:00:26. > :00:35.Hallo, and welcome to Witness with me, Tanya Beckett. I am here at the
:00:36. > :00:38.British Library in London for the last time this year to bring if I
:00:39. > :00:43.want our favourite stories from 2016. We will meet a former member
:00:44. > :00:47.of Chairman Mao's intimates red guards, a woman astronaut who
:00:48. > :00:51.trained with the Challenger space or crude an art restorer who brought a
:00:52. > :00:58.Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece back to life. But first, Witness has
:00:59. > :01:03.travelled to the Bamyan Valley in Afghanistan. For over 1,000 years to
:01:04. > :01:12.huge statues of border towered over the valley at in 2001 they were
:01:13. > :01:14.destroyed by the Taliban. Mr Hussein was one of the local people forced
:01:15. > :05:15.to lay dynamite around the statues. This year is the 50th anniversary of
:05:16. > :05:24.the start of the cultural revolution in China. At the forefront were red
:05:25. > :05:28.kites, fanatical students trying to help eliminate vestiges of
:05:29. > :05:34.capitalism. Our next Witness Saul Yeung was one of them. In 1966I was
:05:35. > :05:39.in middle school when the cultural revolution started. The biggest
:05:40. > :05:54.nation on earth, China, is in turmoil. Is China's ageing leader
:05:55. > :05:55.losing control? Has Mao gone mad, driven by the megalomania of the
:05:56. > :06:22.teenage Red Guards? Mao had decided to drive the young
:06:23. > :06:27.people in a vast campaign to purify the Communist Party. There was to be
:06:28. > :06:29.a new revolution, a cultural revolution, a revolution in people's
:06:30. > :06:56.thinking. Inspired by Mao, the Red Guards went
:06:57. > :07:01.wild in their enthusiasm to keep the revolution alive. They worshipped
:07:02. > :07:04.Mao as their leader and follow his instructions without question. They
:07:05. > :07:15.consider longhair and Western-style clothes I'm Communist. --
:07:16. > :08:04.un-Communist. After reports of riotings, beatings
:08:05. > :08:08.up and even murder, the Red Guard seem to have gone too far. Their
:08:09. > :09:10.leaders have told them to cool off and go and help with the harvest.
:09:11. > :09:19.Saul Young, talking to Witness in San Francisco. In January 1986
:09:20. > :09:22.tragedy struck the US space agency NASA when the space shuttle
:09:23. > :09:28.Challenger exploded shortly after launch. Six astronauts and a school
:09:29. > :09:33.teacher were killed. Barbara Morgan was another teacher who trained
:09:34. > :09:37.alongside the Challenger team. My husband that I, we were sitting on
:09:38. > :09:41.the sofa, watching venues and president Reagan came on and made
:09:42. > :09:45.this announcement, it was quite remarkable. Today I am directing
:09:46. > :09:49.Nasser to begin a search and to choose as the first citizen
:09:50. > :09:54.passenger in the history of our space programme one of America's
:09:55. > :09:58.finest, a teacher. I'll always remember my husband, who was a
:09:59. > :10:02.writer, jumped up immediately and said, why a teacher, why not a
:10:03. > :10:19.writer? And I laughed and said I thought a teacher would the perfect
:10:20. > :10:22.choice. Christa was chosen as our teacher in space. I was very, very
:10:23. > :10:26.lucky to be chosen as her backup. Christa was very much like the girl
:10:27. > :10:29.next door. She had an effervescent smile. She was very intelligent and
:10:30. > :10:32.just soaking it all in. Christa spent six months with me training
:10:33. > :10:36.with the Challenger crew. Some of the favourite training was with the
:10:37. > :10:39.simulators, to learn what it was like to be weightless. We did not
:10:40. > :10:43.stop laughing that entire flight. Launch date was January 20 eight. We
:10:44. > :10:47.had been at the Kennedy space centre for a few days and the crew had been
