Explore every episode of the podcast Witness History: Witness Archive 2017

In 1961, Viv Nicholson became a household name in Britain when she and her husband scooped a massive win on the football pools. Asked what she would do with the money, Nicholson famously replied "Spend, Spend, Spend" and the tabloids followed her closely over the next few years as she spent the winnings on the high life. Viv Nicholson's story later became a successful West End musical and stage play. Simon Watts talks to her son, Howard Nicholson, author of "You Don't Know Viv".

PHOTO: Howard and Viv Nicholson (left and centre) with British entertainer Bruce Forsyth (Getty Images)

How two pilots, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, became the first to fly non-stop around the world without refuelling in December 1986. Their experimental aircraft was designed by Dick's brother, Burt Rutan. It had to be incredibly light to carry the huge weight of fuel required. But that meant the plane was vulnerable to breaking up in turbulence. Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager endured storms and equipment malfunctions to set the world record. They spent 9 days, 3 minutes and 44 seconds in the air. Alex Last speaks to Dick Rutan about their achievement. Photo: The Voyager aircraft designed by Burt Rutan (NASA).

Mountaineers risked their lives to camouflage churches and palaces in the great Russian city during World War Two. The city was besieged by the Germans and under bombardment. The climbers used paint and canvas to conceal the landmarks from enemy attack. Mikhail Bobrov was just 18 years old when first got sent up the city's spires. He's been speaking to Monica Whitlock about his wartime experiences.

Photo: A climber suspended from a spire in Leningrad. Credit: Tass/PA.

In December 1966, a group of Black activists in Los Angeles created the winter holiday Kwanzaa to try to reclaim their African heritage. It's now celebrated by millions across the US.

Lucy Burns speaks to Terri Bandele, who attended the first Kwanzaa celebrations aged 11.

Picture: Children at the first Kwanzaa celebration - courtesy of Terri Bandele (on right)

The game has become a holiday tradition with families around the world since its launch in 1981. Ashley Byrne has been speaking to the designer of Trivial Pursuit, Michael Wurstlin, about how it was first created.

Photo: The original Trivial Pursuit game. Credit: BBC.

One of the most successful American films of all time was released on Christmas Day 1962. Written by the best-selling author Harper Lee it starred Gregory Peck as a lawyer who stood against prejudice in the Deep South of the USA. Louise Hidalgo has been speaking to Gregory Peck's son Carey Peck about the film, and about his family's long-standing friendship with the reclusive Harper Lee.

Photo: Gregory Peck with the author Harper Lee in 1962. Credit: Getty Images.

When Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was a schoolboy, he was not allowed to drink from the same tap as his fellow students because he was a member of what was then known as an "untouchable" caste. But he went on to become a prominent leader in the campaign for Indian independence and oversaw the writing of the Indian constitution - which made the idea of "untouchability" illegal. A hero to many, he died in December 1956.

Lucy Burns hears recordings of BR Ambedkar from the BBC archives and speaks to biographer Ananya Vajpeyi.

Picture: A member of the Indian Congress Party places flowers on a statue of BR Ambedkar to mark the 122nd anniversary of his birth in Amritsar on April 14, 2013 (NARINDER NANU/AFP/Getty Images)

When Chinese universities reinstated entrance exams in December 1977 it was a sign that the Cultural Revolution was really over. For the previous decade students had been judged on their political fervour, rather than their academic abilities. Wu Yuwen, was one of the class of 1977 and she's been speaking to Michael Bristow about her student experiences. Photo: Wu Yuwen in 1978, during her first year at Peking University. Credit: Wu Yuwen

Australian scientists were central to the development of wifi. John O'Sullivan and David Skellern were among the group that gave us the ability to connect to the internet on-the-go. They've been speaking to Olga Smirnova about their breakthrough.

Photo: WiFi prototype Photo credit: Richard Keaney / Radiata

A controversial Islamic movement brought a brief moment of peace to Mogadishu in 2006 after years of war. The Islamic Courts Union (ICU) came to power after defeating rapacious American-backed warlords. They had no unified ideology or leadership. Some were moderates, some were hardline Islamists. But they brought law and order to the capital unseen since civil war began in 1991. But their rule would only last for six months and from the ashes would emerge the radical militant group Al-Shabab.

