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)
Pad Thai, kiwis and the chef Ken Hom
Tsunamis and Caster Semenya
Mandela's funeral and Tsar's reburial
Doom and Danish brains
Saving animals from extinction and Cabbage Patch Kids
Zambia celebrates independence and the invention of bubble tea
The Eyjafjallajokull volcano eruption in Iceland and EpiPen invention
Pakistani popstars, and the hippo and the tortoise
Che Guevara's daughter and marrying Freddie Mercury
Gezi Park protests and MAD hijack
Osmondmania! and the launch of Lagos Fashion Week
The creation of Ghana's flag and the oldest person at primary school
Marking 50 years since the 1973 global oil crisis
The Lampedusa disaster and cat cafes
Nazi eugenics and the year of the vuvuzela
Israeli and Palestinian history
The Chilean coup and Zanzibar’s most famous singer
Historic Korean summit and goat island
Ireland's 'ghost estates' and the first Rose of Tralee
Judy Garland's legacy and the Benin Bronzes
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