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The History Hour
Marriage bars and a Moon mission
The History Hour
Sep 6, 2024

Myra Anubi presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes.

We hear about the Irish law that banned married women from working in state jobs until 1973 and Apollo 13's attempted trip to the Moon in 1970.

Plus the Umbrella protest in Hong Kong, the ancient Egyptian mummy who flew to France for a makeover and the Argentine basketball player and wrestler nicknamed the Giant.

Contributors: Bernie Flynn - one of the first married women to keep her job after the marriage bar was abolished in Ireland. Irene Mosca - economics lecturer at Maynooth University, in Ireland. Fred Haise - NASA astronaut who was on board Apollo 13. Nathan Law - leader of the Umbrella protest in Hong Kong. Anne-Marie Gouden - receptionist at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris. Julio Lamas - Jorge Gonzalez's basketball coach. Bill Alfonso - wrestling referee and Jorge Gonzalez's personal assistant.

(Photo: A couple on their wedding day. 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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Marriage bars and a Moon mission

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