Photo: Somalia's Supreme Council of Islamic Courts (SCIC) militia display their flag in front of Hotel Ramadan, in Mogadishu, 15, July 2006 (STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images)

The Australian Prime Minister, Harold Holt, disappeared after going for a swim in the ocean on December 17th 1967 - never to be seen again. Susan Hulme has been speaking to Martin Simpson who was with the group that went to the beach with the Prime Minister that day.

Photo: Harold Holt on the beach with three women the year before his disappearance. Credit: Evening Standard/Getty Images

In December 1967, the great American soul singer, Otis Redding, was killed in a plane crash as he stood on the brink of superstardom. Simon Watts introduces the memories of Otis’s guitarist, Steve Cropper, and trumpeter, Wayne Jackson, as recorded in the BBC archives.

(Photo: Otis Redding in 1967)

Thousands died as a thick polluted fog engulfed London in 1952. People with respiratory and cardiovascular conditions were most at risk. The smog was a combination of pollution from millions of coal home fires and freezing fog. Unusual atmospheric conditions trapped the pall over the city for four days. The civil disaster changed Britain. Two years later, the government passed the Clean Air Act to reduce the use of smoky fuels such as coal. Alex Last speaks to Dr Brian Commins, who worked for the Medical Research Council's Air Pollution Unit set up at St. Bartholomew's hospital in London in the 1950s. Photo: A London bus conductor is forced to walk ahead of his vehicle with a flare to guide it through the smog, 9th December 1952. (Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The African-American lab technician, Vivien Thomas, whose surgery helped save the lives of millions of babies but whose work went unrecognised for years. Claire Bowes has been listening to archive recordings of Vivien Thomas describing his long partnership with Dr Alfred Blalock, the man solely credited with inventing an operation in 1944 which helped manage a congenital heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot.

(Photo: Vivien Thomas, US Surgical Technician, 1940) (Audio: Courtesy of US National Library of Medicine)

In 2001, American hypnotist Larry Garrett was invited to Iraq to treat an "important businessman". When he arrived in Baghdad he was told his special patient's true identity: Uday Hussein, the volatile and violent eldest son of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Mike Lanchin speaks to Garrett about the time he spent with Uday, about their long conversations and how he coped with the challenges of treating one of the most feared men in Iraq.

Photo: Larry Garrett in Baghdad, 2001 (courtesy of Larry Garrett)

The Russian Revolution of 1917 led not just to huge political and social change, but to a new artistic freedom. Russian avant-garde artists like Malevich, Kandinsky and Chagall flourished in the immediate aftermath of the revolution. One of their greatest supporters was art curator Nikolai Punin. Louise Hidalgo has been talking to Punin's granddaughter, Anna Kaminskaia, about how that freedom was gradually replaced with censorship and repression, and her grandfather ended his life in the Gulag.

Picture: 1920 painting by Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev (1878-1927), Bolshevik (oil on canvas), Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia

In 1967 a biologist began listening to strange sounds recorded way out at sea, he realised it was whales and that they were singing. Claire Bowes has been talking to Dr Roger Payne about the discovery that helped change people's perception of whales and helped found the modern conservation movement at a time when whales were close to extinction.

(Photo: Humpback Whale, courtesy of Christian Miller of Ocean Alliance)

In December 1917 Finland proclaimed its independence. For many centuries it had been controlled by its powerful neighbours, Sweden and Russia. As World War One raged across Europe and Russia was embroiled in its own revolution, Finnish intellectuals took the opportunity to push for their own state. But many ordinary people were more concerned with dire food shortages and the chaos caused by conflict. Olga Smirnova hears memories of that time.

