Browse content similar to 16/07/2016. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
start. She is in good shape and we have the London anniversary games | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
next weekend. That is all your sport now. | :00:00. | :00:00. | |
Now on BBC News, it's time for Witness. | :00:00. | :00:30. | |
Hello and welcome to Witness with me, Tanya Beckett, here at the | :00:31. | :00:37. | |
British Library in London. We have another five witnesses who have | :00:38. | :00:40. | |
given us a glimpse of history through the eyes of people who were | :00:41. | :00:44. | |
there. This month on the programme we hear from one of the hostages | :00:45. | :00:48. | |
freed from Entebbe airport by Israeli special forces in 1976. From | :00:49. | :00:54. | |
one of the Inuit children separated from their families by the Danish | :00:55. | :01:00. | |
government, and from the art restorer who brought Leonardo da | :01:01. | :01:03. | |
Vinci's Last Supper back to its former glory. But first, a | :01:04. | :01:15. | |
terrifying accident in space. Michael Foale was on board the | :01:16. | :01:19. | |
International Space Station Mir in 1997. | :01:20. | :01:25. | |
Mir was built by the Russians. The impression you got when you opened | :01:26. | :01:29. | |
up the hatch and went into Mir for the first time was twofold. The | :01:30. | :01:33. | |
first was the smell. It was a smell a bit like an oily garage. Maybe a | :01:34. | :01:38. | |
little bit of must because we did not have mould on the Mir. Then the | :01:39. | :01:46. | |
other impression was clutter. It is like going into the oesophagus of | :01:47. | :01:48. | |
someone's throat. After about six weeks of being on the station, I had | :01:49. | :01:52. | |
been doing my experiments, I was very happy. I got an two up on June | :01:53. | :02:05. | |
25. My colleagues had been using radio control equipment to fly a | :02:06. | :02:13. | |
cargo ship called Progress looking at the TV screen. As I look at the | :02:14. | :02:18. | |
TV screen I can see that the orientation is all wrong for a | :02:19. | :02:23. | |
proper docking to take place. Sasha, the flight engineer, says to me | :02:24. | :02:31. | |
Michael, trouble. He means the Soyuz spacecraft, which was joined onto | :02:32. | :02:35. | |
the end of the station which was our lifeboat. I understood because of | :02:36. | :02:42. | |
the emergency in which he said it, he meant go there to save your life. | :02:43. | :02:54. | |
As I float through, I feel the whole space station 's shadow and move | :02:55. | :03:00. | |
around me. -- I feel whole space station shudder and move around | :03:01. | :03:05. | |
with. I feel like this could be my last breath. I am looking for the | :03:06. | :03:10. | |
walls and waiting for them to part. The klaxons go off when there is a | :03:11. | :03:15. | |
pressure leak. Then I felt my ears popping which means the areas | :03:16. | :03:19. | |
leaving the space station and there was a whistling sound. In 23 | :03:20. | :03:25. | |
minutes, if we did nothing, we would start to go unconscious. Sasha comes | :03:26. | :03:29. | |
to me and does not say a word. He feverishly starts trying to remove | :03:30. | :03:35. | |
cables leading into the spectre module. Sasha looks around for a | :03:36. | :03:38. | |
large hatch which could be put in place. We put it on and as it went | :03:39. | :03:44. | |
on it kind of sucked in. Because the station had been hit by the | :03:45. | :03:48. | |
Progress, we were tumbling and rolling. There was no electric power | :03:49. | :03:55. | |
and the batteries were giving out. There was no fan running, limited | :03:56. | :03:59. | |
carbon dioxide removal and no communications with Moscow or | :04:00. | :04:03. | |
anybody else. It was a totally dead station. This is not something you | :04:04. | :04:11. | |
see in movies where it all gets solved instantly by some brainy | :04:12. | :04:17. | |
chap. It took probably six hours. We used the Soyuz spacecraft and just | :04:18. | :04:20. | |
fired the Jets to stop the space station tumbling and rolling. And | :04:21. | :04:26. | |
then, wonderfully, we came into sunlight just after this, and all of | :04:27. | :04:31. | |
a sudden, the fans started to come on and the lights came on and I | :04:32. | :04:41. | |
said, Vasily, we have done it. However, for the next month, the | :04:42. | :04:45. | |
station was in operable in any normal sense. We could just sustain | :04:46. | :04:50. | |
