The return of Blue Lake

In 1970, the Republican president Richard Nixon signed a bill returning a sacred lake to the people of Taos Pueblo in New Mexico. The lake, and surrounding land, had been taken from the Taos people in 1906 and turned into a national forest, even though it was central to their centuries-old cultural rituals and beliefs. The return of the lake was the first time the US government had given land back to a Native American community. Louise Hidalgo talks to Laura Harris and her mother LaDonna Harris, who with her senator husband helped the Taos people get the Blue Lake back.Picture: President Nixon signing the Blue Lake bill in the presence of Taos leaders, 15th December 1970 (Credit: UPI/Getty Images)

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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.