The History Hour

Speed of Sound and prosecuting Nazis

Published: November 15, 2025

Duration: 1:01:38

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is aviation historian Dr Victoria Taylor.

We start with an archive interview of American Chuck Yeager who became the first pilot to fly faster than the speed of sound in 1947. Then, a couple who were caught up in the attack on the Bataclan theatre in Paris in November 2015.

We hear from a prosecutor in the Nuremberg trials in 1945 after World War Two.

France’s former finance minister recalls how an economic crisis in the 1970s le...