Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History episodes, all about events which happened in 1995.

First, we hear how Microsoft launched Windows 95 after a $300 million marketing campaign.

Our expert guest is Dr Lisa McGerty – Chief Executive of the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge.

Next, after 17 years terrorising America, we hear about the hunt for the Unabomber.

Plus, the sarin gas attack on a Tokyo metro, carried out by members of a doomsday cult.

Finally, how China exerted its influence over Tibetan Buddhism’s leadership.

Contributors:

Sarah Leary – project manager for Microsoft.

Dr Lisa McGerty – Chief Executive of the Centre for Computing History.

Carmine Gallo – police officer.

Dr Kathleen Puckett – FBI agent.

Atsushi Asakahara – metro passenger.

Arjia Rinpoche – senior Tibetan Lama.

(Photo: People lined up by US Microsoft Windows 95 exhibit. Credit: Forrest Anderson/Getty Images)

Josephine McDermott sits in for Max Pearson presenting a collection of the week’s Witness History episodes.

We hear from the author who stumbled across the story of Oskar Schindler while shopping for a briefcase in Beverly Hills.

Our guest is Dr Anne-Marie Scholz, from the University of Bremen in Germany, who reflects on the impact of dramatizations of World War Two.

We also hear about the start of Drum magazine, credited with giving black African writers a voice in the time of Apartheid.

The devastation of the earthquake in the port city of Kobe, Japan, is recalled by a child survivor.

Plus, the New Deal created by President Franklin D Roosevelt to drag the United States from the Depression of the 1930s.

Finally, the family intervention of American former First Lady Betty Ford, which led to the world-famous rehabilitation clinic being started.

Contributors:

Thomas Keneally – author of Schindler’s Ark.

Dr Anne-Marie Scholz - author of From Fidelity to History: Film Adaptations as Cultural Events in the 20th Century.

Prospero Bailey - son of Jim Bailey on the origins of Drum magazine.

Kiho Park – survivor of the 1995 Kobe earthquake.

Adam Cohen – expert on Roosevelt's New Deal.

Susan Ford Bales – daughter of Betty Ford.

(Photo: Nazi SS troops in Germany. Credit: Getty Images)

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History episodes.

We hear a first-hand account of the attack at the offices of French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo.

Our expert guest is Dr Chris Millington, who leads the Histories and Cultures of Conflict research group at Manchester Metropolitan University.

We also hear about Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews during World War Two.

Plus, the Bosphorus boat spotter tracking Russian military trucks in Turkey.

Russian military trucks on a civilian ship bound for Syria.

Also, the Norwegian man who invented the hotel key card in the 1970s.

Finally, we’re sparking joy with Japanese tidying expert Marie Kondo.

Contributors:

Riss – Charlie Hebdo cartoonist.

Dr Chris Millington - Histories and Cultures of Conflict research group at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Yörük Işık – boat spotter.

Archive recordings from 2015.

Anders – son of Tor Sornes.

Marie Kondo - organising consultant.

(Photo: Charlie Hebdo mural. Credit: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History episodes.

We hear two stories from the deadly 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, which killed thousands of people in south-east Asia.

Our expert guest is Ani Naqvi, a former journalist who was on holiday in Sri Lanka when the wave hit.

We also hear from the two Polish students who created the voice of Alexa, the smart speaker.

Plus, the story of Klaus Fuchs, the German-born physicist who passed nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union while working on the first atomic bomb.

Finally, we find out about Robert Ripley, the American cartoonist who made millions from sharing bizarre facts.

Contributors:

Choodamani and Karibeeran Paramesvaran – couple whose three children died in the Boxing Day tsunami.

Dendy Montgomery – photographer who captured the tsunami devastation.

Ani Naqvi – former journalist who was caught up in the tsunami.

Lukasz Osowski and Michal Kaszczuk – creators of Alexa.

Klaus Fuchs-Kittowski – nephew of atomic spy Klaus Fuchs.

John Corcoran – director of exhibits at Ripley’s.

(Photo: Tsunami devastation in Indonesia. Credit: Getty Images)

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History interviews which all relate to food.

Contributors:

Thomas Frankenfeld – son of Peter Frankenfeld who produced Dinner for One.

Ingrid Sharp - professor of German cultural and gender history at the University of Leeds.

Dr Chaelin Park - World Institute of Kimchi.

Sangeeta Talwar – former executive vice president of Nestle India.

Franc Roddam – creator of Masterchef.

Cristeta Comerford – former White House chef.

(Photo: Dinner for One. Credit: Getty Images)

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Professor Chandrika Kaul, a specialist on modern British and Imperial history at the University of St Andrews in the UK.

We start by hearing from both sides of Australia's 1999 referendum on becoming a republic.

Then, a survivor recounts the horrific 1972 Andes plane crash and the extraordinary things he had to do to survive.

We hear how the BBC put text on our television screens for the first time.

Plus, a grieving mother recounts the Taliban's horrific 2014 attack on a military school in Pakistan.

Finally, we hear how the communist authorities enforced martial law in Poland over Christmas in 1981.

