:00:00. > :00:00.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. > :00:30.Now on BBC News, it's time for Witness.
:00:31. > :00:37.Hello and welcome to Witness with me, Tanya Beckett, here at the
:00:38. > :00:40.British Library in London. We have another five witnesses who have
:00:41. > :00:44.given us a glimpse of history through the eyes of people who were
:00:45. > :00:48.there. This month on the programme we hear from one of the hostages
:00:49. > :00:54.freed from Entebbe airport by Israeli special forces in 1976. From
:00:55. > :01:00.one of the Inuit children separated from their families by the Danish
:01:01. > :01:03.government, and from the art restorer who brought Leonardo da
:01:04. > :01:15.Vinci's Last Supper back to its former glory. But first, a
:01:16. > :01:19.terrifying accident in space. Michael Foale was on board the
:01:20. > :01:25.International Space Station Mir in 1997.
:01:26. > :01:29.Mir was built by the Russians. The impression you got when you opened
:01:30. > :01:33.up the hatch and went into Mir for the first time was twofold. The
:01:34. > :01:38.first was the smell. It was a smell a bit like an oily garage. Maybe a
:01:39. > :01:46.little bit of must because we did not have mould on the Mir. Then the
:01:47. > :01:48.other impression was clutter. It is like going into the oesophagus of
:01:49. > :01:52.someone's throat. After about six weeks of being on the station, I had
:01:53. > :02:05.been doing my experiments, I was very happy. I got an two up on June
:02:06. > :02:13.25. My colleagues had been using radio control equipment to fly a
:02:14. > :02:18.cargo ship called Progress looking at the TV screen. As I look at the
:02:19. > :02:23.TV screen I can see that the orientation is all wrong for a
:02:24. > :02:31.proper docking to take place. Sasha, the flight engineer, says to me
:02:32. > :02:35.Michael, trouble. He means the Soyuz spacecraft, which was joined onto
:02:36. > :02:42.the end of the station which was our lifeboat. I understood because of
:02:43. > :02:54.the emergency in which he said it, he meant go there to save your life.
:02:55. > :03:00.As I float through, I feel the whole space station 's shadow and move
:03:01. > :03:05.around me. -- I feel whole space station shudder and move around
:03:06. > :03:10.with. I feel like this could be my last breath. I am looking for the
:03:11. > :03:15.walls and waiting for them to part. The klaxons go off when there is a
:03:16. > :03:19.pressure leak. Then I felt my ears popping which means the areas
:03:20. > :03:25.leaving the space station and there was a whistling sound. In 23
:03:26. > :03:29.minutes, if we did nothing, we would start to go unconscious. Sasha comes
:03:30. > :03:35.to me and does not say a word. He feverishly starts trying to remove
:03:36. > :03:38.cables leading into the spectre module. Sasha looks around for a
:03:39. > :03:44.large hatch which could be put in place. We put it on and as it went
:03:45. > :03:48.on it kind of sucked in. Because the station had been hit by the
:03:49. > :03:55.Progress, we were tumbling and rolling. There was no electric power
:03:56. > :03:59.and the batteries were giving out. There was no fan running, limited
:04:00. > :04:03.carbon dioxide removal and no communications with Moscow or
:04:04. > :04:11.anybody else. It was a totally dead station. This is not something you
:04:12. > :04:17.see in movies where it all gets solved instantly by some brainy
:04:18. > :04:20.chap. It took probably six hours. We used the Soyuz spacecraft and just
:04:21. > :04:26.fired the Jets to stop the space station tumbling and rolling. And
:04:27. > :04:31.then, wonderfully, we came into sunlight just after this, and all of
:04:32. > :04:41.a sudden, the fans started to come on and the lights came on and I
:04:42. > :04:45.said, Vasily, we have done it. However, for the next month, the
:04:46. > :04:50.station was in operable in any normal sense. We could just sustain
:04:51. > :04:55.our lives and nothing else. When finally the shuttle came in October,
:04:56. > :05:02.I was really, really quite happy to see them. As we backed away from the
:05:03. > :05:08.Mir station, I looked at it and I thought, I don't really mind if I
:05:09. > :05:12.never see that again! Astronaut Michael Foale remembering
:05:13. > :05:20.the worst collision in the history of manned space flight. In 1976, a
:05:21. > :05:24.group of Palestinian and German hijackers were holding more than 200
:05:25. > :05:30.people hostage at Uganda's Entebbe airport, when Israeli specials
:05:31. > :05:38.forces stormed the building Seri Davis was one of the hostages.