:10:48. > :10:50.spending time in crew quarters going through all the last-minute work and
:10:51. > :10:54.preparation for the flight. And that morning it was a very, very cold
:10:55. > :10:57.morning. We of course have school children all over the country
:10:58. > :11:00.watching. There were, you know, 100 kids from Christa's son's school
:11:01. > :11:06.there. And all of the families and friends. I remember I was so
:11:07. > :11:10.excited, I so wanted to be with them. I was waving and I am sure I
:11:11. > :11:13.was jumping up and down. Really cheering them on, really really
:11:14. > :11:18.happy for them and wanting to be with them. S we have main engine
:11:19. > :11:29.start, four, three, two, one and left. Lift off of the 25th station
:11:30. > :11:34.at all -- space shuttle mission and we have liftoff. Very soon into the
:11:35. > :11:39.launch, things didn't look right. There wasn't one contrail going up
:11:40. > :11:42.and that look very different from the launch of that Christa and I had
:11:43. > :11:49.watched a few months earlier. And then at some point you realised that
:11:50. > :11:52.something has gone terribly wrong. Flight controllers, you are looking
:11:53. > :12:00.very carefully at the situation. Obviously a major malfunction. We
:12:01. > :12:07.all went to crew quarters where we were waiting word and helping her
:12:08. > :12:21.families. It was, you know, a really tough situation. In September, I
:12:22. > :12:27.went back to the classroom, and I taught for many, many more years. In
:12:28. > :12:30.1998, many, many years later, NASA asked me to apply for the astronaut
:12:31. > :12:36.office, the astronaut programme. At that point I had left teaching and
:12:37. > :12:42.went and served as an astronaut for ten years. One of the wonderful
:12:43. > :12:45.legacies of the Challenger is the educational programme that the
:12:46. > :12:53.families of the Challenger crew members got together and created,
:12:54. > :12:58.where young people for themselves experience the joy and wonder of
:12:59. > :13:02.spaceflight and space exploration. It is called the Challenger centre
:13:03. > :13:07.for space science education. That is why the Challenger crew were going
:13:08. > :13:10.into space. They were going to explore and discover an experience
:13:11. > :13:15.for all of us and to keep that future wide open for all of us.
:13:16. > :13:21.Former astronaut Barbara Morgan talking to us at her home in Idaho.
:13:22. > :13:26.Remember, you can watch Witness every month on the BBC News channel,
:13:27. > :13:29.or you can catch up on all of our films along with more than 1000
:13:30. > :13:35.radio programmes in our online archive.
:13:36. > :13:47.Now, a story of Cold War intrigue and the BBC. In 1978, a Bulgarian
:13:48. > :13:53.dissident was working in London for BBC World Service. On his way into
:13:54. > :13:59.the office he was stabbed with, of all things, poisoned umbrella
:14:00. > :14:05.witness has tracked down Doctor Bernard Reilly, who tried to save
:14:06. > :14:09.Georgi Markov's life. I remember walking into the cubicle and Georgi
:14:10. > :14:15.Markov was on the trolley, setting up. He was hot, toxic, he had rapid
:14:16. > :14:20.pulse rate and his temper Bridge was up. The first thing he said that, I
:14:21. > :14:25.was warned three months ago that they are out to get me. And I have
:14:26. > :14:30.been poisoned by the KGB and I am going to die and there is nothing
:14:31. > :14:35.you can do about it. Georgi Markov was driving to work at the BBC. He
:14:36. > :14:39.parked as usual below Waterloo Bridge. Georgi Markov came up the
:14:40. > :14:44.steps of the bridge, towards the bus stop on the road above. As he
:14:45. > :14:50.reached the bus stop, suddenly something happened to Georgi Markov.
