The weather report that delayed D-Day and panda-mania in Taiwan

The History Hour

BBC

History, Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.4 • 879 Ratings

🗓️ 7 June 2024

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Max Pearson presents a collection of this week’s Witness History episodes from the BBC World Service.

First, we hear how a young Irishwoman called Maureen Flavin Sweeney drew up a weather report that delayed the date of D-Day.

Then, 99-year-old former field medic, Charles Norman Shay, shares his remarkable account of landing on the Normandy beach in France codenamed Omaha on D-Day.

Next, we also talk to Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi who hurled his shoes at the President of the United States.

Plus, we hear about China gifting Taiwan two giant pandas, in a practice known as ‘panda diplomacy’.

Finally, it’s the 40th anniversary of the popular computer game Tetris being invented.

Contributors:

Edward Sweeney – Maureen Flavin Sweeney’s son. Charles Norman Shay – former field medic in the United States Army. Muntadhar al-Zaidi – Iraqi journalist. Eve Chen – curator of the Giant Panda House at Taipei Zoo. Alexey Pajitnov – Russian engineer. Henk Rogers – American businessman.

(Photo: U.S Troops rushing to the Normandy beaches. Credit: Photo12/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the History Hour Podcast from the BBC World Service with me
0:09.3	Max Pearson the past brought to life by those who were there.
0:13.0	This week we'll meet the Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at the President of the United States.
0:19.0	As he searched me from top to bottom, he stopped when he reached my shoes and thanked me.
0:25.0	At that point I looked at him, smiled and said to myself,
0:30.0	Hey, you do not know this is the weapon I carry. Beware!
0:35.0	Plus China's panda diplomacy.
0:38.0	Twantu and Yueng Wen was the two out of 20 panders who were born in 2004 and I think they went through a very careful
0:46.0	selection process because they were extremely cute.
0:49.7	And 40 years on how the computer game Tetris conquered the world from humble Soviet beginnings.
0:55.5	The real interesting activity is when you actually build something and I think that that corresponds
1:00.0	to some basic pleasure center in humans. I mean people want to build something and they
1:04.6	feel really good after they've done so.
1:06.5	That's all coming up later in the podcast. But first this past week events have been held to mark
1:11.0	the 80th anniversary of the D-Day Landings, the moment in
1:15.0	in 1994 before when Allied forces hit the Normandy beaches
1:18.0	to begin the campaign to drive German troops out of France.
1:21.0	It was a crucial turning point in the war and it had been months in the
1:25.2	planning. But just when everything was set to go in early June, a single weather report from
1:31.3	a woman on the west coast of Ireland caused a delay.
1:34.8	That woman was Maureen Flavin.
1:37.1	Her son Edward has been telling Jane Wilkinson about the family's pride in their mother and
	...

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