Browse content similar to 31/12/2016. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Hallo, and welcome to Witness with me, Tanya Beckett. I am here at the | :00:26. | :00:35. | |
British Library in London for the last time this year to bring if I | :00:36. | :00:38. | |
want our favourite stories from 2016. We will meet a former member | :00:39. | :00:43. | |
of Chairman Mao's intimates red guards, a woman astronaut who | :00:44. | :00:47. | |
trained with the Challenger space or crude an art restorer who brought a | :00:48. | :00:51. | |
Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece back to life. But first, Witness has | :00:52. | :00:58. | |
travelled to the Bamyan Valley in Afghanistan. For over 1,000 years to | :00:59. | :01:03. | |
huge statues of border towered over the valley at in 2001 they were | :01:04. | :01:12. | |
destroyed by the Taliban. Mr Hussein was one of the local people forced | :01:13. | :01:14. | |
to lay dynamite around the statues. This year is the 50th anniversary of | :01:15. | :05:15. | |
the start of the cultural revolution in China. At the forefront were red | :05:16. | :05:24. | |
kites, fanatical students trying to help eliminate vestiges of | :05:25. | :05:28. | |
capitalism. Our next Witness Saul Yeung was one of them. In 1966I was | :05:29. | :05:34. | |
in middle school when the cultural revolution started. The biggest | :05:35. | :05:39. | |
nation on earth, China, is in turmoil. Is China's ageing leader | :05:40. | :05:54. | |
losing control? Has Mao gone mad, driven by the megalomania of the | :05:55. | :05:55. | |
teenage Red Guards? Mao had decided to drive the young | :05:56. | :06:22. | |
people in a vast campaign to purify the Communist Party. There was to be | :06:23. | :06:27. | |
a new revolution, a cultural revolution, a revolution in people's | :06:28. | :06:29. | |
thinking. Inspired by Mao, the Red Guards went | :06:30. | :06:56. | |
wild in their enthusiasm to keep the revolution alive. They worshipped | :06:57. | :07:01. | |
Mao as their leader and follow his instructions without question. They | :07:02. | :07:04. | |
consider longhair and Western-style clothes I'm Communist. -- | :07:05. | :07:15. | |
un-Communist. After reports of riotings, beatings | :07:16. | :08:04. | |
up and even murder, the Red Guard seem to have gone too far. Their | :08:05. | :08:08. | |
leaders have told them to cool off and go and help with the harvest. | :08:09. | :09:10. | |
Saul Young, talking to Witness in San Francisco. In January 1986 | :09:11. | :09:19. | |
tragedy struck the US space agency NASA when the space shuttle | :09:20. | :09:22. | |
Challenger exploded shortly after launch. Six astronauts and a school | :09:23. | :09:28. | |
teacher were killed. Barbara Morgan was another teacher who trained | :09:29. | :09:33. | |
alongside the Challenger team. My husband that I, we were sitting on | :09:34. | :09:37. | |
the sofa, watching venues and president Reagan came on and made | :09:38. | :09:41. | |
this announcement, it was quite remarkable. Today I am directing | :09:42. | :09:45. | |
Nasser to begin a search and to choose as the first citizen | :09:46. | :09:49. | |
passenger in the history of our space programme one of America's | :09:50. | :09:54. | |
finest, a teacher. I'll always remember my husband, who was a | :09:55. | :09:58. | |
writer, jumped up immediately and said, why a teacher, why not a | :09:59. | :10:02. | |
writer? And I laughed and said I thought a teacher would the perfect | :10:03. | :10:19. | |
choice. Christa was chosen as our teacher in space. I was very, very | :10:20. | :10:22. | |
lucky to be chosen as her backup. Christa was very much like the girl | :10:23. | :10:26. | |
next door. She had an effervescent smile. She was very intelligent and | :10:27. | :10:29. | |
just soaking it all in. Christa spent six months with me training | :10:30. | :10:32. | |
with the Challenger crew. Some of the favourite training was with the | :10:33. | :10:36. | |
simulators, to learn what it was like to be weightless. We did not | :10:37. | :10:39. | |
stop laughing that entire flight. Launch date was January 20 eight. We | :10:40. | :10:43. | |
had been at the Kennedy space centre for a few days and the crew had been | :10:44. | :10:47. | |
spending time in crew quarters going through all the last-minute work and | :10:48. | :10:50. | |
preparation for the flight. And that morning it was a very, very cold | :10:51. | :10:54. | |
