The creation of Inspector Montalbano and Australia's first Big Thing

6 Jun 2026 · 1 h 1 min · 28 chapters

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In short

The episode of BBC World Service’s History Hour uses first-hand accounts and archive material to cover (1) how Andrea Camilleri created Inspector Montalbano and helped spark a new wave of Italian noir, (2) the capture and taped interviews of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, (3) the build-up and crackdown around China’s Tiananmen Square protests, (4) the launch of Ireland’s Irish-language TV channel TG4/Tina G, (5) the 1994 US World Cup opening ceremony moment when Diana Ross missed a penalty, and (6) Australia’s “Big Things” roadside sculptures.

Guest backgrounds

Jen Dale (BBC archive storyteller) on Camilleri; Professor Giuliana Pieri (Royal Holloway, Italian crime fiction expert); Saskia Sassen (globalisation authority; Eichmann interviewee’s daughter); Wu Kai-shi (student organiser, Tiananmen protests); Sinead Ni Ghuir (TG4/Tina G launch presenter); Alan Rothenberg (1994 World Cup organiser); Paul Kelly and Christabel Kelly (creators of The Big Scotsman and Big Lobster).

Key claims

Camilleri’s Montalbano differs by leaving “loose ends” and critiquing corruption; Eichmann was abducted in Buenos Aires and Israel hanged him in 1962; Tiananmen protests began after Hu Yaobang’s death and ended in June 4 massacre; TG4 brought Irish to “front and central” TV; Diana Ross’s missed penalty became a memorable opening omen; Big Things were built to draw drivers into towns.

Notable examples

The Shape of Water (published March 10, 1994); Eichmann’s “29 hours” of tapes/transcripts; Hu Yaobang funeral crowds; Halloween 1996 TG4 launch; Diana Ross’s wide penalty kick in Chicago; Adelaide’s 1963 Big Scotsman (“Scotty”) and Coffs Harbour’s giant banana.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

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Birth of Italian Noir: Inspector Montalbano

0:00 to 1:02

Explore the origins of Italian noir through Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano.

“This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.”

Birth of Italian Noir: Inspector Montalbano

3:18 to 4:00

Explore the origins of Italian noir through Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano.

“So we wanted to be in control of our own lives.”

Camilleri's Inspirations and Writing Journey

4:00 to 4:55

Learn about Camilleri's inspirations and the challenges he faced in his writing career.

“and then decided the best solution was to put it aside and write something else.”

Innovations in Detective Fiction

4:55 to 6:06

Understand how Camilleri defied conventions in detective fiction and his unique storytelling style.

“saying she had such a great imagination she opened up mine it's also reported the author's father when he was on his deathbed, urged Camilleri to write his stories down.”

Camilleri's Approach to Crime and Society

6:06 to 7:40

Discover Camilleri's portrayal of crime, the mafia, and societal issues in his novels.

“And this was in 1960s Italy, which was quite an adventurous thing to be doing.”

The Role of Food in Montalbano

7:40 to 9:05

Examine how food and Sicilian culture are intricately woven into the Montalbano stories.

“Fiction somehow gives them a noble character.”

The Impact of Montalbano on Sicily

9:05 to 11:12

Learn about the 'Montalbano effect' and how the series transformed perceptions of Sicily.

“There is a beautiful saying, Primum vivere Dei Dei Philosophari.”

Camilleri's Legacy and Global Influence

11:12 to 12:20

Explore the global reach of Camilleri's work and its significance in literary fiction.

“The so-called Montalbano effect is even reported as boosting tourism on the island.”

Defining Italian Noir with Giuliana Pieri

12:20 to 14:00

Giuliana Pieri discusses the characteristics and complexities of Italian noir.

“Andrea Camilleri died in 2019, aged 93, but his influence lives on.”

Exploring Italian Noir and Camilleri's Influence

14:00 to 16:40

Learn about the uniqueness of Italian noir and the impact of Andrea Camilleri.

“to actually sort of putting the emphasis on the environment.”
Show all 28 chapters

From Literature to Holocaust History

16:40 to 17:40

Transitioning from Italian literary discussions to the Holocaust narrative.

“From the fictional worlds of good and evil, we turn next to what is often referred to as the worst crime in history, the systematic extermination of Jews during the Holocaust in the Second World War.”

Willem Sassen's Interviews with Eichmann

17:40 to 20:00

Insights into Willem Sassen's interviews with Nazi war criminal Eichmann.

“would stand trial in Israel, the Israeli Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, told An Astonished World.”

Saskia Sassen's Childhood Memories

20:00 to 21:40

Saskia Sassen recounts her memories of life with Eichmann's interactions.

“and that he said more than anyone had ever heard him say, you know, the way he believed in it all, etc.”

The Nature of Eichmann's Character

21:40 to 24:50

An exploration of Eichmann's persona through personal testimonies.

“Wilhelm Sassen was a national socialist.”

Aftermath of Eichmann's Capture

24:50 to 25:20

Discussing the impact of Eichmann's capture and trial in Israel.

“And because this did not happen, I am to blame for the suffering and the adversity of our future generations.”

Unanswered Questions about the Tapes

25:20 to 27:00

Exploring the mystery behind the recordings of Eichmann and Sassen.

“or whether he doctored the transcripts he sent to Eichmann's trial to protect him.”

Seeds of Protest in Tiananmen Square

27:00 to 28:00

Understanding the student protests leading to the Tiananmen Square massacre.

“Leading the demonstrators that day was our witness, We Kaishi.”

The May 4th Movement: A Call for Democracy

28:00 to 35:12

Explore the origins and events of the May 4th protests in China.

“So we want press freedom and then maybe in future take part in China's free election democracy.”

Transitioning to Irish Language Broadcasting

35:12 to 35:35

Learn about the launch of Ireland's first dedicated Irish language TV channel.

“Next, we're heading to Ireland, where the modern medium of television finally recognised the growing demand for broadcasting in the Irish language.”

The Launch of TG4: A New Era for Irish Culture

35:35 to 42:07

Discover the significance of TG4 in promoting the Irish language.

“As I walked towards camera, I had the whole piece said to myself over and over and over.”

The Launch of TG4: A Milestone for Irish Language Broadcasting

42:07 to 43:52

Learn about the significance of TG4's launch and its impact on the Irish language.