:05:39. > :05:42.We decided to take both children to the United States. The plane did not
:05:43. > :05:51.go straight to Paris as we thought. I heard some shouting. Two Young
:05:52. > :05:57.Arabs and a woman, a German, were running in the plane with
:05:58. > :06:06.ammunition. We heard a voice from the cockpit, and that was the main
:06:07. > :06:12.hijacker who was a German young man. He told us that the plane is
:06:13. > :06:20.hijacked by the extreme part of the PLO. He also told us what are the
:06:21. > :06:30.demands. He said releasing Israelis from five countries and he said he
:06:31. > :06:40.wanted $40 million. We did not know exactly where we are flying to. We
:06:41. > :06:48.landed in Entebbe, in Kampala. EDI mean, the president of Uganda, and
:06:49. > :06:54.the leader of the terrorists who were waiting for the aeroplane, they
:06:55. > :07:00.took us out of the plane surrounded by Ugandan armed soldiers straight
:07:01. > :07:06.to the old terminal, 250 people together and frightened so much --
:07:07. > :07:10.Idi Amin, the president of Uganda. The separation which happened on the
:07:11. > :07:16.third day was the second very traumatic moment. They start calling
:07:17. > :07:25.names and we found out after three or four names that they are using
:07:26. > :07:31.only Israeli passports. I had lost most of my family of my parents'
:07:32. > :07:38.family in the Holocaust, and hear a German woman and a German young man
:07:39. > :07:43.are doing again a separation will stop we were sitting in the Israeli
:07:44. > :07:50.room. We saw they are releasing grips of other people and we knew
:07:51. > :07:59.that we have an entirely different fate. On the seventh day, we heard a
:08:00. > :08:07.shot and then a few shots afterwards. I grabbed Benny and I
:08:08. > :08:14.put myself, all my body on him, and I prayed to God not to get hurt but
:08:15. > :08:22.to be killed immediately. The shooting around was terrible, the
:08:23. > :08:29.smells and the noises. And then somebody said, listen, guys. I
:08:30. > :08:36.lifted a little bit my head and I saw an Israeli soldier. Until now 40
:08:37. > :08:43.years later, I described him as an angel. He said in Hebrew to us,
:08:44. > :08:50.listen guys, we have come to take you home. When we landed at home,
:08:51. > :09:13.people were singing and shouting. Everything was very happy around us,
:09:14. > :09:22.but for us, it took more time. I can only have hope that maybe one day
:09:23. > :09:27.for our children, for the next generation, it. And we will be able
:09:28. > :09:32.to live without these frightening moments. And Sarah Davidson later
:09:33. > :09:39.wrote are about her experiences during the hijack.
:09:40. > :09:43.In 1951, the Danish government removed 22 Inuit children from their
:09:44. > :09:49.families in Greenland, then a Danish colony, and took them to Denmark.
:09:50. > :09:55.The plan was to immerse them in Danish language and culture so they
:09:56. > :09:56.could grow up to form a new elite in Greenland society. Helen was one of
:09:57. > :10:10.those children. TRANSLATION: In 1948, the
:10:11. > :10:14.authorities in Greenland held a national congress with the danish
:10:15. > :10:17.colonial administration. They discussed the idea of sending 20
:10:18. > :10:23.Inuit children to Denmark to learn Danish. The idea was they would
:10:24. > :10:28.return to Greenland and teach their peers Danish. The authorities sent
:10:29. > :10:33.out telegrams to priests and headteachers in Greenland's coastal
:10:34. > :10:36.towns. They were requested to find bright children in all those towns.