morning. We of course have school children all over the country | :10:55. | :10:57. | |
watching. There were, you know, 100 kids from Christa's son's school | :10:58. | :11:00. | |
there. And all of the families and friends. I remember I was so | :11:01. | :11:06. | |
excited, I so wanted to be with them. I was waving and I am sure I | :11:07. | :11:10. | |
was jumping up and down. Really cheering them on, really really | :11:11. | :11:13. | |
happy for them and wanting to be with them. S we have main engine | :11:14. | :11:18. | |
start, four, three, two, one and left. Lift off of the 25th station | :11:19. | :11:29. | |
at all -- space shuttle mission and we have liftoff. Very soon into the | :11:30. | :11:34. | |
launch, things didn't look right. There wasn't one contrail going up | :11:35. | :11:39. | |
and that look very different from the launch of that Christa and I had | :11:40. | :11:42. | |
watched a few months earlier. And then at some point you realised that | :11:43. | :11:49. | |
something has gone terribly wrong. Flight controllers, you are looking | :11:50. | :11:52. | |
very carefully at the situation. Obviously a major malfunction. We | :11:53. | :12:00. | |
all went to crew quarters where we were waiting word and helping her | :12:01. | :12:07. | |
families. It was, you know, a really tough situation. In September, I | :12:08. | :12:21. | |
went back to the classroom, and I taught for many, many more years. In | :12:22. | :12:27. | |
1998, many, many years later, NASA asked me to apply for the astronaut | :12:28. | :12:30. | |
office, the astronaut programme. At that point I had left teaching and | :12:31. | :12:36. | |
went and served as an astronaut for ten years. One of the wonderful | :12:37. | :12:42. | |
legacies of the Challenger is the educational programme that the | :12:43. | :12:45. | |
families of the Challenger crew members got together and created, | :12:46. | :12:53. | |
where young people for themselves experience the joy and wonder of | :12:54. | :12:58. | |
spaceflight and space exploration. It is called the Challenger centre | :12:59. | :13:02. | |
for space science education. That is why the Challenger crew were going | :13:03. | :13:07. | |
into space. They were going to explore and discover an experience | :13:08. | :13:10. | |
for all of us and to keep that future wide open for all of us. | :13:11. | :13:15. | |
Former astronaut Barbara Morgan talking to us at her home in Idaho. | :13:16. | :13:21. | |
Remember, you can watch Witness every month on the BBC News channel, | :13:22. | :13:26. | |
or you can catch up on all of our films along with more than 1000 | :13:27. | :13:29. | |
radio programmes in our online archive. | :13:30. | :13:35. | |
Now, a story of Cold War intrigue and the BBC. In 1978, a Bulgarian | :13:36. | :13:47. | |
dissident was working in London for BBC World Service. On his way into | :13:48. | :13:53. | |
the office he was stabbed with, of all things, poisoned umbrella | :13:54. | :13:59. | |
witness has tracked down Doctor Bernard Reilly, who tried to save | :14:00. | :14:05. | |
Georgi Markov's life. I remember walking into the cubicle and Georgi | :14:06. | :14:09. | |
Markov was on the trolley, setting up. He was hot, toxic, he had rapid | :14:10. | :14:15. | |
pulse rate and his temper Bridge was up. The first thing he said that, I | :14:16. | :14:20. | |
was warned three months ago that they are out to get me. And I have | :14:21. | :14:25. | |
been poisoned by the KGB and I am going to die and there is nothing | :14:26. | :14:30. | |
you can do about it. Georgi Markov was driving to work at the BBC. He | :14:31. | :14:35. | |
parked as usual below Waterloo Bridge. Georgi Markov came up the | :14:36. | :14:39. | |
steps of the bridge, towards the bus stop on the road above. As he | :14:40. | :14:44. | |
reached the bus stop, suddenly something happened to Georgi Markov. | :14:45. | :14:50. | |
He suddenly felt a sharp stabbing at the back of his right thigh, and he | :14:51. | :14:55. | |
looked around expecting the person behind him to apologise for prodding | :14:56. | :14:59. | |
him with an umbrella. Instead of which the man hailed a taxi. Mr | :15:00. | :15:05. | |
Georgi Markov finished his shift and it wasn't until late that night at | :15:06. | :15:09. | |
his home in Clapham that he developed a high fever. When I | :15:10. | :15:12. | |
examined him systematically, the only thing that I could find was on | :15:13. | :15:17. | |
the back of his thigh he had, perhaps, sort of a centimetre | :15:18. | :15:22. | |