“Telefíis na Gaelge was for the Irish language, for everybody, for learners, for fluent speakers, for native speakers.”

1994 World Cup: A Pioneering Moment in American Soccer

43:52 to 47:50

Discover how the 1994 World Cup changed soccer's perception in the USA.

“The 2026 Football World Cup is not the first time the competition has landed in the USA.”

Challenges and Triumphs: Organizing the 1994 World Cup

47:50 to 52:39

Explore the challenges faced while organizing the 1994 World Cup and how they were overcome.

“because the country's professional league had collapsed six years previously.”

The Big Things: Australia's Quirky Art Installations

52:39 to 56:01

Learn about the history and significance of Australia’s giant sculptures known as 'Big Things'.

“Finally this week, we are in Australia to reveal the history of what is arguably that country's quirkiest contribution to the world of art, the so-called big things.”

The Creation of Scotty the Giant Scotsman

56:01 to 1:01:10

Learn about the meticulous process behind creating Australia's iconic giant Scotty.

“He measured all of the proportions of the giant Scotsman that he was making from one of his co-workers.”

Conclusion of the Big Things Discussion

1:01:26 to 1:03:24

Explore the reflections on the legacy of big things in Australia.

“We were so proud of ourselves, and Cameron was proud of us too.”

Conclusion of the Big Things Discussion

1:03:29 to 1:04:54

Explore the reflections on the legacy of big things in Australia.

“Enjoy the sunshine with sales on grill-ready favorites from Whole Foods Market.”

Conclusion of the Big Things Discussion

1:04:58 to 1:05:30

Explore the reflections on the legacy of big things in Australia.

“Playing mobile games and not getting rewarded for it is a thing of the past.”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

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1:14Take cookouts to sizzling new heights with their marinated salmon and made in house marinated beef and chicken. Entertain with low price 365 brand chips and dips like hummus and guacamole and sweeten every party with brown butter chocolate chip cookies. Remember to pack the cooler with probiotic sodas, sparkling waters and more. Summer savings await you at Whole Foods Market. Imagine being here. Scientists have made the atomic bomb. The first one was dropped on a Japanese city this morning. Here. During the meeting, Mr. Mandela was informed of the government's decision regarding his release. And here.

1:51Witnesses have spoken of a wall of water that swept coastlines in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand. Hear from the people who were there. He heard me praying while he was shooting and he just stopped. He said, I'm not going to. I'm going to leave you here to tell the story. Knowing that you have a spy and that you're following a spy, it doesn't get any cooler than that. Witness history brings you first-hand accounts. Merkel gets up and says, I'm going. And Tusk says, I'm locking the door. Nobody's leaving. you're reaching a compromise or you're not leaving this room. Was it shopping carts that made you rich?

2:25Well, they didn't make me poor. Listen now. Search for Witness History wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

2:41Hello and welcome to the History Hour from the BBC World Service with me, Max Pearson. a week's worth of characters and stories as revealed on Witness History. This week, we hear a first-hand impression of the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann was an extraordinarily unlikable type. Just his face was a hollowness. He could have been a walking dead, you know. Plus, the launch of Ireland's first TV channel dedicated to the Irish language, the history of Australia's quirky sculptures known as the Big Things, and the Chinese students in the run-up to the Tiananmen Square massacre. Everything seemed new.

3:19Everything seemed possible. So we wanted to be in control of our own lives. That's all coming up later, but we're going to begin with a bit of literary history, the birth of what is known as Italian noir crime fiction. In March 1994, the Italian author Andrea Camilleri published The Shape of Water. The novel introduced the world to Inspector Montalbano. Using BBC archive recordings, Jen Dale tells the story of the book series, which has gone on to have global success. Yes, I know exactly when he arrived. The exact year, 1994. I was stuck on a novel called The Brew of Preston and then decided the best solution was to put it aside and write something else.

4:07That something else is The Shape of Water, based in the fictional Sicilian town of Vigata. It's early on in 1994 and Sicilian-born Camilleri is 67, a pensioner who's white-haired, balding, with glasses and a raspy voice, often seen with a cigarette in hand. He's recently taken up writing again, doing it at night in a small room surrounded by books. He's not had much commercial success, but he loves storytelling. spelling speaking in the 2014 documentary montalbano and me by rye fiction a few years before his death he credits his grandmother with teaching him the art grandma elvira is someone to whom i owe a lot she used to make up words and you had to figure out the meaning of what she was saying she had such a great imagination she opened up mine it's also reported the author's father when he was on his deathbed, urged Camilleri to write his stories down.

5:06And Camilleri certainly learned useful techniques from the many years he spent in his previous career in film and television, as he told the BBC in 2012. The theatre taught me a lot about dialogue, but it was my TV experience that taught me the art of writing a detective story. I was a producer for Italian television of 30 episodes of Inspector McGregor and worked closely with the screenwriter. This writer used to buy five copies of the same novel. And you know in a novel there's a storyline A that starts and stops, then storyline B that starts and stops, then C. My co-writer tooled the pages and put them all in order.

5:44He reconstructed the novel to suit TV. I took careful notes of what he was doing in 1960 and learnt the art of writing the mystery novel. And Camilleri certainly wasn't afraid to take chances and defy conventions, according to John Hooper, Italian correspondent for The Economist, who spoke to the BBC after the author's death. He was an innovator by nature and one of the things that he did was to do a detective series involving a woman detective who was an expert in the martial arts. And this was in 1960s Italy, which was quite an adventurous thing to be doing. So why not be adventurous in retirement?

6:29Camilleri's The Shape of Water, featuring Inspector Montalbano, differs from traditional detective stories because loose ends aren't always tied up neatly. In truth, there are few cases that are resolved, resolved with definite certainty. And in Italy, there is no longer even the certainty of punishment. So at this point, the book-run fiction writer begins to ask himself some questions. He says, do I really have to be the one to sow the torn fabric of society? Why is this up to me? Is it fair for me to declare this person guilty beyond reasonable doubt? Let's leave him with an alternative so it's difficult to reach an absolute truth.

7:10Now you can't have a crime thriller based in Sicily, the island off the south coast of Italy, without mentioning the mafia. But again, Camilleri goes against previous traditions by refusing to put organised crime front and centre in his work. In most of the Montalbana novels, there is always a page or two where he meets a member of the mafia, but it is marginal. Not that I'm trivialising the problem. Not mentioning it would be hypocritical. The problem exists, and it is important. Fiction somehow gives them a noble character. Take, for example, The Godfather. Marlon Brando's incredible performance makes us forget there is someone ordering killings by the dozen.