(Photo: 1917: A Communist base burning during the Finnish civil war. Credit: Getty Images)

More personal stories from history of independent Finland can be found at the Finnish Institute in London http://www.taleoftwocountries.fi/frontpage/

In 1967 the British withdrawal from their colony of Aden led to the creation of the People's Republic of South Yemen. Britain had colonised the port city in 1839. Aden had been at the centre of the British colonial trading system and had been one of the busiest ports in the world. The handover has been described as one of the most chaotic in British colonial history. Farhana Haider has been speaking to the former British diplomat, Oliver Miles and to Ghassan Luqman who says the scars of Britain's quick withdrawal are still being felt in Yemen today.

Photo: Aden 1967 Copyright: Alamy.

The four huge granite heads of former presidents on Mount Rushmore have become one of America's most famous monuments. Construction started on the site in 1927, led by sculptor Gutzon Borglum. His granddaughter Robin Borglum Kennedy speaks to Lucy Burns about his work.

Picture: Mount Rushmore, June 1995 (KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images)

Thousands of scientists moved to deepest Siberia to dedicate their lives to research. The Soviet authorities began building the city in 1957. Academics were enticed there by the promise of housing and interesting work. Olga Smirnova spoke to Dr Victor Varand who made his life in Akademgorodok, or Academic City.

Photo: Scientists at work in Academic City. Credit: Victor Varand.

Alexander Litvinenko was a former colonel in the Russian secret service, but fled to London seeking political asylum when he became critical of the Putin government in 2000. In November 2006 he was poisoned with the highly radioactive substance Polonium 210. Rebecca Kesby has been speaking to his wife, Marina, about his life and excruciating death.

(PHOTO: Alexander Litvinenko in a London hospital a couple of days before his death in November 2006. Credit Getty Images.)

In November 2002, an oil tanker, the Prestige, sank off the coast of Galicia in north-west Spain, causing one of the worst environmental disasters in the country's history. In the following months, thousands of people from all over Spain travelled to Galicia to help clean up the spill. Simon Watts talks to Xavier Mulet, one of the volunteers.

(Photo: Volunteers cleaning up after the Prestige. Credit: Xavier Mulet)

Colonel Domingo Monterrosa was one of El Salvador's most successful and ruthless military commanders in the fight against leftist rebels. But in October 1984 the rebels carried out an audacious plan to kill him. Mike Lanchin has spoken to one former rebel and a war correspondent about the man and the plot.

(Photo: Colonel Domingo Monterrosa (R), speaking with one of his company commanders, 1983. Credit: Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)

It was one of the most notorious spy cases in US history. On 27th November 1954, former US diplomat Alger Hiss was released after spending four years in jail for allegedly lying about being a Soviet agent. Alger Hiss had been seen as a potential secretary of state, but was unable to shake off allegations that he'd passed official documents to Moscow. His conviction was the prelude to a Communist witch-hunt in America that became known as the McCarthy era. Louise Hidalgo has been talking to Alger Hiss's son Tony Hiss about growing up in the shadow of the scandal, and his belief that his father was innocent.

Picture: US state department official, Alger Hiss, denying he was a member of a Communist cell before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in Washington on 28th August 1948. (Credit: William Bond/Keystone/Getty Images)

East Germany's most famous singer-songwriter was exiled to the West in November 1976, causing an international outcry. Wolf Biermann was stripped of his GDR citizenship while on tour in West Germany.

Wolf Biermann speaks to Lucy Burns about his political songs and his fame on both sides of the Berlin Wall.

Picture: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

The buddy movie about a cowboy doll and a toy astronaut used computer-generated images to tell a story that appealed to audiences around the world. Animator Doug Sweetland has been speaking to Ashley Byrne about his work on the Pixar film.

Photo: Woody (R) and Buzz Lightyear (L) in a Japanese cinema. (Credit:Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images)

The president of South Vietnam was overthrown and murdered in a coup in November 1963 - with the support of the American government.

Lucy Burns speaks to Ngo Dinh Diem's niece Elisabeth Nguyen Thi Thu Hong, and American official Rufus Phillips.

Picture: Keystone/Getty Images

Charles Manson's followers murdered nine people on his orders. But how to prove his guilt when he wasn't on the scene at the time of the killings? Vincent Bugliosi was the young prosecutor who succeeded in bringing him to trial. Mr Bugliosi spoke to Chloe Hadjimatheou for Witness - the former prosecutor died in 2015.