diameter swollen area, with then around one or two McNamee the | :15:23. | :15:26. | |
central puncture mark. I thought, well, at best phoned Scotland Yard | :15:27. | :15:30. | |
special branch because they are the sort of people who deal with | :15:31. | :15:34. | |
defectors. His own room at the BBC Bulgarian service was used by | :15:35. | :15:38. | |
anti-terrorist squad detectives investigating the murder. I thought | :15:39. | :15:41. | |
it can't be cyanide, that would kill you to quickly. It can't be thallium | :15:42. | :15:46. | |
or arsenic, that is too slow. It had to be a toxin. And if there was a | :15:47. | :15:51. | |
toxin it might be an antidote. So I then went home, and my wife said you | :15:52. | :15:56. | |
should read more Agatha Christie. And she had just read a book called | :15:57. | :16:04. | |
the House of the Lurk lurking Death, rice and in the face. I don't think | :16:05. | :16:08. | |
this was an intruder diagnosis, it was because of the book she had read | :16:09. | :16:12. | |
at the time but the whole thing was that she was proven right, it was | :16:13. | :16:17. | |
right in. His heart had started giving out, and I just saw the hype | :16:18. | :16:21. | |
machine die away, and shortly after that he died -- ricin. I had to go | :16:22. | :16:28. | |
to the postmortem. I remember the pathologist taking a segment of | :16:29. | :16:32. | |
thigh tissue where this area was. As this was being handled, very small | :16:33. | :16:37. | |
metallic object was dislodged. As a sort of role under the table, and | :16:38. | :16:42. | |
they then looked at it under a microscope and realised that it was | :16:43. | :16:45. | |
actually a very round, circular, tiny little ball about, sort of, | :16:46. | :16:49. | |
just under two millimetres in diameter, and that it had holes in | :16:50. | :16:54. | |
it. And obviously something could have been contained in those holes. | :16:55. | :16:58. | |
They decided almost straightaway that this was going to be ricin. It | :16:59. | :17:03. | |
is a poison which is incredibly toxic. It is strange that as you | :17:04. | :17:11. | |
encounter one patient so early on in 1's career that actually changes | :17:12. | :17:18. | |
your entire life. All I wanted to be was a forensics pathologist. I | :17:19. | :17:22. | |
wanted to be someone who looked at dead bodies, looked at laboratory | :17:23. | :17:29. | |
findings, and decided white people died. And this was the first patient | :17:30. | :17:34. | |
I am trying desperately to keep alive, and failing. And realising | :17:35. | :17:38. | |
that actually I didn't want to find out why people died, I wanted to try | :17:39. | :17:43. | |
and keep them alive. Doctor Bernard Reilly with that extraordinary | :17:44. | :17:49. | |
story. Finally this month, Caty cap witness has travelled to Milan to | :17:50. | :17:55. | |
meet the woman charged with restoring one of the world's great | :17:56. | :18:02. | |
masterpieces, Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper. She finished her | :18:03. | :18:06. | |
painstaking work in 1999 after spending 20 years on the project. | :18:07. | :18:41. | |
Last Supper was painted here 500 years ago for the refectory of Santa | :18:42. | :18:47. | |
Maria. But due to his experimental fresco technique, it started to | :18:48. | :18:52. | |
flake away almost as soon as Leonardo Da Vinci had finished it. | :18:53. | :18:57. | |
Now, a mouth on restoration has attempted to save one of the world's | :18:58. | :19:01. | |
masterpieces from disappearing completely. | :19:02. | :20:44. | |
By stripping away centuries of botched restoration attempts, lines | :20:45. | :20:49. | |
which were crude and inexpressive are now delicate and refined. The | :20:50. | :20:55. | |
mural isn't by no means perfect and some critics feel too much paint has | :20:56. | :21:01. | |
been removed. -- is by no means perfect. | :21:02. | :21:46. | |
Pinin Brambilla, speaking at her studio in Malang. That's all for | :21:47. | :21:53. | |
Witness for this month and this year. We will be back in 2017 with | :21:54. | :21:58. | |
more stories from history told by the people who were there. From me | :21:59. | :22:02. | |
and the rest of the Witnessed him, good light -- Milan. -- goodbye. | :22:03. | :22:24. | |
Some contrasting weather conditions to close out our final few | :22:25. | :22:27. | |
It was cold and foggy in the south-east pretty much | :22:28. | :22:33. |