Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
To mark 50 years since the discovery of the Terracotta Army, we're exploring modern Chinese history.
We hear from the man who helped to modernise the Chinese language by creating a new writing system. It's called Pinyin and it used the Roman alphabet to help simplify Chinese characters into words.
Our expert guest is the writer, Mark O'Neill, whose book 'The Man Who Made China a Literate Nation' forms the basis of a great discussion about historical language changes throughout history.
Plus, a first hand experience of life in labour camps during Mao Zedong’s cultural revolution and the women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial army during the 1930s. This programme contains disturbing content.
Contributors: Mark O'Neill - writer Zhou Youguang - linguist Jingyu Li - victim of Mao Zedong's labour camps Peng Zhuying - survivor of sexual slavery Yuan Zhongyi - archaeologist Dr Li Xiuzhen - archaeologist Simon Napier-Bell - manager of Wham
(Photo: Terracotta Army. Credit: Getty Images)
British black history special
The Mafia and Italian politics
Blackwater killed my son
Stories of resistance and protest from around the world
Prohibition in India
Inventing James Bond
Margaret Ekpo - Nigeria's feminist pioneer
The siege at Ruby Ridge
Beirut's hotel war
The Second World War in Japan
Adrift for 76 Days
The Million Man March
South Korea's 1980s prison camps
Quarantined in a TB sanatorium
Dealing with economic crisis
Sex trafficking and peacekeepers
Black American History Special
The Zanzibar revolution
The Gwangju massacre
Britain's World War Two crime wave
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It is Free
The Modern West
Global News Podcast
Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4
The Infinite Monkey Cage
You’re Dead to Me
Elis James and John Robins