BlackBerry phones and Spot the dog

25:32Visit Baja Mar.com today. Still to come, a naturalized Norwegian writer who changed that country's attitude towards immigration and the horrific 19th century battle scenes which gave rise to the Geneva Conventions. How many unfortunate men were left behind, lying helpless on the naked ground in their own blood? How many silent tears were shed that miserable night? But first, from the 1950s, an extraordinary story that illustrates the power of political conviction. At the height of the McCarthy era, a time when the US government pursued suspected communists, Victor Grossman faced a terrible dilemma.

26:12When drafted into the army as a committed communist, should he fight or defect to the East? He's been telling Lizzie Kinch about his decision. Oh, I was what they call a red diaper baby. My folks were already infected. That was Victor Grossman, who was born in the USA in 1928. I grew up at a time in New York City, in Manhattan, which was still at the end of the Depression. I have recollections of sad-looking men standing on line to get sued because they couldn't get jobs. And then what made a strong impression on me, the war in Spain. I went with my cousin collecting money, save Madrid. At high school, Victor joined the Young Communist League.

27:02He won a place at Harvard University, where he studied economics and continued his political activism. We set up this group at Harvard, which remained secret because everyone was afraid of the future, career. At the same time, we were very active. The atomic weapon question was very, very hot. And so was Churchill. Churchill had been invited to Harvard, had just made his famous speech about the Iron Curtain. And we wanted to protest that. When he graduated in 1949, Victor went to work in an air conditioning factory, answering the party's call for more blue-collar workers. He did not tell his new colleagues about his Harvard degree.

27:45This was not a good time to be a communist. Communism in reality is not a political party, an evil and malignant way of life. An international criminal conspiracy. In February 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy made his famous speech, claiming he had a list of 205 communists who were working for the State Department.

28:12A few months later, the Korean War broke out. America was now militarily engaged in stopping the spread of global communism. United States Air Force units doing a round-the-clock job of delivering death and destruction to communists. One day in January 1951, Victor received a letter that would change his life. He was drafted into the US Army. I was really basically frightened at the idea of being drafted. I had no idea of what I would do if I was sent to Korea. I can't shoot at Koreans. Not only that, I didn't know whether they knew of my awful background or not. Are you a member of the Communist Party?

28:49Or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party? That's not the question. Are you or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party? Are you a member of the Communist Party? Victor's fears were due to the McCarran Act, which passed in 1950. The act stated that any members of the Communist Party or other leftist groups had to immediately register with the government or face up to five years in prison. Victor had not registered, which caused problems when he was drafted. When you were inducted, you had to sign a statement with a list of about 120 organisations, of which about 110 were leftists.

29:24And I had been in a half a dozen at least of these. Should I sign this thing or shouldn't I? If I refused to sign, I was in trouble because I hadn't registered. If I signed, I was in trouble because that's lying. I didn't know what to do. And we were being rushed through because everybody was just signing like that. I signed. And that meant for two years I have to keep my mouth shut. Victor was not sent to Korea and was instead stationed on an American base in Germany, in the US zone of occupation. Germany was then divided in two. The East was the Communist German Democratic Republic, the GDR, while the West was the Capitalist Federal Republic of Germany, which remained occupied by Britain, France and the USA till 1955.

30:09Victor learnt German and Moore's Code and tried to keep his head down. But as he later found out, The FBI had been keeping track of him since his Harvard days. In August 52, I got this official letter from the Pentagon saying you are a member of one, two, three, six, seven organizations. Report in to the military judge on the coming Monday, and that was a Wednesday, for concealing your membership. There was a penalty up to 10 ,000, up to five years. Five years in military prison? No. I'm taking off. I'm leaving. Victor decided to flee to the Soviet Union, but had no idea how to cross the Iron Curtain.

30:52I took a risk and asked in the city of Nuremberg. I went to the office of the Communist Party in uniform, trembling with fear, to ask their advice as to how to get to the East. But they didn't trust me. They were in trouble already there, too. They were about to be outlawed. The man said, all I have is a bicycle. I can't help you. With time ticking, Victor looked for other places to cross the border. He realised that in Austria, which was also still occupied by the Allied powers, the town of Linz was near a place where the American and Soviet zones were divided only by the Danube River. He had taken some train passes reserved for American soldiers and set off.