7:51This is the risk that in some way the mafia is glamorised and I refuse to do that. And through Inspector Montalbano, he criticises corruption. The elements of a good policeman in Italy today are first to be deaf to the political pressures. The second, sometimes refusing to obey an order is a virtue, not a sin. The third, loyalty to your vocation and to those virtues that made you a policeman. That's it.

8:22Camilleri paints vivid pictures of the Sicilian landscape and coast, perhaps echoing his many happy childhood memories of splashing in the sea. But food also plays a large part in the shape of water and later novels, as this excerpt from one of the inspector Montalbano books shows. In the fridge, he found a bowl of carbonata, whose scent filled the soul, and a plate of little wild asparagus, the kind that are bitter as poison, dressed only in olive oil and salt. In the oven was a loaf of wheat bread. He laid the table on the veranda and enjoyed himself. It is absolutely deliberate, highlighting how he loves to eat.

9:03He loves life. There is a beautiful saying, Primum vivere Dei Dei Philosophari. First you live, then you philosophize. For Montalbano, it could be first you live, then you investigate. But his love for life is an instinct of his. I think it is a sort of unconscious revenge of mortality, an affirmation of being alive in the face of continuous death. Maybe eating subconsciously expresses the pleasure of feeling alive, a life force. Camilleri writes The Shape of Water from start to finish. He has all the elements he needs, the crime, the exotic location. He's just missing the name of the lead character.

9:45At that time, I happened to read a novel by Vasquez Montalban called The Pianist, which gave me a clue to how to restructure the Brewer of Preston. So my police and commissioner, who until then had no name, I just called him the commissioner, I gave them the name Montalbano, in gratitude to Montalban. But it's also Camilleri's use of language that endears him to Italian readers because he uses Sicilian dialect. Yes, in my writing it has a particular meaning because it comes from why we speak Sicilian dialect and the language we use. I studied quite a lot about when Sicilians use the dialect and when the Italian language.

10:24The dialect is always confidential, intimate, a friendly atmosphere. The use of Italian language creates an immediate officialness, a distance, Italian is used to make law, to suggest intimidation. The Shape of Water was published in Italy on March 10, 1994. Camilleri's style of writing, together with the mix of crime, luscious settings and tantalising food, makes it a hit. It is widely credited with helping start a new wave of Italian noir and gains an even wider audience when it is translated into English in the early 2000s. Not only that, the novel and subsequent series change how people see Sicily.

11:06Instead of mobsters and poverty, there is a foodie's paradise with beautiful landscapes. The so-called Montalbano effect is even reported as boosting tourism on the island. Here's John Hooper from The Economist again. It brought out the beauty of Sicily, the lifestyle that the detective had. He had a house that looked out onto the sea, enjoyed his food, and operated in these beautiful towns with their gorgeous Baroque architecture. And all of that proved captivating. Camilleri continued to write Inspector Montalbano mysteries over the next 25 years, but he was nonchalant about their commercial success, as shown in that 2014 Rye Fiction documentary.

11:54My success came late, by which point many things seemed unimportant. So it didn't change my life at all. But it certainly changed the world of literary fiction. The Montalbano books have achieved worldwide sales of at least 25 million and have been translated into 120 languages, whilst the adapted TV series has been shown around the world.

12:20Jendale. Andrea Camilleri died in 2019, aged 93, but his influence lives on. Professor Giuliana Pieri from Royal Holloway University of London is an expert in Italian crime fiction and Italian noir. Giuliana, how would you define Italian noir? What are the key characteristics? It's a bit of a mix of the traditional sort of formula, if you want, of crime fiction, where obviously, you know, you have a crime, there's a detection, and then at some point, you know, you'll find a resolution to it. And then that other tradition that is an interwar and postwar tradition that is really important, and it comes both from North America and from France.

13:00The hard-boiled tradition, film noir, great writers in France and Belgium, like Georges Simenon with Inspector Megre, which puts the emphasis much more on the environment, the social aspect, the socio-political elements, and perhaps also the psychology behind it. So it's almost as if the crime is still important, but actually what really matters the most is understanding the background, the motivations, what lies behind. And sometimes what lies behind can be a very personal thing, you know, and the kind of psychology of the characters, you know, a kind of maybe tragic sort of story, or it could be something much more complex, which is where Camilleri sort of is, and a lot of other writers of this tradition in Italy are, which is they really try to get to the bottom of what's happening in this society, what are the problems, why is there organised crime, what's the impact of this, you know.

13:58So there's a kind of complexity there about going beyond solving a puzzle to actually sort of putting the emphasis on the environment. And this Italian noir, it's clearly distinct, is it, say, from Scandi noir or American gumshoe fiction that you've already referenced? That's right. And I think the interesting thing there is that there's a real sense of placing all that is happening in a very quite actually realistically portrayed period of Italian history. So whether it's the 1990s and Forma dell 'acqua, you know, The Shape of Water is a very good example of that. 1992 was a really quite pivotal year in Italy with all these scandals of briberies, very notorious sort of mafia killings.

14:44So there's a sense in which these writers, Camilleri and others, were doing something that was very akin to a kind of social, social political engagement, which is a tradition, I think, that runs through quite strongly in Italy. It was very strong in the post-war period, post-dictatorial, you know, after fascism, you know, where writers and artists, you know, really sort of saw themselves as kind of public intellectuals. And I think there's an element of that in Italian noir. And you knew and interviewed Andrea Camilleri in the 1990s. What was your most striking impression of him as an artist, but also as a man?

15:21I remember going to see him and I interviewed him in the summer of 1998 and he was extremely generous with his time. And I do remember his beautiful flat in Rome, full of light, lots of artwork and very, very passionate about his Sicilian background. and we had a really interesting conversation about language which I know came up in your programme as well in a country that is very multilingual where people very often speak well move from dialect to standard Italian at home and then there is a kind of slightly higher register of standard Italian that you might speak at work and how do you place that kind of linguistic diversity so that was really interesting and it comes across very strongly in his work.