Photo: Charles Manson in 2009. Credit: Getty Images.

In 1979 Islamic militants seized control of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the holiest site in Islam. Hundreds were killed as Saudi security forces battled for two weeks to retake the shrine. The militants were ultra-conservative Sunni Muslims who believed that the Mahdi, the prophesied Redeemer, had emerged and was a member of their group. The BBC's Eli Melki spoke to eyewitnesses who were inside the Grand Mosque during the siege. Photo: Fighting at the Grand Mosque in Mecca after militants seized control of the shrine, November 1979 (AFP/Getty Images)

Manfred Marx was the man who discovered the diamonds which transformed Botswana's economy. As a young geologist in 1967 his find in the Kalahari desert completely changed the country's fortunes after independence.

(Photo: Uncut diamonds. Credit: Getty Images)

Thousands of people went missing during Lebanon's long and brutal civil war. But in 1982 a group of women started an organisation to try to track down their family members. Nidale Abou Mrad has been speaking to Wadad Halawani whose husband was taken from their home by two gunmen and never came back.

Photo: West Beirut under shellfire in 1982.(Credit:Domnique Faget/AFP/Getty Images)

A British national institution closed in October 1964. The Windmill Theatre had been one of the few places where it was possible to see naked women on stage, due to a loophole in the censorship laws. Lucy Burns speaks to former Windmill Girl Jill Millard Shapiro about her memories of performing at the theatre.

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Curry first became popular in the UK in the 1950s with the arrival of immigrants from South Asia. They introduced spicy food to the British diet. Nina Robinson has been speaking to Nurjuman Khan, an early pioneer of the Indian restaurant business in the English Midlands. His story also forms part of the 'Knights of the Raj' exhibition in Birmingham by Soul City Arts.

Photo: A youthful Nurjuman Khan (Credit: Nurjuman Khan)

A dead sperm whale washed up on a beach in Florence, Oregon in November 1970. It was so big that the authorities decided to blow it up - with disastrous consequences. Years later, a local news report about the story resurfaced in the early days of the internet, and became one of the most famous viral videos ever. Lucy Burns speaks to Paul Linnman, the reporter behind the story.

Picture: a sperm whale washed ashore in Skegness, England in January 2016 (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Remarkable recordings from the BBC archive of two people who felt the cost of war first-hand. Their experiences were tragically common, but for many years, were rarely recorded or voiced in public You'll hear from a German soldier, Stefan Westmann, who tried to come to terms with the act of killing. And the story of Katie Morter, a British civilian from Manchester, and the man she loved, Percy. Photo: Katie Morter (BBC)

The Russian street dog was the first living creature to orbit the Earth. She was sent into space in November 1957. She died after orbiting the Earth four times. Professor Victor Yazdovsky was nine years old when his father brought Laika back from the laboratory to play with him. He has been speaking to Olga Smirnova for Witness.

Photo: Laika the dog. Credit: Keystone/Hulton/Getty Images.

On 7 November 1917, Bolshevik revolutionaries overthrew the provisional government set up in Russia after the fall of the Tsar earlier that year, and created the world's first communist state - a state that would become the Soviet Union. Louise Hidalgo has been listening back to eye-witness accounts of that tumultuous time.

(Photo: Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin addressing crowds in the capital Petrograd during the Russian Revolution of 1917. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Days before Kabul fell to anti-Taliban forces in November 2001, Osama bin Laden met Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir in a secret location before going into hiding. It would be 10 years before he was discovered and killed in Pakistan. Hamid Mir tells Rebecca Kesby about their last conversation and how they were both nearly killed in an airstrike.

(PHOTO: Osama bin Laden (left) with Pakistani Journalist Hamid Mir (right) at an undisclosed location. Credit Getty Images)

In 1967 the zoologist and broadcaster, Desmond Morris, wrote about humans in the same way that animals were described. The Naked Ape provoked criticism from religious thinkers and feminists alike, but it was an instant bestseller. His idea that we're not so different from our animal cousins was revolutionary at the time. Farhana Haider speaks to Desmond Morris about his provocative book.