31:33I got to where I thought was near, but then I heard whistles, which seemed to me signals of possible American military. So I withdrew from there and fell asleep in the wood in a park. Woke up, and it was already light, so I lit out and found the Danube. Threw my shoes in, my new camera, my jacket, and I had to swim across. The current was moving east, which was in my favor. I got across expecting to see the Iron Curtain. If not Soviet tanks, then at least guards with machine pistols. I couldn't find nobody. I walked and walked as hidden as I could, but then I gave that up and just, I must be on the Soviet side now.

32:19So I started openly walking. That's when the cops picked me up. Victor was taken to the Soviet headquarters in Austria, in the town of Baden, near Vienna. They took me into this cell in the cellar with an armed guard. It was not a pretty cell. It didn't even have a bed. and I was there for two weeks. Victor was given new clothes, new shoes and a red tie. And they drove me and I didn't know where. After a while we went right through Vienna. I was a bit nervous to a border and when we crossed the border the windows were shaded but I could see outside I saw Czech letters but they kept up right past Prague so it must be Poland or East Germany.

33:00Where's the borderline in there? It was East Germany. Victor spent six weeks in another cell in Potsdam before he was released into East Berlin. Soon he met his future wife. Meeting her made all the difference because she saved me from homesickness, basically. I had a twinge or two, certain things I regretted missing. But by and large, she saved me from that. After first working in a factory, Victor ended up becoming a journalist in the GDR, writing books on US history and culture. He and his wife had two sons and raised them in a flat on Berlin's Karl Marx Ali. Even though he's now 97, he continues to work as a journalist while also publishing books about his life, the Cold War and the GDR.

33:45When I was able to go back to the United States in 1994, I met a couple of people who had faced the same situation as I had. He found out he probably wouldn't have been sent to prison for lying on his form way back in 1952. Looking back, perhaps it was not really necessary. Victor's story remains unusual. There were many more defectors who fled across the wall from east to west, fleeing either political persecution from East Germany's notorious secret police or tough economic conditions. But Victor, who remains a convinced communist, told me that he thinks he made the right choice. I still believe that the GDR, which had many, many faults, still represented one step in civilization ahead of the United States.

34:38I don't really regret it. I've had a very interesting life. My mother, who visited six or seven times in her last visit, you know, she said, who knows, maybe you had it better here than if you stayed in the States. And it's possible. Victor Grossman, who defected to the Soviet bloc back in 1952, was talking to Lizzie Kinch in that Whistledown production for the BBC World Service. Now, for a special addition to the History Hour podcast, I'm including this week's sporting witness. And with the Women's Rugby World Cup about to start here in the UK, we're looking at the competition's origins. It's the story of how four women organised the first such event, also held in Britain, in 1991.

35:24Uma Doriswamy has been speaking to one of those four pioneers. My name is Alice D Cooper and I was press officer and one of the founding four of the Women's Rugby World Cup in 1991. Alice had an unusual way into the sport. I went to a pub with a mate because I'd been told there were lots of hunky rugby players in it. It's the Sun Inn in Richmond and ended up talking to two of the players at Richmond who said, oh, we could do with tall players like you. Why don't you come and give it a go? So I went and found my old school lacrosse boots and turned out about 10 days later and played for them for close on seven seasons.

36:06She must have had loads of experience organising sports tournaments to take on something like a World Cup. Oh, no, no, no. Debs certainly had organised some big events, but not on a grand scale. Debs is Deborah Griffin, more of her in a minute. There had been European Cups. But the Americans, New Zealanders and Canadians wanted to get involved too. So Debs started things off. She went and presented to the Women's Union the idea of a World Cup. And they said, OK, well, you organise it then. And she said she'd only do it if she could choose her team. So she chose me as press officer because I had a writing and creative work background.

36:45Sue Dorrington, who's an event manager to do events and sponsorship. And Mary Forsyth, who is an accountant to handle money. We all played for Richmond, so we were all established teammates. We all knew each other really well. None of us can remember being asked, but none of us remember saying yes either. This year's women's tournament is likely to set world records for attendance for the women's sport. There's huge demand for tickets, with a real mix of people enjoying the game. But back in 1991, attitudes to women playing were very different. Pretty misogynistic. You know, what are these girls doing?