16:05Did you get the impression that he was aware of the mark he was going to leave on Italian fiction history? Probably not at the time because it was 1998. But what he was very aware of was that there was a generation of other younger writers and the ones that we talked about at the time in particular were Carlo Lucarelli and Marcello Fois that he really admired. So I think he saw himself as part of a new wave of something that was going to potentially actually change the perception of that particular genre in Italy. That's Professor Giuliana Pieri from Royal Holloway University of London. From the fictional worlds of good and evil, we turn next to what is often referred to as the worst crime in history, the systematic extermination of Jews during the Holocaust in the Second World War.

16:56In the 1950s, the Dutch journalist Willem Sassen recorded hours of interviews with the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann about his involvement in the Holocaust. That was before his capture in Argentina by Israeli agents. In 2015, Willem's daughter Saskia Sassen told Luis Hidalgo about the tapes and her memories of their secret visitor. Throughout the 1950s, Adolf Eichmann had been living in Argentina under an assumed name when Israeli agents found and abducted him and smuggled him to Israel. Argentina was outraged at what it saw as a violation of its sovereignty. but Israel was triumphant. The man who'd been called the face of the Holocaust would stand trial in Israel, the Israeli Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, told An Astonished World.

17:59Eichmann had been walking home from work in Buenos Aires when a small team of agents from the Israeli Secret Service Mossad snatched him off the street and bundled him into a car. It would be 12 days before Eichmann's family and associates in Argentina knew what had happened to him. Saskia Sassen is the daughter of a Dutch journalist and Nazi sympathiser who knew Eichmann in Buenos Aires. Willem Sassen had interviewed him for hours at his home about the final solution. That night that Eichmann disappeared, Saskia remembers Eichmann's sons bursting into their house, demanding to know where their father was.

18:35In the middle of the night, this massive banging of doors and this young man appear with guns and lots of shouting, lots of accusation to my father. You gave him away now that you're done with the interviews. What I felt very strongly was the intensity of hatred. Saskia vividly remembers how this man who'd overseen the logistics of the Holocaust for Hitler had used to come to their house to talk to her father. It was only when he was captured that she really understood who he was. Eichmann was an extraordinarily unlikable type. Just his face was a hollowness. He could have been a walking dead, you know.

19:15I didn't know who he was. I just hated him. Eichmann and her father would sometimes be joined by other people. They'd spend hours closeted together at the Sassen family home. I don't know if every Sunday, but it was regularly. Certainly it must have been over a year. And we knew that my mother hated that person. And my sister and I, of course, we would try to sneak in, but they locked the door and we were out. And what your father was doing in there was recording Eichmann, wasn't it? For hours on end, interviewing him about what he'd done, how he'd organized the logistics of the final solution of sending these six million Jews to their death.

19:53They were going to write a book together of Eichmann's memoirs. These were serious, long conversations, and some people have said that my father extracted information from him and that he said more than anyone had ever heard him say, you know, the way he believed in it all, etc.

20:18These recordings, there are 29 hours of them and 1 ,000 pages of transcripts, only re-emerged years later. And Saskia remembers something else, too. Her father, Wilhelm, wrote for several leading magazines, including the American magazine Time and Life, and he'd approached them about publishing the interviews with Eichmann. Eichmann, of course, was living under an assumed name, Ricardo Clement. His circle of sympathisers knew who he was, including Sassen, but who else knew isn't clear. What we do know is that Time and Life may have wanted to check for themselves that what Sasson was telling them was true.

20:57One time, the people from Time and Life sent experts that bugged our house so that they had a recording because they wanted to publish this. They needed the direct evidence captured by them, not just via my father's interviews. So they had to bore a hole in the roof from the second story. Then they had the state-of-the-art American bugging devices. Now, this was long before the capture, clearly, and I think my mother felt always that all of us really in the family, the four of us, were at risk. She was terrified.

21:42Wilhelm Sassen was a national socialist. During the Second World War, when Germany had occupied his native Netherlands, he'd worked with the Nazis, and after the war was imprisoned and accused of being a war criminal himself. He went to the war front in Europe as a journalist, part of this battalion of journalists that Goebel had set up. But he became a kind of fanatic, not a Nazi in the narrow sense, but a national socialism. That is why he admired and became a close friend of Perón, who was a national socialist. So there was this ambiguity. I had a lot of fights with him. We never stopped fighting because I think between 9 and 12, I began to understand something about a politics that belonged to a past, but which had, of course, a huge shadow effect in the present.

22:33William Sasson managed to escape from prison and fled first to Ireland and then to Argentina. That was in 1947, the year Saskia was born. Buenos Aires at the time was a melting pot of cultures and politics, and many former Nazis and Nazi sympathisers found refuge there. William Sassen began carving out a career, interviewing some of Latin America's most famous dictators for leading magazines of the day. That positioned him as a writer that became attractive to this project that a bunch of people had, which was to rewrite history a bit, create a positive account of the Nazi regime, this brutal Nazi regime, That is how it started.

23:16Even now, almost 60 years on, Saskia can't bring herself to listen to the recordings that Eichmann and her father made together.

23:28He had Eichmann talking on tape about this most appalling crime. Your father, did he have a sense of how important what Eichmann was telling him was? Well, the journalist in him thought this is a coup. That is, I think, why he did it. And he pushed, he pushed, he pushed, but all in the form of conversation. He was always drinking. Now, what I have heard is that he extracted language from Eichmann that nobody had heard Eichmann say. And this created a little bit of a debate as well. No, Eichmann didn't quite say that. And he did, actually, because it's on the tapes. You can hear him on the tapes.

24:06At his trial in Jerusalem, Eichmann accused Sassin of distorting what they talked about to make headlines. Eichmann wanted to portray himself not as an ideologue or an architect of the final solution, but as a bureaucrat, as he put it, a small cog in Hitler's extermination machine. But in the Sassin tapes, a different Eichmann emerges, a chilling Eichmann, who has no regrets except, he says in this extract, that they didn't fulfil their duty. They didn't kill all the Jews.

24:44If 10.3 million of these enemies had been killed, then we would have completed our task. And because this did not happen, I am to blame for the suffering and the adversity of our future generations. Maybe they will curse us for this. But because there were only a few of us, we couldn't fight the spirit of the age. We did what we could. We have a terror, must be caught.