:10:37. > :10:39.They had to be intelligent because they needed to learn Danish quickly
:10:40. > :10:47.and they had to be between six and ten years old. One day, two grand
:10:48. > :10:50.colonial masters showed up at my house and asked if I would be
:10:51. > :10:56.willing -- if she would be willing to send me to Denmark. They said it
:10:57. > :11:00.was a great chance for May. The day I was leaving for Denmark, we walked
:11:01. > :11:04.down to the harbour from my house with my little suitcase. From the
:11:05. > :11:10.boat I looked at my mum. I could not way that her. I was just too upset.
:11:11. > :11:18.I kept my arms down. I thought, why are you letting me leave?
:11:19. > :11:25.In Denmark, I was put with two different foster families. The first
:11:26. > :11:30.one was a doctor outside Copenhagen. I did not feel welcome in that
:11:31. > :11:35.family. I just felt like a stranger. The second foster family were like a
:11:36. > :11:41.fairy tale compared to the first. They were very warm-hearted people.
:11:42. > :11:45.As far as adults were concerned, I did not trust them. They had sent me
:11:46. > :11:51.to Denmark so far away. The following year, in 1952, 16 of us
:11:52. > :11:55.were sent home to Greenland. When the ship docked I grabbed my little
:11:56. > :12:00.suitcase and rushed down the bridge into the arms of my mum and I talked
:12:01. > :12:05.and talked about all that I had seen but she did not answer. I looked up
:12:06. > :12:09.at her in confusion. After awhile, she said something but I could not
:12:10. > :12:15.understand what she was saying, not a word. I thought, this is awful, I
:12:16. > :12:18.cannot speak to my mother in a more, we speak two different languages. I
:12:19. > :12:21.had barely recovered from the shock before the director of the
:12:22. > :12:25.children's home tapped my shoulder and said come on, get on the bus,
:12:26. > :12:30.you're going to the orphanage. I thought I was going home to my mum.
:12:31. > :12:37.Why was I going to children's home? No one answered. I got on the bus
:12:38. > :12:46.and I could not see the town through my tears. It was later revealed that
:12:47. > :12:50.at the conference in 1948, the Danish Red Cross were present. They
:12:51. > :12:53.suggested that when the Inuit children comeback to Greenland, a
:12:54. > :12:58.children's home should be built for them. They thought we should not be
:12:59. > :13:03.sent back to live in worse conditions than in Denmark. With my
:13:04. > :13:12.mother, the relationship was never really rebuilt. The way my mum gave
:13:13. > :13:16.in will stop it was in the days when Greenland was a Danish colony and
:13:17. > :13:22.the can only masters were masters in the worst sense of the word. -- the
:13:23. > :13:25.colonial masters. As far as the danish authorities are concerned, I
:13:26. > :13:30.felt very bitter and very disappointed. I have not been able
:13:31. > :13:33.to understand how they could turn us into an experiment. It is just
:13:34. > :13:42.incomprehensible and I am still bitter about it. I will be until the
:13:43. > :13:47.day I die. Last Supper went on to work with
:13:48. > :13:55.children herself. She is now retired and lives in Denmark. -- Helene went
:13:56. > :14:02.on to work with children. You can catch up online and watch thousands
:14:03. > :14:08.of programmes in our archive. In 1973, the Soviet Union and the
:14:09. > :14:11.West were racing to produce the world's first supersonic airliner.
:14:12. > :14:17.But at the Paris airshow, things went disastrously wrong during a
:14:18. > :14:23.display by the Russian plane. Test pilot John Farley was in the crowd
:14:24. > :14:29.that day. When the plane came no there
:14:30. > :14:35.appeared to be no hint of trouble. But some seconds later, she was
:14:36. > :14:38.diving and about to crash. It for itself to pieces and exploded and
:14:39. > :14:45.rainfall of bits and pieces hit the ground.