our lives and nothing else. When finally the shuttle came in October, | :04:51. | :04:55. | |
I was really, really quite happy to see them. As we backed away from the | :04:56. | :05:02. | |
Mir station, I looked at it and I thought, I don't really mind if I | :05:03. | :05:08. | |
never see that again! Astronaut Michael Foale remembering | :05:09. | :05:12. | |
the worst collision in the history of manned space flight. In 1976, a | :05:13. | :05:20. | |
group of Palestinian and German hijackers were holding more than 200 | :05:21. | :05:24. | |
people hostage at Uganda's Entebbe airport, when Israeli specials | :05:25. | :05:30. | |
forces stormed the building Seri Davis was one of the hostages. | :05:31. | :05:38. | |
We decided to take both children to the United States. The plane did not | :05:39. | :05:42. | |
go straight to Paris as we thought. I heard some shouting. Two Young | :05:43. | :05:51. | |
Arabs and a woman, a German, were running in the plane with | :05:52. | :05:57. | |
ammunition. We heard a voice from the cockpit, and that was the main | :05:58. | :06:06. | |
hijacker who was a German young man. He told us that the plane is | :06:07. | :06:12. | |
hijacked by the extreme part of the PLO. He also told us what are the | :06:13. | :06:20. | |
demands. He said releasing Israelis from five countries and he said he | :06:21. | :06:30. | |
wanted $40 million. We did not know exactly where we are flying to. We | :06:31. | :06:40. | |
landed in Entebbe, in Kampala. EDI mean, the president of Uganda, and | :06:41. | :06:48. | |
the leader of the terrorists who were waiting for the aeroplane, they | :06:49. | :06:54. | |
took us out of the plane surrounded by Ugandan armed soldiers straight | :06:55. | :07:00. | |
to the old terminal, 250 people together and frightened so much -- | :07:01. | :07:06. | |
Idi Amin, the president of Uganda. The separation which happened on the | :07:07. | :07:10. | |
third day was the second very traumatic moment. They start calling | :07:11. | :07:16. | |
names and we found out after three or four names that they are using | :07:17. | :07:25. | |
only Israeli passports. I had lost most of my family of my parents' | :07:26. | :07:31. | |
family in the Holocaust, and hear a German woman and a German young man | :07:32. | :07:38. | |
are doing again a separation will stop we were sitting in the Israeli | :07:39. | :07:43. | |
room. We saw they are releasing grips of other people and we knew | :07:44. | :07:50. | |
that we have an entirely different fate. On the seventh day, we heard a | :07:51. | :07:59. | |
shot and then a few shots afterwards. I grabbed Benny and I | :08:00. | :08:07. | |
put myself, all my body on him, and I prayed to God not to get hurt but | :08:08. | :08:14. | |
to be killed immediately. The shooting around was terrible, the | :08:15. | :08:22. | |
smells and the noises. And then somebody said, listen, guys. I | :08:23. | :08:29. | |
lifted a little bit my head and I saw an Israeli soldier. Until now 40 | :08:30. | :08:36. | |
years later, I described him as an angel. He said in Hebrew to us, | :08:37. | :08:43. | |
listen guys, we have come to take you home. When we landed at home, | :08:44. | :08:50. | |
people were singing and shouting. Everything was very happy around us, | :08:51. | :09:13. | |
but for us, it took more time. I can only have hope that maybe one day | :09:14. | :09:22. | |
for our children, for the next generation, it. And we will be able | :09:23. | :09:27. | |
to live without these frightening moments. And Sarah Davidson later | :09:28. | :09:32. | |
wrote are about her experiences during the hijack. | :09:33. | :09:39. | |
In 1951, the Danish government removed 22 Inuit children from their | :09:40. | :09:43. | |
families in Greenland, then a Danish colony, and took them to Denmark. | :09:44. | :09:49. | |
The plan was to immerse them in Danish language and culture so they | :09:50. | :09:55. | |
could grow up to form a new elite in Greenland society. Helen was one of | :09:56. | :09:56. | |
those children. TRANSLATION: In 1948, the | :09:57. | :10:10. | |
authorities in Greenland held a national congress with the danish | :10:11. | :10:14. | |
colonial administration. They discussed the idea of sending 20 | :10:15. | :10:17. | |
Inuit children to Denmark to learn Danish. The idea was they would | :10:18. | :10:23. | |
return to Greenland and teach their peers Danish. The authorities sent | :10:24. | :10:28. | |
out telegrams to priests and headteachers in Greenland's coastal | :10:29. | :10:33. | |