25:10In 1962, Adolf Eichmann became the first and last person to be hanged in Israel. Wilhelm Sassen died 40 years later. We may never know if he betrayed Eichmann to Mossad or the CIA, or whether he doctored the transcripts he sent to Eichmann's trial to protect him. Why did the original tapes disappear from view for so long? There are many unanswered questions. Saskia Sassen left Argentina for America aged 19 and never returned. Today, she is one of the world's leading authorities on globalisation. Luis Hidalgo was speaking to Saskia Sassen in an interview first broadcast in 2015. The Second World War was an event on such a scale that it has thrown up thousands of first-hand stories, and you can find many of them on our website.

25:57Go to bbc.com slash witness history. Still to come, why Australia is littered with giant sculptures known as the big things, plus the moment when Diana Ross missed a ceremonial penalty at the 1994 World Cup, and the birth of Irish language TV. It brought the Irish language into the modern day. It was no longer in books. It was no longer in the corner on the radio. It was front and central and people could watch it. But before that, we're going to get an insight into one of the absolutely pivotal moments in China's not-too-distant past. On June 4th, 1989, troops opened fire on protesters in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

Read the full transcript

26:39The death toll is disputed. Officially, the Chinese government stated that only around 200 people died. Subsequent independent estimates suggest the true figure is in the thousands. As Tom Bonnet has been hearing from one of the student organisers, the seeds of the protests had been sown long before the eventual crackdown. I remember on the May 4th, the student demonstration was massive. Leading the demonstrators that day was our witness, We Kaishi. I was the general commander of that mass demonstration. I recall at least 100 ,000 students in Beijing took the street. And the march lasted longer than 10 kilometers.

27:35And we were welcomed by Beijing citizens wherever we go. So it has to be more than a million Beijing citizens were on the street welcoming us.

27:51Wu Kai-shi and his fellow students were urging China's leaders to listen to them because they wanted progress. We want from that day on the voice of people to be heard in China. So we want press freedom and then maybe in future take part in China's free election democracy. That huge protest of May the 4th had been born out of smaller demonstrations that were happening on university campuses throughout the 1980s. It was a time of reform. China was opening up and embracing technology from the West and global trade. For the students, it was an opportunity for political reform too. You can imagine, I mean, the whole world is pouring in.

28:39Everything seemed new. All of a sudden, everything seemed possible. So we wanted to be in control of our own lives, to be able to, you know, live the life that the same age, young students in the United States or United Kingdom are living. But we know we need to get democracy. In 1989, with the decade drawing to a close, the demonstrators were no closer to political reform. So how did Wu Kai-she and the student leaders galvanise a generation and gather that enormous crowd in Beijing on May 4th? Well, it began with the death of a key ally. The former Communist Party leader in China, Hu Yaobang, has died of a heart attack at the age of 73.

29:33Hu, once considered the most likely successor to Deng Xiaoping as the country's senior leader, was forced to step down two years ago after being accused of aiding the spread of so-called bourgeois liberal ideas. He has been removed from his general secretary position because he was supporting to the student movement. And two years later, we learned that he had a heart attack in a meeting. Students came running up saying they'd just heard the news and couldn't believe it. The wrong man has died, said one bluntly. The seeds of the May 4th protest had been sown, and at Hu Yaobang's funeral in mid-April, crowds began to gather in large numbers in Tiananmen Square.

30:22100 ,000 students and workers in the world's largest square in defiance of government plans to seal off the area for Hu's official funeral, shouting down with dictatorship. From the death of oil bomb April 15th to June 4th, it lasted 50 days, but ended in June 4th with a massacre. Let me tell you what's in our mind during the 50 days of protest. Every student was thinking, we know we're going to meet a suppression. The suppression for the student leaders, like people in my position, we were thinking could be prison terms. For the demonstrators, could be beat the hell out of us, police clubbing.

31:10And for the general participant is getting a very lousy job assignment. Nevertheless, when you are in a movement like that scale, you cannot afford just to be totally pessimistic. You have to be somewhat hopeful. And we were hopeful. Then comes May the 4th, a public holiday in China that commemorates a student protest 70 years ago to the day. So it's on this significant anniversary that the line of demonstrators gets longer and longer. It was one of the biggest demonstrations that the People's Republic had ever seen, including the during the Cultural Revolution Red Guard demonstration. None of them have reached the level of that demonstration that day, May 4th, 1989.

32:06And the marches weren't just happening in Beijing. We know that the movement has spread to the whole country. Every city that has a university had demonstration that day. There's more than 300 cities. And we say, wow, we have reached 100 million people at the very least in supporting us. So I would say the main force movement is one of the high points of the student demonstration. And then the Chinese regime responded very poorly. They said, OK, OK, we're going to have a dialogue. We were excluded from dialogue. So the next logic step for us to escalate, hunger strike. Today we are holding a hunger strike.

32:58We protest the government's post-apartment in carrying on dialogue. Almost every Beijinger took the street to show their support to the student. Teachers, intelligentsia, journalists, editors. One of our most important allies was the media workers. And Wu Kai-xi and the demonstrators were hunger striking just as the world's media arrived for a crucial political summit. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was meeting Chinese ruler Dong Xiaoping. So the journalists came in and saw, wow, there's a mass sit-in. We came to cover a summit and we walk into a revolution. With the demonstrations being broadcast on television screens, the protests swell even more.

33:45Huge crowds of people were pouring onto the streets in a triumphant mood, sensing it seemed that the tide of hatred against the regime was unstoppable. By the end of May, the pressure to the Chinese regime have reached to such a high point Deng Xiaoping decided, okay, I'm going to say no to those peaceful demonstrators, but I'm going to make sure the whole country can also hear our answer. They start to mobilize in troops coming to Beijing, hundreds of thousands of troops wearing helmets, and then there were tanks. To do what? To remove, warn out hunger strikers in the Tiananmen Square? There is shock, there is bewilderment, there is utter rage.

34:33They thought they never would fire on their own people. It was one of the things they were shouting at them last night. You are Chinese people's army killing the Chinese people. Stop it, stop it. In June 4th, there was a massacre. I was in a hospital due to my heart condition, triggered by a hunger strike. But even in the hospital, I hear gunshots and everything, and then also the casualty poured into the hospital. So yes, it's loud, it's bloody, it's visible. Wu Kai-xi, one-time student protest organiser in China, was speaking to Tom Bonnet. Next, we're heading to Ireland, where the modern medium of television finally recognised the growing demand for broadcasting in the Irish language.

