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The History Hour
South Africa’s Immorality Act and India's Mars Orbiter Mission
The History Hour
Sep 27, 2024

We start with the story of a couple who were arrested under South Africa's Immorality Act, which banned sexual relationships between white people and non-white people. Dr Zureena Desai was arrested under the Immorality Act in South Africa.

Another law banned Inter-racial marriage in South Africa. In 1985, this was lifted. Suzanne La Clerc and Protas Madlala, the first inter-racial couple to get married under new rules in South Africa share their memories.

Our guest is Dr Susanne Klausen, The Brill professor of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at The Pennsylvania State University in the USA. She talks about love, marriage and sex in apartheid South Africa and the two laws that were both repealed on the same day in 1985.

We hear from Urban Lambertson, survivor of the Estonia ferry disaster in 1994, one of the deadliest shipping disasters since the Titanic.

Film-maker Allen Hughes tells of the time when rap sensation, Tupac Shakur was fired from the crime movie Menace II Society.

Finally, the ‘moon man of India’ Dr Mylswamy Annadurai, a scientist working on India’s Mars Orbiter Mission tells of the country’s momentous mission to Mars.

(Photo: Dr Zureena Desai. Credit: Abrie Jantjies)

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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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South Africa’s Immorality Act and India's Mars Orbiter Mission

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