Home  >  The History Hour  >  The Vietnam War and the expansion of the EU
The History Hour
The Vietnam War and the expansion of the EU
The History Hour
May 3, 2025

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service about the Vietnam War and the invention of the hugely popular mobile phone game, Snake.

Don Anderson, a former BBC TV reporter during the final days of Vietnam, discusses the atmosphere in Saigon as the North Vietnamese forces closed in.

We also hear about the network of tunnels in the south of the country which Viet Cong guerrillas built during the fighting.

Finally, the former president of the European Commission and two-time prime minister of Italy, Romano Prodi on steering through the ten-state expansion of the European Union in 2004.

Contributors:

Le Van Lang - a Viet Cong veteran.

Dr Xuan Dung Tran - a doctor in the South Vietnamese Marines.

Don Anderson - former BBC TV reporter.

Phạm Chi Lan - economist at Vietnam’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Romano Prodi - former president of the European Commission and two-time prime minister of Italy.

Taneli Armanto - mobile phone game Snake, inventor.

(Photo: Viet Cong soldier inside the Cu Chi tunnels. Credit: Dirck Halstead/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)


01hr 00min



The Vietnam War and the expansion of the EU

--:--
--:--