Witness History Folgen

In 2008, panda-mania hit Taiwan when China gifted the country two giant pandas.This practice known as ‘panda diplomacy’ is thought to date back as far as the 7th Century.Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan flew into Taiwan and became instant celebrities.Eve Chen, curator of the Giant Panda House at Taipei Zoo says: “They were extremely cute and adorable. You could call them like the handsome and the beauty, like the Barbie and Ken in a panda.”Eve tells Gill Kearsley about their arrival and what it meant to Taiwan. (Photo: Tuan Tuan and Yuan Yuan in China. Credit: Visual China Group via Getty Images.)

Forty years ago, a Hollywood director, some tech revolutionaries and a group of London skinheads created a commercial that would rock the advertising world.Based on George Orwell’s dystopic novel ‘1984’, and launched in the same year, the ad was like nothing that had been seen before.But its road to being shown was rocky, and the beleaguered advert almost never made it air.Mike Murray was Apple marketing manager at the time, he speaks to Molly Pipe.(Photo: Steve Jobs in a room of computers in 1984. Credit: Michael L Abramson/Getty Images)

Flint was once one of the richest cities in the United States. But in the 1980s, it was badly affected by the downturn in car manufacturing and by 2014 it was nearly bankrupt. To save money, the city switched its water supply away from Lake Huron to its own Flint River, but state officials failed to treat the river water properly. As a result lead, a powerful neurotoxin, was released into the drinking water.Despite mounting evidence, officials denied anything was wrong and it took them a year and a half to switch water supply back to Lake Huron. But many residents of Flint –a majority African-American city with high rates of poverty– have been left fearful about the long term impacts on their children.Rob Walker speaks to lifelong Flint resident Jeneyah McDonald who had two young children at the time. He also hears from Dr Mona Hanna-Attisha – a paediatrician and professor of public health– who helped bring the scandal to national attention after showing that lead had found its way into the bloodstreams of the city’s children.(Photo: Bottled water donations to help with the Flint Michigan water crisis in 2016. Credit: Dennis Pajot via Getty Images)