Hello and welcome to the History Hour Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Max Pearson, the

past brought to life by those who were there. This week, from the turn of this century, how the Americans trapped the Cuban spy Anna Montez.

Knowing that you have a spy and that you're following a spy or investigating a spy, it doesn't get any cooler than that.

Plus personal recollections from Jews and Palestinians of the moment the state of Israel was born in 1948 and the unlikely story of how a

heavy metal rock band emerged during the violent years of Saddam Hussein's regime

in Iraq. Both gigs they were at the Fanar Hotel.

We had like mortar attacks and explosions going around

and you know people shoot it in the air and stuff like that.

That's all coming up in the podcast, but first we're heading to the South Pacific.

It's 20 years since elections in French Polynesia where the independence movement

stunned the France-aligned government of the day by pro-independence leader Oscar Temuro to the presidency.

It was a landmark in the country's politics where protests against French rule had increased

due to the practice of using Polynesian islands

for nuclear tests. Lizzy Kench has been looking back at the history of the anti-French

pro-independence movement.

It's 1984 and in French Polynesia a collection of

121 islands in the South Pacific a wave of political rebellion has begun. People are

taking to the streets to protest French rule and nuclear testing.

From 84 we started protesting all around the island.

Every year we had marshes to demonstrate against the nuclear test.

The first marshes were difficult.

We were walking on actions. We had to be careful about what we said and did,

...