towns. They were requested to find bright children in all those towns. | :10:34. | :10:36. | |
They had to be intelligent because they needed to learn Danish quickly | :10:37. | :10:39. | |
and they had to be between six and ten years old. One day, two grand | :10:40. | :10:47. | |
colonial masters showed up at my house and asked if I would be | :10:48. | :10:50. | |
willing -- if she would be willing to send me to Denmark. They said it | :10:51. | :10:56. | |
was a great chance for May. The day I was leaving for Denmark, we walked | :10:57. | :11:00. | |
down to the harbour from my house with my little suitcase. From the | :11:01. | :11:04. | |
boat I looked at my mum. I could not way that her. I was just too upset. | :11:05. | :11:10. | |
I kept my arms down. I thought, why are you letting me leave? | :11:11. | :11:18. | |
In Denmark, I was put with two different foster families. The first | :11:19. | :11:25. | |
one was a doctor outside Copenhagen. I did not feel welcome in that | :11:26. | :11:30. | |
family. I just felt like a stranger. The second foster family were like a | :11:31. | :11:35. | |
fairy tale compared to the first. They were very warm-hearted people. | :11:36. | :11:41. | |
As far as adults were concerned, I did not trust them. They had sent me | :11:42. | :11:45. | |
to Denmark so far away. The following year, in 1952, 16 of us | :11:46. | :11:51. | |
were sent home to Greenland. When the ship docked I grabbed my little | :11:52. | :11:55. | |
suitcase and rushed down the bridge into the arms of my mum and I talked | :11:56. | :12:00. | |
and talked about all that I had seen but she did not answer. I looked up | :12:01. | :12:05. | |
at her in confusion. After awhile, she said something but I could not | :12:06. | :12:09. | |
understand what she was saying, not a word. I thought, this is awful, I | :12:10. | :12:15. | |
cannot speak to my mother in a more, we speak two different languages. I | :12:16. | :12:18. | |
had barely recovered from the shock before the director of the | :12:19. | :12:21. | |
children's home tapped my shoulder and said come on, get on the bus, | :12:22. | :12:25. | |
you're going to the orphanage. I thought I was going home to my mum. | :12:26. | :12:30. | |
Why was I going to children's home? No one answered. I got on the bus | :12:31. | :12:37. | |
and I could not see the town through my tears. It was later revealed that | :12:38. | :12:46. | |
at the conference in 1948, the Danish Red Cross were present. They | :12:47. | :12:50. | |
suggested that when the Inuit children comeback to Greenland, a | :12:51. | :12:53. | |
children's home should be built for them. They thought we should not be | :12:54. | :12:58. | |
sent back to live in worse conditions than in Denmark. With my | :12:59. | :13:03. | |
mother, the relationship was never really rebuilt. The way my mum gave | :13:04. | :13:12. | |
in will stop it was in the days when Greenland was a Danish colony and | :13:13. | :13:16. | |
the can only masters were masters in the worst sense of the word. -- the | :13:17. | :13:22. | |
colonial masters. As far as the danish authorities are concerned, I | :13:23. | :13:25. | |
felt very bitter and very disappointed. I have not been able | :13:26. | :13:30. | |
to understand how they could turn us into an experiment. It is just | :13:31. | :13:33. | |
incomprehensible and I am still bitter about it. I will be until the | :13:34. | :13:42. | |
day I die. Last Supper went on to work with | :13:43. | :13:47. | |
children herself. She is now retired and lives in Denmark. -- Helene went | :13:48. | :13:55. | |
on to work with children. You can catch up online and watch thousands | :13:56. | :14:02. | |
of programmes in our archive. In 1973, the Soviet Union and the | :14:03. | :14:08. | |
West were racing to produce the world's first supersonic airliner. | :14:09. | :14:11. | |
But at the Paris airshow, things went disastrously wrong during a | :14:12. | :14:17. | |
display by the Russian plane. Test pilot John Farley was in the crowd | :14:18. | :14:23. | |
that day. When the plane came no there | :14:24. | :14:29. | |
appeared to be no hint of trouble. But some seconds later, she was | :14:30. | :14:35. | |
diving and about to crash. It for itself to pieces and exploded and | :14:36. | :14:38. | |
rainfall of bits and pieces hit the ground. | :14:39. | :14:45. | |
I'm sure that there were an awful lot of people today who don't even | :14:46. | :14:50. | |
know that the Russians had a go at doing a supersonic airliner. It got | :14:51. | :15:06. | |
