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

We hear about the unearthing of a mass grave in Sernyky, Ukraine, in 1990, and when the Boston Marathon was the target of a terror attack in 2013.

This programme contains distressing details.

Contributors:

(Photo: David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe. Credit: Getty Images)

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

We hear about the lengths one woman goes to to escape Eritrea, how Zumba was invented by accident and how a giant peace statue on a Japanese island, crumbled into a ghostly ruin.

Plus the arguments then, and the arguments still over the Good Friday Peace Agreement for Northern Ireland, and a picnic for peace that breached the Iron Curtain.

This programme contains descriptions of sexual violence.

Contributors:

(Photo: Zumba creator Beto Perez. Credit: Getty Images)

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

We hear about Vietnam's manicure godfather, how Bengaluru became India's Silicon Valley and how the first ever photograph from a mobile phone was sent.

Plus, the popularity of theoretical physicist Prof Stephen Hawking's book, A Brief History of Time, and the windmill that revolutionised wind power.

Contributors:

Tuong Vu - Professor of Political Science at the University of Oregon.

(Photo: Minh and Kien Nguyen outside beauty school in California. Credit: Kien Nguyen)

Max Pearson presents a compilation of stories about the history of film and cinema from around the world, including the longest running film in Indian cinema, the man who lived in an airport for 18 years and the ambitious release of the orca from the movie, Free Willy.

Plus, the real life escape from Alcatraz and the incredible story of Vietnamese movie star, Kieu Chinh.

Contributors:

Dr Ranita Chatterjee - Senior Lecturer in Film and Television Studies at the University of Exeter.

(Photo: People queuing for DDLJ in Mumbai. Credit: Getty Images)

A compilation of stories marking the 20th anniversary of the American led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Caroline Hawley, who was the Baghdad correspondent for the BBC at the time, speaks to Max Pearson about reporting on Iraq.

Contributors:

Lubna Naji - schoolgirl in Baghdad when the war broke out.

(Photo: US Marines help Iraqis take down a Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad. Credit: RAMZI HAIDAR/AFP via Getty Images)

Max Pearson presents a compilation of stories celebrating women who made history including a ground-breaking, African American science fiction writer and the first presidential hopeful in Mexico.

Plus the UN's first ever all-female peacekeeping unit, a woman who helped bring peace to Northern Ireland and a child goddess in Nepal.

Contributors:

Dr Brenda Stevenson - Hillary Rodham Clinton Chair in Women’s History at St John’s College, Oxford University.

(Photo: March for International Women's Day in Mexico City in 2023. Credit: Getty Images)

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Dr Uta Rautenberg from the University of Warwick in the UK, an expert on homophobia in Nazi camps.

Rudolf Brazda recounts his experience of being a gay man in a Nazi concentration camp, symbolised by the pink triangle he was forced to wear on his uniform.

Then, we hear first-hand accounts of the Indigenous American protest at Wounded Knee 50 years ago, and the assassination of Serbia's Prime Minister, Zoran Djindjic, in 2003.

We finish with two lighter stories: the world's most remote museum on the island of South Georgia and the first ever underwater sculpture park in the Caribbean.

Contributors:

(Photo: Marchers carry a pink triangle at a Gay Pride event in London. Credit: Steve Eason/Hulton Archive via Getty Images)

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Philippe Sands, Professor of the Public Understanding of Law at University College London, who tells us about the history of ethnic tensions in Mauritius.

The programme begins with Kaya a Mauritian musician whose death sparked three days of rioting. Then, we hear from John Huckstep who was interned by the Japanese when living in China during World War Two.

In the second half of the programme, we tell the story of how Semtex was invented, and the debate about where the German capital should be after reunification.

Finally, the man who made the Queen appear to jump out of a helicopter tells us how he did it, with the help of corgis, a clothesline, the Queen's dresser and of course James Bond.

Contributors:

(Photo: Mural of Kaya. Credit: BBC)

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Ilaria Favretto, Affiliate Professor at Kingston University in London, who tells us about the history of workers' protests across Europe.

The programme begins with a former union leader describing Italy's 'Hot Autumn' of 1969 when protests erupted. Then, we hear the archaeologist Howard Carter's remarkable account of opening the burial chamber of Tutankhamun, the Egyptian Pharaoh, 100 years ago.

In the second half of the programme, we hear about the creation of Pokémon, and the coronation of Denmark's first Queen in 600 years. Finally, an American woman tells us how she became a Muay Thai boxing champion.

Contributors:

It has been 10 years since Pope Benedict XVI announced his shock resignation. It was the first time in almost 600 years that a pope had stepped down.

In this programme, we hear stories about the history of the papacy, including how a pope is chosen, the inception of Vatican II and what happens when a pope dies.

Contributors:

Giovanna Chirri - former Ansa journalist

(Photo: Benedict XVI and Pope Francis. Credit: Getty Images)