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The History Hour
The Lampedusa disaster and cat cafes
The History Hour
Sep 29, 2023

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service. We hear about the sinking of a migrant boat off Lampedusa in 2013 which was one of the Mediterranean’s worst shipwrecks. Also, we find out about Wally Hendrickson, the US physicist who volunteered to be dropped into the front line of the Vietnam War to remove fuel rods from a reactor. Plus, the opening of the world's first cat cafe in Taipei, Taiwan, in 1998.

Contributors: Amnasager Araya who survived the Lampedusa tragedy after being rescued by Vito Fiorino. Annalisa Camilli, correspondent for Internazionale magazine. Wally Hendrickson who removed the fuel rods from the reactor in Vietnam. André Turcat, the French pilot of Concorde’s maiden flight. The star of the telenovela, Kassandra, Coraima Torres, and Tony Paez who distributed the show. Tracy Chang, founder of the first cat cafe in Taiwan.

(Photo: A woman on a boat heading for Lampedusa. Credit: Getty Images)

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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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The Lampedusa disaster and cat cafes

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