and how of a group of men risked their lives to preserve the world-famous archaeology.

Plus, the entrepreneur and engineer Yoshitada Minami and his wife Fumiko Minami who came up with a way to liberate women from two to three hours of housework a day through the invention of the rice cooker in 1955.

Then the story of the sinking of the Lusitania, the British ocean liner sunk by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland during the First World War.

Also, celebrating 80 years since the end of the Second World War in Europe we dive into the BBC archives to listen to correspondents capturing the scenes of joy across London on VE day in 1945.

Finally, how in 2000, keen cricketer Paul Hawkins wanted to turn his passion into innovation when he created the technology we now known as ‘HawkEye’.

Contributors:

Khalil Hariri - archaeology expert who worked at Palmyra’s museum

(Photo: Palmyra. Credit: PHAS / Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service about the Vietnam War and the invention of the hugely popular mobile phone game, Snake.

Don Anderson, a former BBC TV reporter during the final days of Vietnam, discusses the atmosphere in Saigon as the North Vietnamese forces closed in.

We also hear about the network of tunnels in the south of the country which Viet Cong guerrillas built during the fighting.

Finally, the former president of the European Commission and two-time prime minister of Italy, Romano Prodi on steering through the ten-state expansion of the European Union in 2004.

Contributors:

Le Van Lang - a Viet Cong veteran.

Dr Xuan Dung Tran - a doctor in the South Vietnamese Marines.

Don Anderson - former BBC TV reporter.

Phạm Chi Lan - economist at Vietnam’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Romano Prodi - former president of the European Commission and two-time prime minister of Italy.

Taneli Armanto - mobile phone game Snake, inventor.

(Photo: Viet Cong soldier inside the Cu Chi tunnels. Credit: Dirck Halstead/Getty Images)

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is World War Two military historian and archivist Elisabeth Shipton.

We start by concentrating on two events from the last year of the Second World War.

Exercise Tiger took place in April 1944 in preparation for the D-Day landings of Allied forces in Normandy. But during that rehearsal a German fleet attacked and about 749 US servicemen died.

We hear remarkable archive testimony from Adolf Hitler's secretary who witnessed his last days in a bunker in Berlin before he took his own life.

Plus, 20 years since the video sharing platform, YouTube, was first launched.

We hear about the apartheid-era production of the play Othello in South Africa, which broke racial boundaries.

And finally, how in 1985, Coca-Cola messed up a reworking of the drink's classic formula.

Contributors:

Paul Gerolstein - survivor of Exercise Tiger (from archive audio gathered by Laurie Bolton, from the UK Exercise Tiger Memorial, and the journalist, David Fitzgerald).

Traudl Junge - Adolf Hitler's secretary.

Jawed Karim, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen - on the start of YouTube.

Dame Janet Suzman - on the staging of Othello in 1987.

Mark Pendergrast - author.

(Photo: US troops ahead of D-Day. Credit: Keystone/ Getty Images)

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service.

It’s 50 years since soldiers of the communist Khmer Rouge party stormed into the capital, Phnom Penh. It was the start of a four year reign of terror which resulted in up to two million people being killed. We hear two stories from people affected by the regime.

Our guest is journalist and author, Elizabeth Becker. She is one of the foremost authorities on the history of Cambodia, and one of the few westerners to have interviewed Pol Pot.

The scientist who invented the white LED lightbulb in 1993 tells his story.

Plus, the Bali Nine: young Australians facing the death penalty for drug smuggling and, Spain’s historic link to World Book Day.

Contributors:

Youk Chang – lived through the Khmer Rouge regime

(Photo: The fall of Phnom Penh in 1975. Credit: Roland Neveu/LightRocket via Getty Images)

8th May 1945 was a day of rejoicing in Britain, the US and many other countries: Germany had surrendered, and World War II was over, at least in Europe.

Yet it was not a day of celebration for everyone: for the vanquished Germans, it marked the end of bombings and of Nazi rule. But it was also a time of deprivation and chaos, fear and soul-searching. Millions of ethnic Germans had fled their homes to escape the approaching Red Army.

In this documentary, Lore Wolfson Windemuth, whose own father grew up under Nazi rule, unfolds the stories of six ordinary Germans who lived through that extraordinary time, through their memoirs and diaries. Amongst others, we hear from:

Siegbert Stümpke, a 12-year-old schoolboy who was used as a runner by the German Wehrmacht in the final days of the war;

Lore Ehrich, a young mother from East Prussia (now Poland) who had to flee with two small children across a frozen lagoon;

Hans Rosenthal, who was Jewish and had survived the Holocaust hidden in a Berlin allotment colony before very nearly getting shot by the Soviet liberators;

Melita Maschmann, who got hooked on Nazi ideology aged 15, became a youth leader and took years to acknowledge her share of the responsibility for the crimes committed by the National Socialists.

Narrator: Lore Wolfson Windemuth

A CTVC production for the BBC World Service.

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Dr Katrin Paehler, Professor of modern European history at Illinois State University.

First, a journalist describes how he accompanied Hitler through the embers of the Reichstag fire in 1933.

Then, the harrowing recollections of a doctor who saved survivors of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

Next, a woman describes how she was caught between her job and her clan during the UN's disastrous Somalia mission in the 1990s.

A Liberian woman explains how she helped end the country's civil war.

Finally, how Germany's 'death zone' became a natural paradise.

Contributors:

Sefton Delmer - British journalist at the Reichstag fire.

(Photo: Reichstag building on fire. Credit: Corbis via Getty Images)

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.

We hear from the first woman to lead DC Comics - the home of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. Jenette Kahn began turning the company around in the 1970s.

Our expert is Dr Mel Gibson, associate professor at Northumbria University. She has carried out extensive research into comics and graphic novels.

Next, Minda Dentler, the first female wheelchair athlete to complete the super-endurance Ironman World Championship in 2013, tells us about achieving her goal after contracting polio as a child.

Then, the invention of the life-size training dummy Resusci Anne in the 1960s, which was designed to teach mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

The ghost town in Namibia that's slowly being buried by the desert after it was abandoned in the 1950s when the diamonds ran out.

Finally, the accidental invention of superglue in 1951, which only became a big hit following an appearance on a US tv show.

Contributors:

(Photo: Cover illustration for Action Comics with Superman, June 1938. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.

We hear about the historic moment in Nigerian politics when Goodluck Jonathan made a phone call to General Buhari marking the peaceful handover of power in 2015.

Our expert is historian and creator of the Untold Stories podcast, Adesuwa Giwa-Osagie, who takes us through Nigeria's political history in the leadup to the phone call that changed Nigeria.

We find out about Harold Riley who was the only artist to ever be granted a sitting to paint Nelson Mandela and how the portrait was unveiled in 2005.

Plus the moment co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, crashed Germanwings Flight 4U 9525 into a mountain killing 150 people on board in 2015.

In 1991, when a Yugoslav People's Army Commander died in mysterious circumstances during the Croatian War of Independence.

Finally, the creation of a new genre of music called Ethio-jazz in 1960s New York.

Contributors:

Dr Reuben Abati - one of Goodluck Jonathan's special advisers

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic’ and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they’ve had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America’s occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.

(Photo:Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari (L) speaks with outgoing president Goodluck Jonathan (R) Credit: Pool / Nigeria Presidency Press Office/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.

(Photo: Alexei Leonov on his first space walk in 1965. Credit: Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)