35:21It came in 1996 with the launch of the first channel dedicated exclusively to what's also known as Irish Gaelic. Lorcan Clancy has been hearing from the woman who opened the new TV station. I remember telling myself not to trip. As I walked towards camera, I had the whole piece said to myself over and over and over. All I wanted to do was get it out cleanly, clearly, without tripping up my words or my feet. Sinead Niquir was the first presenter to speak on the new station which was called Telefisna Gaelga or Tina G The launch was on Halloween night in 1996 That evening there were fireworks, dancing carnival performers and a party atmosphere outside the new TV studios in County Galway So yeah, I had to walk out the door and as if I was inviting everybody in this is the party, come in, come in to the house we'll show you around.

36:24So I had my piece to say and then I had to turn to the other presenter Alfa Omonachan. And he had a piece to say and then we followed back indoors again. It was just it was really nerve-wracking and exciting and adrenaline and a rush and everything. Yeah, yeah. I could still feel that. In the Republic of Ireland, Irish is actually the first official language, but it's also a minority language. Most native speakers are in the Gwailtacht regions, traditional Irish-speaking areas on the West Coast. Outside those areas, the language is widely learned in schools, but rarely used in everyday conversation.

37:13From the late 1960s, native speakers campaigned for more Irish language broadcasting, Some even set up unofficial pirate stations, like Free Radio Connemara, to prove there was an audience for it.

37:29Responding to this growing pressure, the national broadcaster RTE launched a dedicated Irish-language radio station, Radio Na Gaeiltaigta, in 1972. St Macdara's church in Carrow was packed for Radio Na Gaeiltaigta's first live transmission. Mass was sung by a choir from Connemara, Culey, and the Dominican choir from Tala.

37:52The next step was a dedicated TV channel. But by the time Tina G launched in 1996, times had changed. Sulele was their tagline, still is, which is another perspective, another eye, a different look at things. And they wanted it to be new and modern and to move away, I suppose, from all the old connotations of Irish and church and state and all the old guard. And they placed a great emphasis on programmes for the youth and for the young, always. In the run-up to the launch, Irish language programmes were being recorded, while the live on-air talent was recruited. Sinead sent in a showreel. She was called to an audition and then a training week, where a group of potential presenters were put through their paces.

38:47It was a week in Galway and they had people from the BBC training us on how to perform in front of camera. We had to go out and record things outside, walk and talk, doing pieces to camera. They were just throwing stuff at us to see how good we would perform live on camera or recorded. And then I got a call to say that they had selected two for continuity and weather and presenting on Tina G. And I was number three. They had selected a man and a woman and the woman subsequently turned down the offer. So they rang me as the next in line and I said yes.

39:33They'll be the new faces and the new voices of the nightly news service on Telefíthionagéilge. The service will be one of the driving forces of the station's four-hour nightly schedule. The equipment the news teams are using is the most sophisticated in the world. That report from RTE News emphasised the scale and the ambition of the new station. The control room was all new. cutting edge in the mixing room, in the director's room. The studio was newly built. The whole station was newly built. So even on open night, there were still laying cables under the floor. So there were square tiles. Some of them were up and some of them were down and you'd be walking over like stepping stones across the tiles.

40:16The logistics of that open night programme were huge and complex. So we were rehearsing and rehearsing, walking and talking and the moving camera to broadcast live the pieces to camera that we were saying. And do you still remember your opening words and what you said? I do. How sad is that? I said. I said, a nacht ích a cháinna, a nacht ích a chrúigta, a nacht ích a oscalte, Tina G.

40:53That means tonight is Halloween. Tonight is a magic night. Tonight is the opening night of Tina G. I remember actually afterwards, I drew the short straw and I had to stay to do the weather at the close of the station at 11 o 'clock that night. And everybody went off to a party in the hotel down the road and I was left there to do the weather and by the time I got down to the party they were closing the bar. Tina G offered sport, news, documentaries, quiz shows even an Irish language soap opera, Ross Naroon. Everything you could already get in English was now available in Irish and crucially it was a platform where all the main dialects of the language could be heard.

41:39There are three main dialects in Irish and they're quite different. They really are quite different. I was coming from Dublin with learned Irish. I was not a native speaker and I had great difficulty understanding the native speakers when they would speak too fast. You know, as we all do, we run words into each other and we skip over words when we're really fluent in the language. And we already had at that point, Radio na Gaelteachta, where in the main, native speakers were the voices that you heard. Telefíis na Gaelge was for the Irish language, for everybody, for learners, for fluent speakers, for native speakers.

42:23So they wanted all dialects and all levels to be heard and for it to provide a way into the language for everybody all over the country. The station was renamed TG4 or TG Cahar in 1999 and it's still broadcasting today. It was hugely significant for the language because it brought the Irish language into the modern day. It was no longer in books. It was no longer in the corner on the radio. It was front and central and people could watch it. This just makes a huge difference to the strength of a language, to the life of a language. There were parties all over the country celebrating that on the night that it launched.

43:11This had been sought for so many years to put Irish on the same footing. And what did it mean to you personally to be that opening voice, the first presenter on Tina G? Actually, I think since I was really small, I wanted to be on television. And here I was on television. I opened the station. It was really, even just in recent years when I think about it, it's a really significant moment that there I am launching a new station. And yeah, it was a very proud moment. Lorcan Clancy was speaking to Sinead Niguir, the woman who launched the Irish language TV station TG4. And now this week's sporting witness.

43:55The 2026 Football World Cup is not the first time the competition has landed in the USA. In 1994, America hosted the World Cup on its own that time. Matt Pintus has been hearing about the things that worked well back then and those that fell a bit flat, like the ceremonial penalty kick taken by none other than Diana Ross. It's the 17th of June 1994. More than 67 ,000 people have turned out in Chicago to see the first match of the World Cup. The opening ceremony is just about to start. We were trying to ensure that this would be a great event in addition to a great soccer competition. That's Alan Rothenberg, the man in charge of organising the whole tournament.

44:39We were using superstars wherever we could. For the opening match, we asked Diana Ross to appear, which she did. Can you remember how much you paid her? $50 ,000 for five minutes. Chat show supremo Oprah Winfrey is on hosting duties. And the crowd is at fever pitch in the hot-baking Chicago sun. It's time for a big show. Hello and welcome to the billions watching around the world, Oprah screams into the mic. She goes on, now, everybody, let's celebrate with the incomparable Miss Diana Ross. Miss Ross strides out onto the pitch, red shell suit, white top, hair flowing. There's an arrow the length of the entire pitch, formed out of hundreds of dancers.

