Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.
We hear about Cyberia - the first commercial internet café which opened in London in 1994. Director of the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford, Professor Vicki Nash, talks us through other notable landmarks in the internet’s history. Plus how the Covid N95 mask was invented by a scientist from Taiwan in 1992.
Also how Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff was punished for his writing on liberation theology. Staying with Brazil, we hear how poor rural workers occupied land owned by the rich, resulting in violent clashes in 1980.
And the world's first global seed vault, buried deep inside a mountain on an Arctic island.
Contributors: Eva Pascoe – a founder of Cyberia internet café Prof Vicki Nash – Director of the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford Peter Tsai – inventor of N95 mask Leonardo Boff – Brazilian theologian Maria Salete Campigotto – Landless Workers Movement protestor Dr Cary Fowler – founder of Doomsday seed vault
(Photo: People using Cyberia in 1994. Credit: Mathieu Polak/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images)
Abolishing the army
Drama in the British parliament
Autism and the MMR vaccine
China's breakthrough malaria cure
I was abused by a President
Venezuela's oil bonanza
The curse of Agent Orange
Iceland jails its bankers
The last days of Hitler
The Iranian Revolution
Vatican II: Reforming the Catholic Church
Strikers in Saris
When Stalin Rounded Up Soviet Doctors
Vikings in North America
UFO Sightings: The Rendlesham Forest Incident
Stopping The 'Shoe Bomber'
Apollo 8
Adopted By The Man Who Killed My Family
The Man Who Inspired Britain's First Aids Charity
The 'Braceros' - America's Mexican Guest Workers
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It is Free
The Modern West
Global News Podcast
The Infinite Monkey Cage
Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4
You’re Dead to Me
Elis James and John Robins