:14:51. > :14:55.He suddenly felt a sharp stabbing at the back of his right thigh, and he
:14:56. > :14:59.looked around expecting the person behind him to apologise for prodding
:15:00. > :15:05.him with an umbrella. Instead of which the man hailed a taxi. Mr
:15:06. > :15:09.Georgi Markov finished his shift and it wasn't until late that night at
:15:10. > :15:12.his home in Clapham that he developed a high fever. When I
:15:13. > :15:17.examined him systematically, the only thing that I could find was on
:15:18. > :15:22.the back of his thigh he had, perhaps, sort of a centimetre
:15:23. > :15:26.diameter swollen area, with then around one or two McNamee the
:15:27. > :15:30.central puncture mark. I thought, well, at best phoned Scotland Yard
:15:31. > :15:34.special branch because they are the sort of people who deal with
:15:35. > :15:38.defectors. His own room at the BBC Bulgarian service was used by
:15:39. > :15:41.anti-terrorist squad detectives investigating the murder. I thought
:15:42. > :15:46.it can't be cyanide, that would kill you to quickly. It can't be thallium
:15:47. > :15:51.or arsenic, that is too slow. It had to be a toxin. And if there was a
:15:52. > :15:56.toxin it might be an antidote. So I then went home, and my wife said you
:15:57. > :16:04.should read more Agatha Christie. And she had just read a book called
:16:05. > :16:08.the House of the Lurk lurking Death, rice and in the face. I don't think
:16:09. > :16:12.this was an intruder diagnosis, it was because of the book she had read
:16:13. > :16:17.at the time but the whole thing was that she was proven right, it was
:16:18. > :16:21.right in. His heart had started giving out, and I just saw the hype
:16:22. > :16:28.machine die away, and shortly after that he died -- ricin. I had to go
:16:29. > :16:32.to the postmortem. I remember the pathologist taking a segment of
:16:33. > :16:37.thigh tissue where this area was. As this was being handled, very small
:16:38. > :16:42.metallic object was dislodged. As a sort of role under the table, and
:16:43. > :16:45.they then looked at it under a microscope and realised that it was
:16:46. > :16:49.actually a very round, circular, tiny little ball about, sort of,
:16:50. > :16:54.just under two millimetres in diameter, and that it had holes in
:16:55. > :16:58.it. And obviously something could have been contained in those holes.
:16:59. > :17:03.They decided almost straightaway that this was going to be ricin. It
:17:04. > :17:11.is a poison which is incredibly toxic. It is strange that as you
:17:12. > :17:18.encounter one patient so early on in 1's career that actually changes
:17:19. > :17:22.your entire life. All I wanted to be was a forensics pathologist. I
:17:23. > :17:29.wanted to be someone who looked at dead bodies, looked at laboratory
:17:30. > :17:34.findings, and decided white people died. And this was the first patient
:17:35. > :17:38.I am trying desperately to keep alive, and failing. And realising
:17:39. > :17:43.that actually I didn't want to find out why people died, I wanted to try
:17:44. > :17:49.and keep them alive. Doctor Bernard Reilly with that extraordinary
:17:50. > :17:55.story. Finally this month, Caty cap witness has travelled to Milan to
:17:56. > :18:02.meet the woman charged with restoring one of the world's great
:18:03. > :18:06.masterpieces, Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper. She finished her
:18:07. > :18:41.painstaking work in 1999 after spending 20 years on the project.
:18:42. > :18:47.Last Supper was painted here 500 years ago for the refectory of Santa
:18:48. > :18:52.Maria. But due to his experimental fresco technique, it started to
:18:53. > :18:57.flake away almost as soon as Leonardo Da Vinci had finished it.
:18:58. > :19:01.Now, a mouth on restoration has attempted to save one of the world's
:19:02. > :20:44.masterpieces from disappearing completely.
:20:45. > :20:49.By stripping away centuries of botched restoration attempts, lines
:20:50. > :20:55.which were crude and inexpressive are now delicate and refined. The
:20:56. > :21:01.mural isn't by no means perfect and some critics feel too much paint has
:21:02. > :21:46.been removed. -- is by no means perfect.
:21:47. > :21:53.Pinin Brambilla, speaking at her studio in Malang. That's all for
:21:54. > :21:58.Witness for this month and this year. We will be back in 2017 with
:21:59. > :22:02.more stories from history told by the people who were there. From me
:22:03. > :22:24.and the rest of the Witnessed him, good light -- Milan. -- goodbye.
:22:25. > :22:27.Some contrasting weather conditions to close out our final few
:22:28. > :22:33.It was cold and foggy in the south-east pretty much