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

To mark 50 years since the global oil crisis, we’re focusing on oil - from discovery to disaster. We hear from Dr Fadhil Chalabi, then the deputy secretary general of Opec (Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) about what happened during the 1973 crisis.

Our guest Helen Thompson, Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge University, explains why oil became the lifeblood of industrial economies during the last two centuries. We also learn how Kazakhstan signed ‘the deal of the century’ to become a fossil fuel powerhouse thanks to the Tengiz Oil Field.

Plus, why in 1956, not everyone welcomed the discovery of oil in the Nigerian village of Oloibiri. We find out more about the devastating impact of one of the world’s largest oil spills - when the Amoco Cadiz tanker ran aground off the coast of France in 1978. The wreck released more than 220,000 tonnes of crude oil into the sea.

And finally, how an indigenous community in the Ecuadorian Amazon fought a court battle to protect their land from oil drilling – and won.

Contributors:

(Photo: Oil rig. Credit: Fairfax Media via Getty Images via Getty Images)

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

Contributors:

(Photo: A woman on a boat heading for Lampedusa. Credit: Getty Images)

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

We hear about the people with disabilities who were sterilised in Germany following an order in 1933, passed by the then Chancellor Adolf Hitler.

Also, we find out about the first man to descend into the “Gates of Hell”, the Darvaza Crater, in Turkmenistan.

Plus the story behind the vuvuzela which was dubbed the “world’s most annoying instrument”.

Contributors:

(Photo: Adolf Hitler. Credit: Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

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

We also hear from a Palestinian and an Israeli who were there when rioting broke out in 2000, after the Israeli opposition leader, Ariel Sharon, made a visit to the al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

Contributors:

(Photo: Israeli soldiers run towards the Church of the Nativity. Credit: Musa Al-Shaer/AFP via Getty Images)

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

We hear from Chilean politician Hermógenes Pérez de Arce, who helped oust President Allende in 1973. We also hear from the widow of folk singer Victor Jara, who was killed during the military coup.

Our guest is Dr Camila Vergara, who is a historian and journalist from Chile, and a senior lecturer at the University of Essex Business School in the UK. She tells us more about the aftermath of the Chilean coup, and its lasting impact.

Eva Franchell speaks about her friend, the Swedish foreign minister Anna Lindh who was murdered in 2003.

In the second half of the programme, campaigner Frank Heweston shares his experience on Greenpeace’s Arctic voyage to disrupt drilling on a newly built oil rig and we hear from a friend and promoter of Zanzibar’s most famous musician, Bi Kidude.

(Photo: President Salvador Allende. Credit: Bettman/Getty Images)

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week's Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Jean H. Lee, an American journalist who has covered both North and South Korea extensively. Jean is also the co-host of the BBC World Service podcast, The Lazarus Heist. She tells us more about the relationship between the two countries.

The programme begins with the historic meeting between North and South Korea's leaders almost 50 years after the Korean War. We hear from Sameh Elbarky who was in Cairo's Rabaa al-Adawiya Square on the day the army killed hundreds of protestors following a military coup.

In the second half of the programme, British black activists recount how they protested against racism within the local bus company in Bristol in 1963. One of the first Chinese students to arrive in the US in the early 1980s following the Cultural Revolution shares her experience. Finally, how the Mexican island of Guadalupe was saved from being destroyed by hungry goats.

Contributors:

(Photo: North and South Korean leaders meet at the summit in 2000. Credit: Reuters)

Max Pearson presents a collection of Witness History stories from the BBC World Service, this week we are focusing on Irish history.

In 2006, Ireland’s economic boom, known as the Celtic Tiger, ended. It meant thousands of people, like Michelle Burke, were left devastated as house construction stopped.

In 1959, Tralee, in Ireland, hosted a festival to promote the town and build Irish connections around the world. The Rose of Tralee is now one of Ireland’s oldest and largest festivals.

Veteran RTE broadcaster and author, Joe Duffy, walks us through the significance of the Celtic Tiger.

At Easter 1916, a small army of Irish rebels attempted to start a revolution against British rule. They held out for more than a week against a massive British military response, but the insurrection ultimately failed.

Also, how electrification lit up rural Ireland for the first time, despite concerns about its potential dangers.

And how a group of women fought against a sexist tradition, that prevented them from taking a dip in a popular swimming spot.

Contributors:

(Photo: Deserted 'ghost estate' in Ireland. Credit: Tim Graham/Getty Images)

A compilation of this week's Witness History episodes. Gerald Clarke, the author of Get Happy: The Life of Judy Garland, speaks to Max Pearson about the legacy of the stage and screen actress who died in 1969.

We also look at how a chance encounter led to the return of two of the looted Benin Bronzes, ancient artworks which were among thousands stolen from Benin City by the British Army in 1897.

And we head back to 2008, when a nine-year-old boy tripped over a fossil that would lead to one of the most important discoveries in the history of human evolution.

Contributors:

Author Gerald Clarke

(Photo: Judy Garland during a press conference in 1963. Credit: Central Press/Getty Images)

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

(Photo: French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing and Jean-Bédel Bokassa in Bangui, March 1975. Credit: Getty Images)

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

We hear about a prehistoric discovery in India - a nest full of dinosaur eggs found in 1982. Plus, why a Mongolian dinosaur skeleton became the centre of a 2012 court battle in a case known as United States V One Tyrannosaurus Bataar.

Our guest, palaeobiologist Neil Gostling reveals how newly-uncovered dinosaurs are named, and tells us which fossilised beast was the first to be christened.

José Mujica recounts his journey from young revolutionary in the 1960s and 70s to becoming Uruguay's president in 2009. Plus, we learn more about the deaf children in Nicaragua who invented their own sign language. And find out why a treehouse built beside the Berlin Wall during the Cold War became a symbol of resistance.

Contributors:

(Photo: Tyrannosaurus Bataar skeleton, 2016. Credit: Johannes Eisele/AFP via Getty Images)