The Grand Hotel Bombing

In October 1984, Margaret Thatcher survived a bomb attack on the hotel where she was staying on the south coast of England. Five people were killed and more than 30 others injured in the explosion, which was carried out by the Irish Republican Army (IRA). In 2009, Lucy Williamson spoke to Michael Dobbs, who was a government official in the hotel at the time. Photo: The Grand Hotel in Brighton after the IRA bombing (John Minihan/Express/Getty Images)

Om Podcasten

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina’s Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall’ speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler’s List; and Jacques Derrida, France’s ‘rock star’ philosopher. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest, the disastrous D-Day rehearsal, and the death of one of the world’s oldest languages.