37:20and you get hilarious headlines like, which one's the hooker? Scrumptious. And then there was kind of a four, let's go look at some girls rolling in mud. And it was so frustrating trying to get to be taken seriously. And even the sports authorities weren't open to the idea of the tournament. We went to the unions. We couldn't get any support, any funding. And they couldn't see that actually what we were doing was expanding the game, expanding interest in the game. It was all incredibly grudging, incredibly difficult. We weren't going to ask mission, we were just going to do it. You start with putting out, does anybody want to come and play in this tournament?

38:01That was the start. And then second place, who's going to play where and when? Then all the matches had to be organised, merchandise to organise, liaison between someone who spoke the language would go and be liaison between us, the organising committee, and the team. You had volunteers who were match managers, had volunteers who handled merchandising. We had a whole army of people who gave up their holidays for a fun weekend in South Wales to come and make it run. And progress was slow. Don't forget, there was no internet. Everything was done by snail mail and fax machines. Countries were quite slow to agree to come because they obviously had to pay for their own kit, their own travel their own accommodation and their own food so it was a big outlay particularly from the countries coming far and wide and then a rumor went out about three months beforehand that it was going to be cancelled and we had then had to fax everyone and only it is happening but the russians were slow to decide to where they were coming or not and so we ended up with four pools but we only had 11 countries and we thought oh it's just so inconvenient to have one pool with only two teams in it and then on the day we decided we're going to pick the who's in which pool the French went suddenly okay literally the 11th hour and suddenly we had four pools of three and then the tournament was balanced.

39:24Every step forward there was about five steps back. South Wales was the chosen location for the tournament as it had lots of grounds close together as well as university accommodation that could house all the players. April came round and the teams were in Wales apart from the Russians. they arrived at Heathrow and said hello we've arrived now you're meant to get yourself to Cardiff we haven't got any transport so we then had to organise everybody and anybody in a minibus in a big car in anything to go and get these Russians who were huge I mean one of their props was six foot four and wore her army uniform the whole time plus there were two coaches and two minders who we were sure were KGB and they had the middle of a toilet roll stuffed full of money.

40:12But the whole time they kept very, very tight control on the girls. They turned up with a big crate of stuff. I don't know how they got it through customs. They had vodka, caviar, nasty little watches, little pennant banners things, a lot of cucumbers, all sorts of knickknacks you couldn't possibly want. Debs arrived in my press office going, I've just had a call from HM Customs and Excise. they said the Russians are selling vodka on this town hall in Cardiff. You must go and stop them. And that's what they were doing. They were flogging their vodka to try and make a bit of money to buy food so they had enough energy to play.

40:51So, of course, HM Customs were a bit grumpy about this, but there was complete language impasse between the Russians and the Welsh executives. So they just stop and that was the end of that. But it got us an enormous amount of press coverage, and suddenly we were on the news, suddenly we were in the mainstream paper, on the sports pages, and it suddenly got the tournament noticed. So it was a twin-edged sword. On the first day of the tournament, the weather was biblical. I mean, this is like 9th of April. The weather was so bad, it was like horizontal ice, that every other sports event had been cancelled across the UK.

41:37The fact that every other, you know, the men were so soft that they wouldn't play in that weather. But yeah, no, we went out and played, we were fine. And whilst the matches were going on, Alice was kept busy. I would get up at six, be up my desk at seven because I had to get the programmes to the printers, no digital printing then, which then had to be printed and back to me by 12. then I would have to jump in the car, drive to the ground, try and find the ground, get the programmes to the merchandising, do press interviews. Sometimes I had to do PA as well, so commentate on the match, try scored by whoever.

42:16Press interviews. Often the match manager would do a match report. Get back, type that up, get it on the wires if I could, more press interviews, do whatever I could and I would be there till two in the morning. Just in case you're interested about what happened on the pitch, USA won the final, beating England 19 points to six. In 1998, the International Rugby Football Board did eventually take responsibility for the tournament, making the 1991 and 1994 competition official World Cups. Looking back, Alice thinks the organisers' pioneering efforts are responsible for the healthy state of the game.

42:52If we hadn't done what we did in 91, instead of being the 10th World Cup in August, September this year, it might be the 3rd or 4th. Because until that, there was no world rankings. No one knew how good these other countries were. And nobody knew how, if you put this country against that country, how they're going to play. So there was no comparison. There was no track record. And now there was. So it started a whole load of balls rolling in lots of directions. If we hadn't started the ball rolling, I think we'd be a long way behind now. Alice D Cooper, we're speaking to Uma Doriswamy. Full coverage of the Women's Rugby World Cup is on bbc.com.