Photo: Desmond Morris author of the Naked Ape. Credit: BBC

In 1997 the US Supreme Court ruled against censoring sex on the internet. It overturned a law, signed the previous year which had been designed to protect children from sexual content on the internet. Claire Bowes has been speaking to an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who fought the case for freedom of speech.

Photo: A computer. Credit: Anilakkus/iStock

In the Lebanese city of Tripoli there is an exceptional architectural site which has never been used. The great modernist architect Oscar Niemeyer designed all the buildings for an international fair which was about to open when civil war broke out in the 1970s. Architect Wassim Naghi has been speaking to Nidale Abou Mrad about the fair.

Photo: The Tripoli international fair from above. Credit: BBC.

When German monk Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of All Saint's Church in Wittenberg on 31 October 1517, he started a religious revolution. The document was about the church's practice of selling indulgences - but Luther's protest would grow into the Protestant Reformation. Witness hears primary sources from the time, and speaks to historian Lyndal Roper.

(Photo: A portrait of Martin Luther by Lucas Cranach the Elder on display at the German Historical Museum in Berlin, Germany (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

In October 1975 the prominent Brazilian journalist Vladimir Herzog was killed by the secret police. His murder became a symbol of the brutality of the military regime. Mike Lanchin speaks to his son, Ivo, who was just nine years old at the time.

Photo: Vladimir Herzog with Ivo as a baby (courtesy of the Herzog family).

In October 1929 Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir began their fifty-year love affair after meeting in Paris. Louise Hidalgo speaks to the writer and leading French feminist, Claudine Monteil, who knew Sartre and de Beauvoir, about their legendary status and their famously open relationship.

Photo: Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre sitting in a cafe in Paris, 1970. (STF/AFP/Getty Images)

An eyewitness to the assassination of the campaigning Nigerian journalist Dele Giwa. He was murdered in Lagos in 1986 while the country was under military rule.In October 1986, Dele Giwa was the founder of the investigative magazine Newswatch. In 2014, Alex Last spoke to his friend and colleague, Kayode Soyinka, who was with him when he died. Photo: Dele Giwa

Soon after Hitler ordered the invasion of Hungary in March 1944, the Nazis began rounding up hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews. Most were immediately sent to their deaths in the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. David Gur was a member of the Jewish Hungarian underground, who helped produce tens of thousands of forged identification documents. These allowed Jews to hide their true identities and escape deportation to the death camps. Now 91 years old, David has been telling Mike Lanchin about his part in one of the largest rescue operations organised by Jews during the Holocaust.

Photo: False Hungarian ID document (BBC)

On October 25th 1961 a new satirical magazine called Private Eye was published for the first time in London. It was part of a new era of comedy, poking fun at the powerful and politicians, and helping Britain to laugh at itself after the austerity of the post-war years. Louise Hidalgo has been talking to one of Private Eye's founders, Richard Ingrams.

Picture: the Private Eye office in 1963. From left to right, editor Richard Ingrams, Christopher Booker and actor, cartoonist and broadcaster Willie Rushton. (Photo by John Pratt/Keystone Features/Getty Images)

Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu made abortion illegal in October 1966 - but many women still tried to end their pregnancies, by sometimes desperate means.

Sorina Voiculescu was one of the millions of Romanian women who had an illegal abortion under the ban.

(Photo shows: A pregnant woman. Photo credit: PA)

How British Jewish ex-servicemen and volunteers came together to form The 43 Group to fight a resurgent British fascist movement on the streets of post-war Britain. Fascist leaders, like Sir Oswald Mosley, had been released from detention at the end of the World War Two. Soon they were holding meetings in London and around the country, often espousing the same violently anti-Semitic rhetoric used before the war.

In response the 43 Group was formed in the late 1940s to gain intelligence on the fascist movement, expose their activities and physically break up their meetings. Its activities became a model for future militant anti-fascist groups. Alex Last has been speaking to 43 Group veteran, Jules Konopinksi.

(Photo: British Fascist Sir Oswald Mosley speaking at a rally, Hertford Road, Dalston, London, 1 May 1948. Credit: Getty Images)