Contributors:

Malcolm Turnbull - former Australian Prime Minister and leader of republican campaign.

(Photo: Malcolm Turnbull, leader of the Australian Republican Movement, 1999. Credit: Torsten Blackwood/AFP via Getty Images)

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Joan Flores-Villalobos, Assistant Professor in the Department of History at the University of Southern California, and author of The Silver Women: How Black Women’s Labor Made the Panama Canal.

First, we hear from a man involved in the handover of the canal from the United States to Panama in 1999. Then, DJ and singer Leonardo Renato Aulder explains how the canal led to the creation of Reggaeton music.

Next we go to Cuba. An old comrade of Fidel Castro recounts the violent start of the Cuban revolution in 1953. And a member of the Obama administration explains how he negotiated better US-Cuba relations in 2014.

Finally, the story of the 442nd US military regiment, made up almost entirely of Japanese Americans, that earned more than 4,000 Purple Heart medals for extraordinary heroism during World War Two.

Contributors:

(Photo: World War Two veterans from the highly decorated 442nd Regiment in 2015. Credit: Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

In partnership with the BBC 100 Women list, we have a selection of stories about inspiring and influential women from around the world.

Scientist Katalin Karikó, who won the Nobel Prize and helped save millions of lives in the Covid 19 pandemic, Julia Gillard, the former Australian prime minister who took a stand against misogyny in politics, and Indian artist Nalini Malani whose instillation got people thinking about the consequences of nuclear conflict.

We also hear from the founder of Ms Magazine, the feminist campaigner Gloria Steinem who in 1972, co-founded the first magazine in the US which was owned, run and written by women.

And the story of Portugal's "Three Marias" whose book ‘Novas Cartas Portuguesas’, was banned after it was published.

Contributors:

Maria Teresa Horta - one of the "Three Marias".

Dr Katalin Karikó - Nobel Prize winning scientist.

Valeria Perasso - Team leader at the BBC's 100 Women project.

Julia Gillard - Former Australian Prime Minister.

Nalini Malani - Indian artist.

Gloria Steinem - Co-founder of Ms Magazine.

(Photo: Nalini Malani. Credit: Ritesh Uttamchandani/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)

We hear from Magnus Carlsen, who in 2014, became the first player ever to win all three world chess titles in one year, achieving the highest official rating of any player in history.

Woman grandmaster, three times British champion and chess historian, Yao Lan is our guest. She talks about the origin of chess.

In the 1970s and 80s, scientists in Russia, managed to dig a hole more than 12,000 metres deep. It was called the Kola Superdeep Borehole. One of the geophysicists involved tells us about the deepest man-made hole in the world.

Plus, one of the most controversial political scandals in modern US history, the Iran-Contra affair. And from 2010, the first HIV positive passenger to travel legally to the US after a 22-year ban.

Finally, the story behind the BBC's Strictly Come Dancing tv show.

Contributors:

Magnus Carlsen - chess grandmaster and five-time World Chess Champion

Yao Lan - chess woman grandmaster, three times British champion and chess historian.

Professor David Smythe – geophysicist.

Clemens Ruland – first HIV positive passenger to travel legally to the US after a 22-year ban.

Karen Smith - co-creator and executive producer Strictly Come Dancing.

(Photo: Magnus Carlsen in 2014. Credit: Francois Nel/Getty Images)

During the early years of Syria’s brutal civil war, the neighbourhood of Yarmouk, close to the Syrian capital Damascus, bore the brunt of the government’s viciousness. Known as ‘the Pianist of Yarmouk,’ Aeham tells Mike Lanchin about their struggle to survive the siege, and how music helped him overcome some of those dark days. Dr Gillian Howell, senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne explains how music has been used as a form of protest and honouring lives lost during conflict.

After Iran's Islamic Revolution in 1979, some Christians faced persecution. Between 2002 and 2005, Naghmeh Panahi and her husband, Saeed Abedini, set up a network of secret 'house churches' across the country.

It is 70 years since William Golding’s acclaimed novel was published. Lord of the Flies is the story of a group of English schoolboys marooned on a desert island, and how they survive without adults. Golding's daughter, Judy Carver, spoke to Vincent Dowd, about her father’s work in 2014.

In 1999, the small territory of Macau was handed back to China after centuries of Portuguese rule. Lawyer and comedian Miguel Senna Fernandes was a member of the Macau Legislative Council and involved in the historic handover.

In 1993, a new combat sport was born. Its founders called it the Ultimate Fighting Championship – UFC. It pitted all forms of mixed martial arts against each other with little to no rules and all contained in an octagon-shaped cage. One of the men responsible for cooking up this new concept was TV producer Campbell McLaren. He tells Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty how he used controversy to market the violent spectacle. This episode contains descriptions of violence, which some listeners may find distressing.

Presenter: Max Pearson

(Photo: Aeham Ahmad, the Pianist of Yarmouk and other Palestinian musician refugees in Damascus, in Syria, in 2014. Credit: Rame Alsayed/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)