43:32Next, a moment from the past which throws a particular light on an issue exercising politicians and populations right now, immigration. In 2010, a book was published in Norway that transformed the way people looked at irregular or paperless immigrants. It triggered a government crisis and a change to Norway's immigration regulations. Lars Bavanger has spoken to the author of that book. I was born in North Ossetia and lived there while I was a child. And then around 2000, my family ended up as refugees in Norway. Maria Amalie was 12 when her family fled her childhood home in Vladikavgaz, the capital of North Ossetia.

44:15The Russian Republic borders Chechnya and had been affected by regional violence and instability for some time. Maria's father had been a successful businessman. But, she says, like what happened to many others deemed to be on the wrong side of the political leadership at the time, the states seized all their assets. Her family also lived with the threat of kidnapping, or even worse. There was not a lot I remember or really understood of what was happening. but I also felt that was not a place we could survive. The family of three spent their first year in an asylum centre south of the Norwegian capital, Oslo, during which time Maria joined the local school.

44:55Me and my mum went to visit the local principal of the local school and then we persuaded him to let me study and then I would come back after the summer and speak fluent Norwegian. That was his challenge to me. So we kind of made a deal and then I started studying. and during those two years our asylum application was rejected. The family knew this meant they could be deported at any time. With the support of the local community, they decided to stay and somehow flew under the radar of the Norwegian authorities. Maria graduated and secured a place at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim.

45:35Her master's degree in science, society and technology were the only papers she had and life as an adult undocumented immigrant, or an illegal immigrant in the eyes of the law, began in earnest. So in order to support myself through university, I put an ad in the newspaper and I said I can clean houses because that felt like the most honest way to earn money, even though I couldn't earn money in a legal way. I couldn't get any, not a bank account, I couldn't have a phone number. And the other aspect of being undocumented is that you are very vulnerable if you are sick. I think you can trust most doctors, but you still feel very unsafe because anyone can just report you and then the next day you might be deported.

46:20Because Maria had remained in the country for several years after her family's asylum application was rejected, she faced deportation and at least a five-year ban from returning to Norway, perhaps more. I was very, very afraid, but I felt like I needed to do the right thing. I just saw my opportunities, you know, either I continue living like this in Norway, I continue clean houses with a master's degree and no hope. And one day someone will report me and then I'll be deported and I'll be expelled and I'll lose Norway forever. Or I write a book, I tell about how it is to be undocumented, I support the cause of a lot of people in the same situation, and then I will be expelled and banned as well.

47:01I just had this clarity that I should do this because at least I will be creating some impact, giving a face to people who are in this situation. So Maria wrote her book and called it Illegally Norwegian. It was published in September 2010 and became an overnight sensation. On the cover, her portrait and name. Suddenly, Maria's face was in every window of every bookshop across the country. She was widely praised in the media and by the public for daring to give a face to the thousands of undocumented immigrants in Norway and beyond. While some pointed out there were many like her who did not get the same attention, few, if any, criticised her decision to try to stay.

47:47It really struck a nerve with a lot of people. Everywhere I went, someone would tap me on the shoulder and say, I'm in the same situation as you. Please don't tell anyone. Maria's lawyer had asked for her rejected asylum case to be overturned, arguing she came to Norway as a child without any control over her situation. Four months after the book's publication, her case was dismissed. That same evening, she was arrested in the street by eight police officers. I really didn't understand what was happening until one of them just stood in front of me with a police badge and said, we're here to take you to Trandom.

48:26Trandom is Norway's National Immigration Detention Centre. We have a decision that you will be deported shortly. The three hours while I was sitting in the car with the police, they did admit that they read my book and that they were just doing their job. And the next day was crazy. Norway woke up to a lot of headlines about me. Thousands of people gathered in Norwegian towns and cities to protest her arrest, detention and impending deportation. After an appeal, she was allowed out of the detention centre but had to report daily to her local police station, with a packed suitcase, because she might be deported any day.

49:07Every morning there was a lot of journalists reading me, which became a little bit comforting because they cared and they followed this. And then until one morning, they suddenly didn't let me out. And then they said, we're deporting you today. And then I just broke down because I just fell on the floor. And then they drove me to the airport and deported me.

