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The History Hour
Pirate radio and the Velvet Divorce
The History Hour
Feb 4, 2023

The launch of the first black music station in Europe - the Dread Broadcasting Corporation in London in 1981 - and why Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993.

Plus the assassination of Burundian President Melchior Ndadaye, the Columbia space shuttle disaster and the bombing of the Palestine Post.

Contributors:

Michael Williams - former DBC station manager Carmella Jervier - DJ Dr Caroline Mitchell - Professor of Radio at the University of Sunderland Jean-Marie Ngendahayo - former minister in Burundi Václav Klaus - former prime minister of the Czech Republic Vladimír Mečiar - former prime minister of Slovakia Mordechai Chertoff - former foreign editor of the Palestine Post Admiral Hal Gehman - Chairman of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board

(Photo: Radio Caroline Pirate Radio ship. Credit: Getty Images)

More Episodes


Aug 15, 2026
The Mau Mau uprising and man-eating lions

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes focussing on Kenya.

We hear about Muthoni Kirima, one of the last Mau Mau fighters to come out of hiding and lay down her arms.

Caroline Elkins, Professor of History at Harvard University, discusses the brutality of the conflict between Kenya’s Land and Freedom Army, the British and Kenyan loyalists.

Next, when Princess Elizabeth became queen while staying at the Treetops Hotel, a lodge in the Aberdare National Park.

In 1997, scientists travelled to Kenya, in search of a cave believed to have been the den of the man-eating lions that terrorised railway workers in 1898.

Plus, we hear how Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and his rival Raila Odinga signed an unprecedented power-sharing deal to end a wave of violence that left more than 1,200 people dead.

And the heartwarming story of the friendship between a baby hippo and a 130-year-old giant tortoise.

Finally for our Sporting Witness story, we head to the first Ultimate Frisbee World Championship in Gothenburg, Sweden in 1983.

Contributors: Caroline Elkins - Professor of History at Harvard University, and author of Britain's Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya. Muthoni Kirima - Field Marshall in the Kenya Land and Freedom Army. Frank Gillard - BBC correspondent. Thomas Gnoske - Scientist. Alan Patterson - British Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Patterson's grandson. Maina Kiai - Chair of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights in 2008. Maini Schildt - Swedish Ultimate Frisbee player.

(Photo: Mau Mau suspects are rounded up by police outside the camp in Manyani, Kenya, 1955. Credit: Getty Images/Authenticated News)


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Pirate radio and the Velvet Divorce

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