Now witness history hears from a survivor of the khmer rouge regime, and a warning, some viewers may find some scenes upsetting. Hello, and welcome to witness history here at the Royal Academy in london. Im tanya beckett. Today, we present five extraordinary moments in history as told to us by the people who were there. Coming up, we meet the scientist who tried to find a cure for the common cold. The diver who discovered the lost plane belonging to the author of the Little Prince. And the african man who ran away as a boy to live in the arctic. But first, its a0 years since the end of the brutal regime of the khmer rouge in cambodia. Around 2 Million People are thought to have been killed under its extremist rule. Sokphal din survived four years in what became known as the killing fields. A warning, this piece contains some distressing images. The cambodian people are the victims of a hideous experiment in communism that failed. The khmer rouge guerrillas triumphed in the spring of 1975. The man who emerged as the leader of the new cambodia was pol pot. It was a living hell. You cannot imagine. For the communist regime, time began when they took over. For them, 1975 became year zero, a time of grotesque social engineering with class slaughter and mass uprooting of the population. They were extreme communists, year zero means we start from scratch. No electricity, no books, no education, nothing. Anyone educated had to be executed. Doctors, teachers, and if you wore glasses. I lost many of my relatives and theyjust executed them, took them away and i never saw them again. Literally millions of people were marched out of phnom penh to the countryside to begin building the new society. At the time, i think i must have been 17. I remember that morning we were in the kitchen, having breakfast. I heard a knock at the door and i saw two soldiers who both pointed their guns at me and shouted at me to get out of my house, right now, or i will shoot you. Everyone packed on the road, on the bicycle or motorbike and everyone seemed to panic. If you stopped or were not moving you were shot. And all young soldiers, 12, 14, 15. The young guerillas, they were being pushed by the communist regime, khmer rouge, they look at you like you are the enemy, they hated you so much. One of my cousins was taken right in front of me into the pol pot army. Please release my son, he isjust a student. If you ask again or cry, i will shoot you at the same time as your son. They took him away and we have never seen him again. I heard the screaming, begging, crying, children crying, its a horrible atmosphere. On the road, on the pavement, you can see the bloodstains on it. They send me to work in the rice paddy and physically you had to work all day. My food allowance would be a small bowl of rice, for one day, yeah. It seemed to me that we just were not treated like human beings. And when they executed people we never saw where they took them until the water flood came out and you could see the body there. I seen many things and i got used to them. By the end of khmer rouges year zero, nearly half of cambodias people were dead, its intelligensia, doctors, teachers, professional people, systematically murdered. You cannot imagine, a human being, how could anyone at age 12 or 13 shoot you . Because they had been brainwashed, this could happen to anybody. It could happen any minute if you are not aware of it. Sokphal din, who regularly speaks to children in schools about the dangers of political extremism. Next, injuly 19114, the author of the world famous childrens story the Little Prince disappeared in his plane over the south of france. French diver luc vanrell solved the mystery of antoine de Saint Exuperys missing plane. Translation after so many years searching across the mediterranean, it is here that we found the wreckage of the plane belonging to the author of the Little Prince, antoine de Saint Exupery. This place has become inhabited by the Little Prince. For me, he now lies here under the sea in marseilles. Its his refuge. Antoine de Saint Exupery, or saint ex, is universally revered in france, not just as the author of the Little Prince, but as a pioneering airman and romantic free spirit. There was also the mystery of his death. Translation i became interested in the disappearance of him because i read his books when i was young and his thinking came to influence me throughout my life. In france we tend to say that you need to read the Little Prince in two different stages of your life. It was not until i was 40 that i came to understand it and all its subtleties. On july 31st 19114 at 7 45pm, Saint Exupery took off for a High Altitude reconnaissance mission. Taking off from corsica towards the end of the Second World War, he disappeared. No one knew whether he was shot down or simply crashed, and no one knew where. Translation we think he was spotted by a german gunner in toulon who saw a twin engine plane flying towards marseilles. He was 114 years old and one of the oldest pilots in the war at the time. When i used to dive in that area i would find bits of planes but i always thought they were from a german plane. In 1998, a fisherman found a piece of plane in his net, along with a little bracelet. And to our surprise on that bracelet was written the name Saint Exupery. I knew those bits of wreckage so i decided to investigate. The main part of the wreckage was at a depth of 87 metres, it was about 2km from the coast. We did not find any visible human remains. But while i was at the back of the wreckage i caught sight of a white cloth and i tried to grab it and put it around my neck like a scarf. The image that came into my mind was that of the Little Prince on his planet with his big scarf floating in the wind. On that day under the water, i was convinced i found the right plane because of this totally unscientific detail. In may 2000, i was able to formally identify the plane, because