49:37When I went through the border control in Moscow, The border control takes me aside and they say, what is wrong with Norway? You are Norwegian of the year and they are still deporting you. Her arrest and deportation created turbulence in the then Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg's Labour-led coalition government. If you fill the requirements, you must be lost. But if you don't fill the requirements, you can't be able to be lost. Stoltenberg, who would later serve as NATO Secretary General, told Parliament that people who did not fulfill Norway's asylum criteria must leave. His coalition partner, the Socialist Left Party, had pushed for a more liberal immigration policy and threatened to pull out of government if a solution was not found.

50:22Even the right-wing Progress Party argued it was more pressing to deport immigrants who had committed serious crimes than to send someone who was well integrated into Norwegian society, like Maria, back to Russia. The result? A change to regulations allowing rejected asylum seekers with a job offer in Norway to return much sooner than after a five-year ban. Maria already had a job offer from a tech magazine in Oslo. After about one month in Moscow, she was able to return. After 10 years, she eventually got Norwegian citizenship and became a serial entrepreneur. I co-founded a company called Startup Migrants.

51:02We do crash course in entrepreneurship with young multicultural people all over Europe. Because one thing I learned is that your refugee or migrant experience, it is actually the best MBA you can have, because you learn a lot about resilience that is needed in building a business, and you also learn about taking a risk, but calculated risk. Maria Amélie, the Norwegian author, entrepreneur, and one-time deportee, was speaking to Lars Babanga. Finally this week, the Geneva Conventions, a series of treaties governing the conduct of war. They originate with a Swiss businessman, Henri Dunant, who witnessed a battle in the mid-19th century.

51:46It was a moment that changed the history of how the world views conflict and the administration of aid to the wounded. Here's Rachel Naylor. It's the 25th of June, 1859. Henri Dunant is the president of Mons Gemillat Mills, which grows and processes wheat grain. He wants to use some farmland in Algeria, but he needs permission. Impatient for answers, he's decided to take his request straight to the top, to Emperor Napoleon III. So he's come to Solferino in northern Italy to speak to him. There's just one catch. There's a war on. Every mound, every rocky crag, is the scene of a fight to the death.

52:27Bodies lie in heaps on the hills and in the valleys. Here is a hand-to-hand struggle in all its horror and frightfulness. Austrian and allies trampling each other on the foot. killing one another on piles of bleeding corpses, felling their enemies with their rifle butts, crushing skulls, ripping bellies open with saber and bayonet. It is a sheer butchery, a struggle between savage beasts, maddened with blood and fury. Everywhere, men fail by thousands, with gaping wounds in limbs or bellies, riddled with bullets, mortally wounded by shot and shell of every kind. This is an excerpt from Henri's book, A Souvenir de Solferino, A Memory of Solferino, which was published in 1862.

53:17But he wasn't just shocked by the violence of the battle. He was also struck by the lack of protection offered to those providing aid. The canteen women moved about the field under enemy fire like the soldiers. They were often wounded themselves as they went among the wounded men, lifting their heads and giving them drink as they cried peteously for water. Henri was also surprised by the lack of aid itself.

54:06The church, the police barracks, were all filled with wounded men, piled on one another and with nothing but straw to lie on. Oh, the agony and suffering during those days. Oh, sir, I am in such pain. Several of these poor fellows said to me, they desert us, leave us to die miserably, and yet we fought so hard. Henri couldn't stand by and watch. He took it upon himself to organise aid for the wounded soldiers. I adopted in particular one of the Castiglione churches called, I think, the Chiesa Maggiore. Nearly 500 soldiers were there, piled in the church, and 100 more lay outside on straw and frown.

54:51The boys of the neighbourhood ran back and forth between the nearest fountains, with buckets, canteens and watering pots. The distribution of water was followed by issue of soup and beef tea, which the quartermaster service were obliged to make in enormous quantities. On the Monday morning, I sent my coachman in Brescia for provisions. He came back a few hours later with a carriage loaded with mallows, elderflower, oranges, lemons, sugar, sponges, linen bandages, beans, cigars and tobacco. It wasn't just the provisions Henri took charge of, but willing, and some not so willing, volunteers too.

55:33We had obtained some new recruits. First, an ex-naval officer, then a couple of English tourists who came into the church from curiosity and whom we seized and held practically by force. We were also given help by an Italian priest, two or three casual travellers and onlookers, a Paris journalist and a few officers whose detachment had been ordered to stand by in Castiglione. The woman of Castiglione, seeing that I made no distinction between nationalities, followed my example, showing the same kindness to all these men whose origins were so different and all of whom were foreigners to them. Tutti fratelli, all our brothers, they repeated failingly.