to be -- the nickname of Concordski because the press were looking for | :15:07. | :15:10. | |
similarities. It was easy to say they must have stolen our ideas but | :15:11. | :15:16. | |
I don't think that was the case. It is remarkably like Concorde with the | :15:17. | :15:22. | |
same delta shaped wings. A lady save it technician has assured me this | :15:23. | :15:28. | |
airline will have a drooped snoot like Concorde. In Paris 1973, what | :15:29. | :15:36. | |
we were faced with was two supersonic airliners and there was | :15:37. | :15:40. | |
an doubted league competition to see who could put on the best flying | :15:41. | :15:46. | |
display. -- undoubtedly competition. On the last day of the show we | :15:47. | :15:51. | |
watched Concorde with its manoeuvres of terms and passes. Then it was the | :15:52. | :16:01. | |
turn of the Tu-144. It climbed steeply and then suddenly the nose | :16:02. | :16:04. | |
went down from the steep climb very violently. The airliner got close to | :16:05. | :16:12. | |
the ground. It pulled out and broke up. It was later that evening on the | :16:13. | :16:18. | |
radio that we heard quite a large number of people had been killed on | :16:19. | :16:22. | |
the ground because the airline had crashed in the middle of a small | :16:23. | :16:31. | |
village. There were so many rumours about what happened. The official | :16:32. | :16:36. | |
story which nobody in the business is believed was there was a loose | :16:37. | :16:42. | |
the top referrer in the cockpit and he fell forward across the controls | :16:43. | :16:49. | |
when the aircraft levelled off from its climate -- a loose photographer. | :16:50. | :16:54. | |
The French had a reconnaissance plane flying above the air field to | :16:55. | :16:58. | |
record what the competitive airlines were doing and this would apply | :16:59. | :17:04. | |
especially to the Tu-144. I think they had unexpectedly seen this | :17:05. | :17:08. | |
French reconnaissance aeroplane. They immediately stopped climbing | :17:09. | :17:12. | |
and tried to go out underneath it. That was probably the cause of the | :17:13. | :17:17. | |
accident. After the accident, I don't think the world heard much | :17:18. | :17:25. | |
more about the Tu-144 at all. It never flew outside Russia and there | :17:26. | :17:29. | |
was very little information about what went on. I'm sure also that a | :17:30. | :17:33. | |
lot of people would have said that was because of the accident. In | :17:34. | :17:39. | |
actual fact, their engine technology was not up to the standard that the | :17:40. | :17:44. | |
West had got. With hindsight, we just look at what happened after | :17:45. | :17:50. | |
1973 and we say Concorde one and the Tu-144 lost. | :17:51. | :17:59. | |
Test pilot John Farley. And now for our final film this month. In the | :18:00. | :18:05. | |
spring of 1999, a small team of experts in Milan completed the | :18:06. | :18:10. | |
mammoth task of restoring one of the world's most famous and treasured | :18:11. | :18:15. | |
paintings, Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper. It had taken 20 years and | :18:16. | :18:17. | |
cost millions of dollars. The Last Supper was painted here 500 | :18:18. | :19:01. | |
years ago for the refectory of Santa Maria, but due to his experimental | :19:02. | :19:05. | |
fresco technique, it started to flake away almost as soon as | :19:06. | :19:09. | |
Leonardo da Vinci had finished it. Now a mammoth restoration has | :19:10. | :19:15. | |
attempted to save one of the world's masterpieces from disappearing | :19:16. | :19:16. | |
completely. By stripping away centuries of | :19:17. | :21:03. | |
botched restoration attempts, lines which were crude and inexpressive | :21:04. | :21:07. | |
are now delicate and refined. The mural is by no means perfect, and | :21:08. | :21:11. | |
some critics feel too much paint has been removed. | :21:12. | :22:00. | |
She is now in her 90s and still working as an art restorer. Once a | :22:01. | :22:08. | |
year she goes back to Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper to keep her work | :22:09. | :22:13. | |
up to date. That is all from Witnessed this month at the British | :22:14. | :22:18. | |
Library. But we will be back next month with another round-up of | :22:19. | :22:22. | |
history. Thanks for joining me. And from me and the rest of the team, | :22:23. | :22:25. | |
bye-bye. Good afternoon. We are closing in on | :22:26. | :22:53. | |
the warmest weather we have seen so far this | :22:54. | :22:54. |