:14:46. > :14:50.I'm sure that there were an awful lot of people today who don't even
:14:51. > :15:06.know that the Russians had a go at doing a supersonic airliner. It got
:15:07. > :15:10.to be -- the nickname of Concordski because the press were looking for
:15:11. > :15:16.similarities. It was easy to say they must have stolen our ideas but
:15:17. > :15:22.I don't think that was the case. It is remarkably like Concorde with the
:15:23. > :15:28.same delta shaped wings. A lady save it technician has assured me this
:15:29. > :15:36.airline will have a drooped snoot like Concorde. In Paris 1973, what
:15:37. > :15:40.we were faced with was two supersonic airliners and there was
:15:41. > :15:46.an doubted league competition to see who could put on the best flying
:15:47. > :15:51.display. -- undoubtedly competition. On the last day of the show we
:15:52. > :16:01.watched Concorde with its manoeuvres of terms and passes. Then it was the
:16:02. > :16:04.turn of the Tu-144. It climbed steeply and then suddenly the nose
:16:05. > :16:12.went down from the steep climb very violently. The airliner got close to
:16:13. > :16:18.the ground. It pulled out and broke up. It was later that evening on the
:16:19. > :16:22.radio that we heard quite a large number of people had been killed on
:16:23. > :16:31.the ground because the airline had crashed in the middle of a small
:16:32. > :16:36.village. There were so many rumours about what happened. The official
:16:37. > :16:42.story which nobody in the business is believed was there was a loose
:16:43. > :16:49.the top referrer in the cockpit and he fell forward across the controls
:16:50. > :16:54.when the aircraft levelled off from its climate -- a loose photographer.
:16:55. > :16:58.The French had a reconnaissance plane flying above the air field to
:16:59. > :17:04.record what the competitive airlines were doing and this would apply
:17:05. > :17:08.especially to the Tu-144. I think they had unexpectedly seen this
:17:09. > :17:12.French reconnaissance aeroplane. They immediately stopped climbing
:17:13. > :17:17.and tried to go out underneath it. That was probably the cause of the
:17:18. > :17:25.accident. After the accident, I don't think the world heard much
:17:26. > :17:29.more about the Tu-144 at all. It never flew outside Russia and there
:17:30. > :17:33.was very little information about what went on. I'm sure also that a
:17:34. > :17:39.lot of people would have said that was because of the accident. In
:17:40. > :17:44.actual fact, their engine technology was not up to the standard that the
:17:45. > :17:50.West had got. With hindsight, we just look at what happened after
:17:51. > :17:59.1973 and we say Concorde one and the Tu-144 lost.
:18:00. > :18:05.Test pilot John Farley. And now for our final film this month. In the
:18:06. > :18:10.spring of 1999, a small team of experts in Milan completed the
:18:11. > :18:15.mammoth task of restoring one of the world's most famous and treasured
:18:16. > :18:17.paintings, Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper. It had taken 20 years and
:18:18. > :19:01.cost millions of dollars. The Last Supper was painted here 500
:19:02. > :19:05.years ago for the refectory of Santa Maria, but due to his experimental
:19:06. > :19:09.fresco technique, it started to flake away almost as soon as
:19:10. > :19:15.Leonardo da Vinci had finished it. Now a mammoth restoration has
:19:16. > :19:16.attempted to save one of the world's masterpieces from disappearing
:19:17. > :21:03.completely. By stripping away centuries of
:21:04. > :21:07.botched restoration attempts, lines which were crude and inexpressive
:21:08. > :21:11.are now delicate and refined. The mural is by no means perfect, and
:21:12. > :22:00.some critics feel too much paint has been removed.
:22:01. > :22:08.She is now in her 90s and still working as an art restorer. Once a
:22:09. > :22:13.year she goes back to Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper to keep her work
:22:14. > :22:18.up to date. That is all from Witnessed this month at the British
:22:19. > :22:22.Library. But we will be back next month with another round-up of
:22:23. > :22:25.history. Thanks for joining me. And from me and the rest of the team,
:22:26. > :22:53.bye-bye. Good afternoon. We are closing in on
:22:54. > :22:54.the warmest weather we have seen so far this