45:27The dancers part, splitting the arrow in half, creating a clear pathway for Miss Ross to joyfully dance through like the megastar she is. There's a ball. There's a goal. It's a penalty kick. What could go wrong? An opening ceremony conceived as all that's best in American showbiz glitz, but that merely proved to show that for a singer, Diana Ross makes a pretty poor footballer. Miss Ross strikes the ball. She aims to the goalkeeper's right, but Miss Ross misses. It's wide of the post. Never mind, it's show business after all. The show must go on. It was just something we all laughed at. In some ways it might have been more entertaining than if she'd have made it.

46:10Did you think at that point it was going to be a bad omen for the World Cup? No, I was really confident at that point. As much as I might have been worried when I first took over, we knew from the advanced ticket sales and the general buzz out there among the fandom, we had a winner on our hands.

46:30As Diana Ross was coming out, she was saying, I'm coming out. In some ways that was also kind of a coda for the tournament and for soccer in the United States. Because that's when we came out.

46:45Alan Rothenberg was well known as one of the early pioneers of football in the United States. Or as they call it there, soccer. At the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, Alan was in charge of organising the game's soccer competition. and it was a big success with more people turning out to watch soccer than athletics. The final between France and Brazil drew a crowd of 100 ,000 people. FIFA, the governing body, were very impressed. That's when FIFA kind of looked and said, well, maybe we can take the risk of bringing the World Cup to the United States and not be embarrassed because prior to that they were really afraid that if they came here there'd be empty stadiums and it would just be a black mark on their record.

47:30And so they were receptive to agreeing to bring the World Cup to the United States. In 1990, Rothenberg was approached by FIFA to organise the 1994 World Cup. The USA had been awarded the tournament two years earlier and it was a massive shock in the footballing world because the country's professional league had collapsed six years previously. But planning for the tournament wasn't going well, so Rothenberg was hastily drafted in to save the day. FIFA needed someone who they knew would deliver. Rothenberg had a major job on his hands, and it was a challenge he relished. First of all, financially, this was a not-profit organisation, so they didn't have a lot of funding, and so we had the prospect of no money to pay bills.

48:17I flew to St. Louis, home of Anheuser-Busch, Budweiser. typically the sponsors don't pay money two or three years in advance they start paying it just before the event takes place and so i basically was begging them to advance some money up front that funding was secured and a clever marketing plan meant millions of americans were buying tickets well in advance which got the money rolling in alan realized that america had to prove the doubters wrong and put on a big spectacular show he wanted it to be more than just the footballing competition? We had these great stadiums, basically for American football, most of them professional, some of them college.

48:56An event like the World Cup has to be played in the biggest and best stadiums. And then the other challenge was that FIFA had made the Federation promise that they would start a professional league. FIFA's expectation would be that that league would be started prior to the 94 World Cup. I said, A, there's no way we can put it together in a proper way. And B, I think we need the excitement of the World Cup itself to generate enough interest to get investors, sponsors, media and fans to support a league. So you asked me what the landscape looked like. It was pretty bleak. We had a ton of work to do, but fortunately we were able to do it.

49:37With days to go before the start of the World Cup, Rothenberg was in a confident mood. He'd managed to book some of the biggest stars that America had to offer. We had Robin Williams, who was hysterical. We had Smokey Robinson. We had Liza Minnelli. At the final, we had Whitney Houston, who at that time was probably the biggest star. We had virtually all the tickets sold, so I wasn't worried about that. Concern always was for security. We had a little bit of luck on that front because those were the days still of hooliganism. You may remember that England did not qualify that year, which I was delighted in terms of saving a lot of money on the extra security that we would have needed.

50:21How much money do you think you saved? Somewhere between five and ten million dollars. The World Cup was a huge success for the US, with more fans attending than ever before. FIFA's gamble had paid off too. Their choice of hosts had been really unpopular, and yet it had been the most watched World Cup of all time. In the final, pre-tournament favourites Brazil took on Italy. The match went to penalties. Italy's star player Roberto Baggio, known as the Divine Ponytail, stepped up. For Italy, it was the cruelest way to lose, on penalty kicks after a frustrating goalless draw. When Roberto Baggio, ironically the player most responsible for Italy reaching the final, missed their fifth kick at Pasadena's Rose Bowl, it confirmed Brazil as the champions.

51:05It was almost like deja vu. First Miss Ross in the opening ceremony and now one of the world's greatest footballers in the final, both missing crucial penalties. I mean, everybody's, oh my God, it's like the shock. My son is a photographer and I had given him a credential to just freely roam wherever he wanted to. and he has a phenomenal photograph of the Italian goalkeeper hugging Baggio. They're really, really moving. The World Cup was over. Alan had turned it around and cemented his place in US sport folklore. He was on top of the world, but he never let the fame get to his head. Football fans are really special in a lot of ways, one of which is they love going up to people involved and taking pictures with them and asking for autographs.

51:54and I had been cautioning all our people that all this is great and you got to do it because you want to make the fans happy. But I understand that the minute the tournament is over, you're history. So the day after the final match, there was a press conference at the Rose Bowl and a man and his kid with a camera came up to approach me and I'm starting to get my smile ready. and they said, sir, would you take a picture of me and my son with the Rose Bowl in the background? And I said, OK. I guess the message that I was giving to my staff, I just felt, our fame is fleeting, if you will.

52:34Alan Rothenberg, who went on to organise the 1999 Women's World Cup and in 2006 he was given FIFA's highest award, the Order of Merit. He was speaking to Matt Pintus in 2022. Finally this week, we are in Australia to reveal the history of what is arguably that country's quirkiest contribution to the world of art, the so-called big things. In 1963, a giant sculpture of a Scotsman appeared outside the Scotty Motel in Adelaide. It was followed by a giant banana, a giant koala and even a giant potato. Today, big things are found all over the country, adding a particular flavour to the Australian landscape.