of its technical markings, it only could have belonged to Saint Exupery. These days, i like to give the Little Prince as a gift to young people. If it is a book that contains truths that have become universal, like it is only with the heart that one can see clearly. What is essential is invisible to the eye. The Little Prince is still one of the best selling childrens stories worldwide. Now for the hunt for a cure for an affliction that affects us all. Britains common cold unit is a remarkable institution. It was set up after world war ii to investigate the illness and it became perhaps the only place in the world where thousands of volunteers went on holiday knowing there was a strong chance they would get ill. The unique aspect of the common cold unit was the volunteer set up. They would come to catch a cold. Its a crazy thing, really, but people did. Lets have you back on the bed. This is the virus, then. We will put this into your nose. It gave us the ability to study a virus in its natural host. And this is still a very rare thing. The common cold unit was set up by the medical Research Council after the Second World War to try to discover the cause of the common cold, because of the number of working hours people lost through people taking time off, it was taking time off, it was enourmous for the productivity of the nation as a whole. The common cold unit advertised for people to come there and they were a paid pocket money and rail fare and they lived at salisbury for about ten days. Newsreel these bright young people are starting a holiday at government expense, to enable scientists to find out more about the common cold. They would come and be divided up into two sets, those who were infected and those which got placebos. It was a good deal because the chances of getting a cold were pretty slim. They had different motivations. Some came for a rest or a holiday and some students came for studying and we had a large body of housewives who just came for a great rest. People did meet and there were lovely stories of romances. People could talk to each other but had to stay ten yards apart. Ten yards was the magic distance over which the common cold virus couldnt jump. 18,000 volunteers are now believed to have spent time in isolation at the unit, but a cold cure remains elusive. About the time ijoined the unit, they discovered how to grow the virus in cell culture and then the science took off. It turns out theres not one common cold virus, but hundreds of them, and that makes vaccines very difficult. We thought about why some people are resistant and developing new tests for new viruses and about developing drugs that could cure them, or prevent them, even if we cant get vaccines. Myths were tested as well for instance if you went out in the cold, particularly the rain and cold, it predisposed you to catching colds. There was no evidence at all that any of these things affected an instance of the cold. In the end the common cold unit was closed for economic reasons. I think it was a big loss, scientifically. Such facilities are very valuable and there are very few of them. A cure for the common cold, people are looking still. Commercially its still a very attractive proposition. Nobody has yet managed to find one. But, we can always be optimistic professor nigel dimmock, eminent virologist. Remember, you can watch witness every month on the bbc, and catch up online with thousands of programmes in our archive. Just Search Online for bbc witness history. Next, the remarkable story of tete michel kpomassie, the boy who ran away from his village in togo to live in the arctic. He spoke to witness history about his odyssey. I started a journey of discovery, only to find that i was being discovered. I was one of them. I became called the african eskimo. I was born in 19111. In togo, west africa. I grew up as an ordinary african boy. But one day i was on top of the tree, and suddenly there was a snake. I fell. And i was badly injured. After my convalescence i went to the missionary bookshop. And i saw a book, eskimos from greenland to alaska. And i learned that it is so cold in greenland that there are no snakes. Oh, where is that paradise . I was obsessed with the eskimos. People said, you are completely mad. I ran away from togo. I was 16 and a half. It took me eight years to get to greenland. I was the first black man they had ever seen. As soon as they saw me, all talking stopped. And the children were so afraid. Some started weeping. But i was always welcomed by the eskimo hosts, who became my friends. I went to the north. That is really beautiful. And i saw the eskimos living according to their traditions. I had to learn everything from them. I had to learn their language. We also ate seals and the skin of the white whale, which i did not appreciate at all. At the beginning, i was afraid for my stomach but slowly, slowly i became accustomed to the climate. I was happy. Because i really conquered my freedom. I really wanted to live forever in greenland. But my countrymen had never seen it before, they had never seen the polar night before, never seen the polar lights before, and i said to myself, after the slavery and colonisation, why cant i write for my people to see the eskimos through our eyes . So i decided to go back. It took me five years. But my deepest wish would be to end my life in greenland. It is my country. Yes. The extraordinary tete michel kpomassie. And finally, tunisia became one of the first muslim countries to introduce far reaching equal rights for women. In 1957, president Habib Bourguiba said women should be able to vote, go to school, divorce and marry on their own terms. He allowed abortion, access to contraception and he banned polygamy. Saida el gueyed was part of the tunisia womens union. Newsreel the women who ten years ago had no rights and were contracted to marriage by their parents and covered their faces when they left the