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)

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

We find out about the landmark protest in 1990 when wheelchair users crawled up the steps of the US Capitol Building in Washington DC, campaigning for disability rights.

Our expert is Dr Maria Orchard, law lecturer at the University of Leeds, who has carried out research into disability and inclusion.

We hear about the 2015 attack on the Bardo Museum in Tunisia's capital, in which 22 tourists were killed.

Next, the Gambian woman who in 1997 began making bags and purses out of old discarded plastic and is now globally recognised as Africa's Queen of Recycling.

The South African musical King Kong which opened to critical acclaim in 1959 and whose all-black cast defied apartheid.

Finally, the invention of the Global Positioning System - GPS - in the late 1970s, which now keeps aircraft in the sky and supports banking transactions.

Contributors:

Anita Cameron - disability rights campaigner

(Photo: 8 year-old Jennifer Keelan crawls up the steps of the US Capitol, 12 March 1990. Credit: AP/Jeff Markowitz)

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

We find out how Sylvan Goldman’s invention of the shopping trolley in 1930s America turned him into a multi-millionaire.

Our expert is Rachel Bowlby, Professor of Comparative Literature at University College London, who is also the author of two books on the history of shopping.

We hear about Toyota’s military pick-up trucks that transformed the 1987 north African conflict between Chad and Libya.

The 2015 migrant crisis in Europe which led to thousands of people setting-up camp in the French port of Calais.

Next, how US forces invaded the Central American state of Panama in 1989 to depose General Manuel Noriega.

And finally in 1965 at the height of the USA’s civil rights struggle, the landmark legislation that was brought in to guarantee the rights of African Americans to vote.

This programme contains outdated language which some people might find offensive.

Contributors:

(Photo: A woman pushing a shopping cart, 1949. Credit: Bettman via Getty Images)

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

We hear about the moment Dr Max Perutz discovered the haemoglobin structure.

Our expert is Professor Sir Alan Fersht, who is a chemist at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology and knew Dr Perutz personally.

We also hear about 22 Inuit children from Greenland's indigenous population who were sent to Denmark as part of a social experiment in 1951.

Also, when mixed-raced children from the then Belgian Congo known as ‘métis’, were forcibly taken from their homes in 1953.

When an eruption of violence in Assam led to an estimated 3,000 being killed in the Nellie massacre of 1983.

Finally, the devastating impact of the 2010 tsunami in Chile and a woman who survived it.

This programme contains outdated language which some people might find offensive.

Contributors:

(Photo: Dr Max Perutz and Dr Paul Kedrew. Credit: Hulton Deutsch/Contributor via Getty Images)

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

We hear about the death of one of the oldest languages in the world, when an 85 year old woman died and took it with her in 2010.

Our expert guest is Dr Mandana Seyfeddinipur, who is the Head of the Endangered Languages Archive which endeavours to preserve languages that are disappearing at “an alarming rate.”

We also hear about the historian who helped bring a former Stasi officer to justice decades after he killed a man.

Also the moment Bolivia elected its first ever indigenous president in 2005.

The Thai couple that broke the world record for the longest kiss twice.

Plus, it’s 60 years since the controversial black activist, Malcolm X was assassinated. We hear from a man who was in the audience in New York when it happened.

This programme contains outdated and offensive language.

Contributors:

(Photo: Boa Senior in Hospital. Credit: Anvita Abbi)

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. We discuss the 1992 speech given by Australian Prime Minister, Paul Keating, in which he acknowledged the moral responsibility his government should bear for the horrors committed against Indigenous Australians, with our guest Dr Rebe Taylor from Tasmania University.

We also look at two female orators from opposite ends of the political spectrum: Eva Peron, also known as Evita, from right-wing Argentina and Dolores Ibárruri, who was a communist and anti-fascist fighter in the Spanish Civil War.

There are also two speeches from the USA, one which is remembered as one of the great presidential speeches of all time and another which help to change the view of AIDS in the country.

Contributors:

Dr Rebe Taylor - Australian historian from the University of Tasmania.

Archive of Eva Peron - former first lady of Argentina.

Mary Fisher - who addressed the Republican Party convention in 1992.

David Eisenhower and Stephen Hess - Dwight Eisenhower's grandson and former speechwriter.

Archive of Delores Ibárruri - former anti-fascist fighter in the Spanish Civil War.

(Photo: Paul Keating Credit: Pickett/The Sydney Morning Herald/Fairfax Media via Getty Images)

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is film critic and journalist Helen O'Hara who dissects what makes a cult film classic, after we hear about the making of the 1989 American film Heathers.

We also learn about the French philosopher behind the theory of deconstruction and how the world first became aware of coral bleaching in the 1980s.

As the climax of the American Football season approaches we look back at one of the most memorable moments from Super Bowl history.

Contributors:

Helen O'Hara - film critic and journalist.

Helene Cixous - lifetime friend of French philosopher Jacques Derrida.

Agathe Hébras - granddaughter of Robert Hébras, survivor of the Oradour Massacre.

Clive Wilkinson - the former co-ordinator for the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network.

Osi Umenyiora - two-time Super Bowl winner with the New York Giants.

(Photo: Winona Ryder, Kim Walker, Lisanne Falk, and Shannen Doherty on the set of Heathers 1988, New World Pictures/Getty Images)

We hear from 'wolf child' Luise Quietsch who was separated from her family and forced to flee East Prussia. Whilst trying to survive during World War Two, these children were likened to hungry wolves roaming through forests.

Journalist and documentary film-maker Sonya Winterberg who recorded the testimony of “wolf children” for her book, discusses the profound impact it had on their lives.

We also hear about the first major series of English lessons which were broadcast on Chinese television in 1981. Kathy Flower presented the English education programme, Follow Me, several times a week at primetime. It was watched by an estimated 500 million people keen to get a taste of the English language and observe westerners on television. Kathy Flower recalls what it was like becoming the most famous foreign person in China.

A series of unprecedented teachers’ strikes temporarily shut most of New York’s schools in the late 1960s, provoked by an ongoing dispute over whether parents could have a say in the running of their children’s schools. Monifa Edwards was a pupil at a school in the district of Ocean Hill-Brownsville, a name that became synonymous with the struggle over who controlled the local schools: the communities or the mainly white city officials.

On 16 March 1988, loyalist paramilitary Michael Stone killed three mourners and injured 60 others attending a funeral for IRA members killed in Gibraltar. American journalist Bill Buzenberg, who was covering the funeral for National Public Radio in the US, was knocked off his feet in the gun and grenade attack.

Finally we head to Eastern Europe in 1989, where approximately two million people joined hands across across Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to form a human chain demanding independence from the Soviet Union. It was a key moment in the protests in Eastern Europe that became known as the Singing Revolution. In 2010, Damien McGuinness spoke to MEP Sandra Kalniete, a Latvian organiser of the event.

(Photo: Luise Quietsch. Credit: Rita Naujokaitytė)