53:13Paul Kelly was the artist behind both The Big Scotsman and the equally iconic Big Lobster. He and his daughter, Christabel Kelly, have been telling Stefania Gozza how the sculptures came to life. Australians have to drive long distances. It's a huge country. So perhaps these big things are made to draw attention to the towns that they're in so that people will stop. This is Christabel Kelly. I am also the daughter of Paul Kelly, the person who made the first big thing in Australia. Paul is the creator of a five metre tall Scotsman who sits on the roof of Scotty's Motel. The sculpture is called, of course, The Big Scotsman, but it's also known as Scotty.

54:03When he was first constructed, he was delightful. He had a sparring, little tartan bits at the top of his spats, a big hat on and bagpipes. And here's Paul speaking from the care home where he now lives. I was obviously a proven artist at the time, but I can't remember who approached me to build it. Paul is 96 and he doesn't remember much of how he built Scotty. But of his seven children, Christabel has volunteered to fill the gaps from her home in Ireland. That's the miracle of having got a lot of friends or family. Very true, Paul. The first time I heard that my father was doing this was just picking up conversations between family members.

55:07His boss, George Vardas, was commissioned to make an enormous statue for a hotel in the north of Adelaide. It sat at a very prominent junction where anyone entering from the north of South Australia would see this hotel. I understand it was the owner of the hotel who commissioned Scotty. Paul was living with his family in Aldinga, in the south of Adelaide. He had worked on several projects, but this was the first time he'd been asked to create such a big sculpture. There weren't any sketches of Scottish because they were built from an actual person. I'd forgotten who the person was. It wasn't me.

56:02He measured all of the proportions of the giant Scotsman that he was making from one of his co-workers. He would go to this man and measure his arm and scale that up and measure his hand and scale that up. It was a very meticulous process getting the body correct. Yeah, the head had to be right, otherwise there's no use doing the thing at all. And so I made sure that everything about the head was according to the Scottish tradition. And the shape was my head. It was a time when Paul was experimenting with new materials, and so was young Cristobal. when he first bought this material home fiberglass I think I was about six years old and my sister Alice and I thought it was amazing and we rubbed ourselves with fiberglass and of course we were itchy for weeks afterwards Scotty was constructed on a steel frame and then chicken wire was put on top of that to make a rough outline and then hessian was placed over that and then the whole thing was sprayed with polyurethane and carved back.

57:51My grandmother bought me a very small Scotty doll so that I could think about what the big Scotsman was going to be like. But one thing I do remember is my father picking me up and walking me around the entire Scotsman when it was lying down. And I thought it was fantastic, but of course I just wanted to look up its kilt to see what was underneath. And so Christabel became the first of thousands of Australian children captivated with Scotty and intrigued by what was under his guilt. A year after Scotty was built, another big thing appeared in Coffs Harbour on the east coast, a giant banana designed to lure customers to a fruit stall.

58:46Many more followed. There's a list of around 150 big things across Australia though some scholars argue the true number is well over a thousand. Then in 1979, 16 years after building Scotty, Paul was commissioned to create his second big thing, the Big Lobster, better known as Larry the Lobster. My father worked on it, my brother Tim worked on it, my sister Elizabeth worked on it, my husband worked on it, my brother-in-law's worked on it. And that was commissioned by a fisherman from the southeast of South Australia. My father would eat lobster at home and break it into its component parts and then measure it with a ruler and scale it up.

59:41But Christabel is not very fond of Larry. I was pregnant with my first child and when my husband came home from work, he would smell like fiberglass and beer and I really disliked that smell. I couldn't stand it. I was really happy when Larry was loaded onto semi-trailers and sent away. Australia's big things aren't always perfect. There's a big kangaroo with very long eyelashes, a big penguin with tiny feet, and a big frog whose foot appears to be on backwards. I do enjoy driving around and looking at other large things, but with a certain amount of smugness, because some of them don't quite work.

1:00:38She's proud of her father's big things, although Paul has a very different way of seeing it. Never got proud of it. Once you get proud of your own work, it gets destroyed. You must never be proud of your own work. Sage advice from Paul Kelly, the artist who made the first of Australia's now famous big thing sculptures. Paul and his daughter, Christabel Kelly, were speaking to Stefania Godza. And with those towering images in mind, we've come to the end of this edition of the History Hour. Next week, we'll be transported by a special look deep into the BBC Sound archives. For now, though, this is Max Pearson from all of us here.

1:01:23Thanks for listening. Goodbye. From the pioneers. We weren't going to ask mission. We're just going to do it. And the celebrations. You feel you have, you win. I feel it. I was first. I was first. We were so proud of ourselves, and Cameron was proud of us too. I still cannot believe it. It was such an amazing feeling. It was incredible. To the humiliations. I did cry most of the half. Oh man, I'm failing. I'm failing this sport that I love. Sporting Witness takes you to the events that have shaped the sports world through the eyes of the people who were there. It's not just about the sport. It's about all the other things that people with disabilities learn from each other.

1:02:08For nine minutes, you become a fan in the stands as we take you back in time to examine memorable moments from all over the world. There's a magic during those moments that carries your soul. We were truly blessed to be a part of history. Sporting Witness. Subscribe wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

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From the publisher

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is Professor Giuliana Pieri, an expert in Italian noir from Royal Holloway, University of London.

We start with the author Andrea Camilleri on the creation of his fictional detective Inspector Montalbano in 1994, and his influence on Italian noir.

Then we explore the tapes recorded in the 1950s with Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann.

We hear about the Chinese protests in 1989 that led up to the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Plus, the launch of Ireland's first Irish language television channel in 1996.

Next, when Diana Ross missed a penalty at the World Cup in 1994.

Finally, we hear from the artist behind the first of Australia's 'Big Things', the giant novelty sculptures that became a national phenomenon.

Contributors:  

Professor Giuliana Pieri - an expert in Italian noir from Royal Holloway, University of London

Andrea Camilleri - Italian crime-writer (archive)

Saskia Sassen - daughter of Dutch journalist Willem Sassen, who recorded interviews with Adolf Eichmann

Wu'er Kaixi - Chinese student organiser of pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square

Sinéad Ní Ghuidhir - first live presenter to speak on Teilifís na Gaeilge: Ireland's first television channel broadcasting exclusively in the Irish language

Alan Rothenberg - former president of the US Soccer Federation

Paul Kelly - Australian artist behind both the Big Scotsman and the equally iconic Big Lobster

Christobel Kelly - daughter of Paul Kelly

(Photo: Italian writer Andrea Camilleri, Rome, Italy, 2011. Credit: Luciano Viti/Getty Images)

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