house, these tunisians are not doing at all badly. This is, one imagines, as emancipated as any girl can get. The swinging tunisian dollybirds represent one of the most remarkable social transformations of present times. Translation the equal rights law was the biggest gain for tunisian women. President bourguiba said he was not just a liberator of tunisia, but a liberator of tunisian women as well. For 30 years he fought for his country, battling for independence from france, and he was jailed and exiled for his trouble. Since independence, he has been his nations leader. I knew him against the struggle against colonialism. I knew him during the struggle against colonialism. In the equal rights law he banned polygamy. He gave women social and economic rights and introduced the law on the 13th of august, 1956. Women were allowed to vote and also to become politicians. I am one of the founders of the tunisian womens union and president bourguiba relied on us. In this school 100 miles from tunis, a teacher hammers home the facts of female life to 30 teenagers. Of female life to 60 teenagers. There are 13 such schools in tunisia staffed by the union, a powerful embodiment of opinion in the land. The teacher leaves them no doubts about their rights. She tells them that they are not slaves any more. You are like european women and have equal rights with men this you must understand. This law protected girls. Fathers were no longer able to force their daughters to marry against their will and president bourguiba encouraged us to make sure families were not stopping girls from getting an education. They are taught about contraception, abortion, and laws giving them equal rights. After three months here they return to their villages to spread the word, because its here in the countryside that the modern tunisian woman has to win the fight for equality in territories that have remained for centuries the stronghold of tunisian men. We spoke to men more than we did to women, because we faced opposition from them. We spent a lot of time meeting men and explaining the law to them. Family traditions used to oppress girls. But now theyre free to choose who to love. Tunisian women were given another safeguard against massive families when they became the first women in any Muslim Country able to have abortions. The law at present states that any tunisian woman with four children can have an abortion without her husbands consent, and the operation is paid for by the government. The president told us to make women feel like they have a role to play, that they have the right to live and dignity and trust themselves and their soul. He said he gave women these rights not as a gift, but because he saw womens power to lead in post independence society. Saida el gueyed continues to write and campaign on womens issues in tunisia. Thats all from witness history this month. Well be back next month with more first hand accounts of extraordinary moments in history. From now, from me and the rest of the team, goodbye. Thunderstorms and showers are developing as forecast across parts of Northern England and into scotland, quite a bit of lightning around the central belt and the storms will become more widespread in the latter part of the afternoon and the evening across scotland and Northern Ireland, you can see them here with the brighter colours indicating that thunderstorms, heavy ones across the central belt of scotland, further south a fine end to the day and feeling warm with temperatures of 25 or 26 degrees in some places, further north the high teens. These storms will become widespread and heavy in the latter pa rt widespread and heavy in the latter part of the day, weather warnings in force for a good portion of scotland and down into Northern England including flood sensitive areas around derbyshire and cheshire. Hit and miss storms but if you catch one torrential downpours are likely with frequent lightning and hail and gusty winds as they continue to move north and east. Something a bit drier following behind throughout the night but then another batch of cloud and showers perches in from the west and central areas, may be a bit drierfor northern the west and central areas, may be a bit drier for Northern Ireland the west and central areas, may be a bit drierfor Northern Ireland by the end of the night and quite a muqqy the end of the night and quite a muggy night. Low pressure firmly in charge as we start the new week, centred across the north west of the uk so here we will see most showers, breezier with wind coming in from the south west bringing atlantica so it will feel fresher and less humid across southern and eastern areas. Most of the showers across scotland and Northern Ireland, but there will also be some warm spells of sunshine in england and wales where temperatures could reach 25 degrees. In due tuesday, low pressure anchored to the north of the uk so scotland, Northern Ireland, england and wales will see the heaviest downpours, the best brightness and right weather will be across the south east but cooler across the board, looking at 16 23d. That low remains in control towards the weekend, bringing further shaun rain, soria some of it heavy and thundery with a risk of localised flooding so stay tuned to the forecast. This is bbc news. Im lukwesa burak. The headlines at 3 two Mass Shootings in the united states. The first in a Walmart Store in el paso, texas, where 20 people were killed. A suspect has been taken into custody by police. Hes been identified by local media as 21 year old patrick crusius. The second shooting took place in dayton, ohio, where nine people died. Officials said the speed of the polices response could have saved hundreds of lives. If Dayton Police had not gotten to the shooter in under a minute. Think of that, 26 injured, nine dead, hundreds of people in the oregon district could be dead today
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