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The History Hour
The history of toys
The History Hour
Dec 27, 2025

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.

We learn about how Play-Doh evolved from a cleaning product to a childhood favourite and the creation of one of the best-selling board games of all time, Catan.

Our guest is the editor of Toy World Magazine, Caroline Tonks, who takes us through the history of toy crazes.

We also hear about the invention of the hoverboard, and how the Tamagotchi allowed people to have their own virtual pet.

Plus, how the family favourite game, Jenga, was born in 1970s Ghana.

And our Sporting Witness looks at how a piece of software revolutionised the game of football through data analysis.

Contributors:

Peg Roberts – daughter of Kay Zufall

Benjamin Teuber – son of Catan inventor Klaus Teuber

Caroline Tonks – editor of Toy World Magazine

Shane Chen – the inventor of the hoverboard

Akihiro Yokoi – the inventor of the Tamgotchi

Leslie Scott – the creator of the game Jenga

Ramm Mylavaganam – inventor of ProZone

(Photo: The Tamagotchi was introduced in 1996 and is one of the best-selling toys in history. Credit: Reuters)

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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The history of toys

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