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The History Hour
The priest behind a new airport and Agatha Christie
The History Hour
Jan 24, 2026

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

Our guest Sugandhi Jayaraman, lecturer in air transport management at the University of Westminster, discusses the changes in airports over time. We hear about the Irish priest whose dream of air travel in a remote part of West Ireland became a reality.

And we travel back to 1943 to one of the most audacious hoaxes of World War Two. Plus the Challenger Shuttle disaster where a member of the public had been chosen to join the experienced astronaut crew.

We also commemorate Agatha Christie and we go back to 1979 when Ayatollah Khomeini flew back to Tehran from Paris after being exiled.

Contributors:

Pearce Concannon - firefighter at Knock airport

Sugandhi Jayaraman - lecturer

Roger Morgan - amateur historian

Barbera Morgan - trained alongside the Challenger team

Mathew Prichard- Agatha Christie's grandson

Mohsen Sazegara - worked for the Ayatollah

(Picture: Cabin crew with Monsignor James Horan at Knock Airport. Credit: Independent News And Media/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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The priest behind a new airport and Agatha Christie

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