Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
We hear about two of the most influential computer games of the 1990s with their creators. John Romero was one of the developers of Doom and talks about the concept of a martian military base populated by zombie soldiers. Coder Jan Tian describes how his devotion to working on the football game FIFA 94 landed him in hospital. Our guest, The Guardian newspaper's video games editor Keza MacDonald, looks back on games which had a global impact.
Also how in 1945, 10,000 brains were collected from dead psychiatric patients in Denmark. It is now thought to be the world’s largest brain bank. We also find out how a group of right-wing army officers seized power in Greece in 1967 to stop the election of a social democratic government led by veteran politician George Papandreou.
And 30 years on since the cult French film La Haine was released, its director Mathieu Kassovitz describes how it caught the attention of high profile politicians with its criticism of policing in France.
Contributors: John Romero – Doom developer Jan Tian – FIFA 94 coder Keza MacDonald – video games editor, The Guardian Martin Wirenfeldt Nielsen – pathologist George Papandreou Jnr – former Greek Prime Minister Mathieu Kassovitz – film director
(Photo: Brains stored in plastic buckets at the University of Southern Denmark. Credit: BBC)
The Iron Curtain
The fall of Kwame Nkrumah
Black History: The Black Panthers
US 'smart bombs' hit an Iraqi air raid shelter
The Burma protests of 1988
The Arab Spring of 2011
Hitler's beer hall putsch
Attack at the US Capitol
Buddhist on Death Row
75 years of Unesco
Film special
The birth of Bangladesh
The first African to win the Nobel Peace Prize
The fall of Addis Ababa
Disability History special
The world's first woman premier
The Guerrilla Girls
The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin
US presidential history special
Why Portugal decriminalised all drugs
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