56:19Buoyed by his success, Henri came up with a plan. Oh, how valuable it would have been in those Lombardy towns to have a hundred experienced and qualified voluntary nurses. As it was, there was no time for those who knew their business to give the needful advice and guidance. And most of those who broke their own goodwill to the task lacked the necessary knowledge and experience so that their efforts were inadequate and often ineffective. In the face of so great an emergency, what could be done by a handful of enthusiasts, all isolated and dispersed. The Battle of Solverino was one of the bloodiest of the 19th century.

56:57The total of killed and wounded Austrians and Franco-Sardinians numbered three field marshals, nine generals, 1 ,566 officers of all ranks and some 40 ,000 non-commissioned officers and men. Two months later, these figures increased by 40 ,000 dead or in hospital from sickness or fever. Leaving all questions of strategy and glory aside, this Battle of Solferino was thus, in the view of any neutral and impartial person, really a European catastrophe. Something had to be done. Henri came up with two ideas. The first was about creating associations of trained volunteers in different countries to help those injured on the battlefield.

57:39If an international relief society had existed at the time of Solferino, what endless good they could have done. The second idea was an international treaty, which would recognise the neutral status of medical services and the wounded during wars. A convention, inviolating character, which might constitute the basis for societies for the relief of the wounded in the different European countries. Henri knew he had no time to waste. Is it not a matter of urgency, since unhappily we cannot always avoid wars, to press forward in a human and truly civilised spirit the attempt to prevent, or at least, to alleviate the horrors of war.

58:18The idea should be presented to the different branches of the great European family and that it should secure the attention and the sympathy of all lofty souls, all of hearts which can be stirred by the sufferings of their fellow men. So that's what he did. On We Travelled Europe, promoting his ideas. In February 1863, a year after his book was published, Henri held a meeting in Geneva in Switzerland to discuss his plans with four others, two surgeons, a military officer and a lawyer. This committee of five Swiss men went on to become the International Red Cross, the world's oldest aid organisation.

58:58A year later, on the 22nd of August 1864, it persuaded governments around Europe to adopt the first and original Geneva Convention. Twelve states signed it. Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands and Portugal. Along with Baden, Hesse, Prussia and Württemberg, which are now all part of Germany. The convention consisted of ten articles designed to protect wounded and sick soldiers, whichever side they were on. Article 1. Ambulances and military hospitals shall be recognised as neutral and, as such, protected and respected by the belligerents as long as they accommodate wounded and sick.

59:38In 1901, Henri was co-awarded the first ever Nobel Peace Prize for both of these achievements. Since then, there have been three more Geneva Conventions, all designed to protect those who do not fight or who no longer fight during conflicts. In 1907, the second convention added protection for victims of maritime warfare. In 1929, following the First World War, the third convention related to prisoners of war. And most recently, in 1949, after the Second World War, the fourth Geneva Convention included protection for civilians. Rachel Naylor with the story of the Geneva Conventions and the birth of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

1:00:15The excerpts from the writings of Henri Donon were read by Henri's great-great-great-grand-nephew, Gabriel Martinez, our thanks to him. And with that highly evocative piece of military history, we've come to the end of this edition of the History Hour. As ever, we'll have more for you next week, so I hope you'll join us again then. But for now, this is Max Pearson. From all of us here, thanks for listening. Goodbye. We did something that no one else had ever done. There was such an excitement and energy about this moment. It opened the door for everything that rapidly followed. Witness history.

1:00:50History as told by the people who were there. I was walking in space, the first man ever to do so. I felt almost insignificant, like a tiny ant compared to the immensity of the universe. Witness History from the BBC World Service. Listen now. Search for Witness History wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

1:01:16Hello, Greg Jenner here. I'm the host of You're Dead to Me, the BBC comedy show that takes history seriously. Every episode, I pair up a top historian with a fantastic comedian, and we have a lovely, funny, fascinating chat about a different subject from world history. And in this new series, we're beginning with an epic voyage through the story of Homer, the Iliad, and the Odyssey. And that's with Kyle Smith-Bino joining us. And then we'll be learning about Francis Galton and the racist, discredited pseudoscience of eugenics with Desiree Burch. We'll meet many medieval saints in their bone boxes with Rachel Parrott.

1:01:50So if that sounds like your sort of thing, listen to You're Dead to Me wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. Bye.