http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHAWUby7V-A

On February 22, 1974, Samuel Byck attempted to hijack a plane flying out of Baltimore/Washington International Airport in the hopes of crashing it into the White House and killing U.S. President Richard Nixon. Byck first got attention from the Secret Service in 1972, when he threatened Nixon for the first time. Byck was upset that the Small Business Administration had turned him down for a loan. The Secret Service considered Byck to be harmless and no action was taken against him. On the day of the attempted hijacking and assassination, Byck carried a .22 caliber revolver he stole from a friend, as well as a homemade bomb of gasoline and an igniter. At the airport, Byck killed Maryland Aviation Administration Police Officer George Neal Ramsburg and pilot Fred Jones. Pilot Reese Loftin was also shot but survived. After a standoff, Anne Arundel County Police stormed the plane and wounded Byck, who committed suicide before police could apprehend him. Byck kept audio recordings of his motives and plans, clips of which are compiled in this video.

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Samuel Byck On His Attempted Assassination of Nixon appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDzKABje16g

Patrice Lumumba was the first democratically elected Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo (now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Lumumba played a part in winning his country’s independence from Belgium in 1960. Within months, Lumumba’s government was deposited in a coup, and Lumumba was imprisoned and later executed on January 17, 1961. Many western nations, including Belgium, the United States and the United Kingdom have been accused of involvement in Lumumba’s death. In this video, Malcolm X shares his thoughts on the assassination.

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Malcolm X On The Assassination of Patrice Lumumba appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtBnXJEgAP4

On April 4, 1968, at the age of 39, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. In this video, his friend, advisor and draft speechwriter Dr. Clarence B. Jones recalls hearing the news of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s death and speaks about his initial thoughts and reactions. On first getting word of the assassination he says: “Within the first fifteen seconds of the news, the first thing that came across my mind were exactly these words: They finally got him.” Of how he felt in the days after, Jones says: “It was hard to cope. Or to give you some magnitude how hard to cope it was, I had this discussion with myself and with a couple of friends. It started out with ‘I don’t know that I can continue to live in this country.’ ‘Well, where are you gonna go?’ ‘I don’t know where I’m going to go, but I don’t know that I can continue to live in this country.” ‘Why?’ ‘Because I can’t… A country that would do this was just more than I could bear’. And I was really fearful, quite frankly”.

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Dr. Clarence B. Jones Remembers MLK’s Assassination appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdD42SBovfY

Chico Mendes was a Brazilian rubber tapper who became a trade union leader and environmentalist. He fought to preserve the Amazon Rainforest as well as for human rights. As part of the Rubber Tappers Union, Mendes asked the Brazilian government to set up reserves to make sure that the forest was being used without being damaged. The union also effectively stopped the destruction of the forest by blocking the way to rubber reserves. Mendes believed that the rubber tappers needed to diversify their work, focusing on products such as nuts, fruit and oil in addition to rubber. On December 22, 1988, Mendes was assassinated by a rancher. He was the 19th rural activist to be killed in Brazil that year. This video shows a brief interview with Mendes, as well as first-hand footage of rubber tappers successfully attempting to stop ranchers from cutting down trees.

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Chico Mendes & The Brazilian Rainforest appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHP3gF7FccQ

Jim Lehrer discusses being at Love Field to cover the Kennedys’ visit on November 22, 1963 and his interaction with the Kennedy detail in charge of the President’s car. Lehrer also recalls when he heard the news of John F. Kennedy’s assassination and how he reacted. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald in Dallas, Texas.

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Jim Lehrer on Covering the Kennedy’s Visit to Dallas appeared first on Witnify.

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“I definitely think that it was wrong. I think I was misled. I think I was mistaken. I think I made a serious error.” On September 22, 1975, Sara Jane Moore carried out an assassination attempt against U.S. President Gerald Ford. It was the second assassination attempt against President Ford in just a 17 day span of time. Moore was sentenced to life in prison for her crime. She had a brief escape from jail in 1979, but was recaptured after only hours. After serving 32 years of her life sentence, Moore was released on parole in 2007 at the age of 77.

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President Ford’s Would-Be Assassin Speaks appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9QuQB5TMiM

Ethel Kennedy gives a rare interview about her life and her marriage to Robert F. Kennedy to Brian Williams and her daughter Rory Kennedy, who was making a documentary about her mother. She talks about enjoying her life surrounded by politics and says that while everything came easy to John F. Kennedy, things were much more difficult for her husband. When asked about her husband’s assassination, she refuses to talk about it. Ethel and Bobby Kennedy had 11 children, with her last child, Rory, being born six months after her father’s death. Their large family also had 16 dogs and even a pet sea lion. Today, Kennedy’s life is full of attending events involving her 35 grandchildren.

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Ethel Kennedy Gives Rare Interview appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RfmqrMTvPE

Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, has become the frontline for war between Taliban insurgents and western troops. In this interview, two failed suicide bombers, Abdul Quboshi and Farman Ullah, discuss how they got involved with the Taliban.  The young boys explain that they were at school when the Taliban came to talk with them, claiming that it was their religious duty under Jihad to become suicide bombers and that they would be immediately taken to “paradise” once they followed through. They talk about the explosives that were strapped to their vests and their mission of killing a local Afghan governor. Hekmat Karzai, an expert on the Taliban’s ability to brainwash their participants, explains how they use the religious obligation of Jihad to justify war and recruit suicide bombers.

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Techniques of the Taliban to Recruit Suicide Bombers appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxxxnKW_YVA

Wendell Jackson, a Washington, D.C. native and current resident, describes what it was like to be involved in the 1968 D.C. riots that occurred after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Jackson describes participating in the looting of a liquor store across the street from him and recalls what the city looked like after the riots–describing it as resembling a “war zone.”

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D.C. Was a ‘War Zone’ During the 1968 Riots appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH8pwoMz2SM

In this clip from “Bhutto,” a documentary about Benazir Bhutto’s life, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, her children and husband describe the days leading up to her assassination on December 27, 2007. Bhutto’s daughters, Bakhtawar and Asifa, recall how Bhutto believed that her life was in God’s hands now and how she was prepared to die. Asifa thinks that Bhutto understood the risks of returning to Rawalpindi, Pakistan in December but Bhutto returned anyway–she needed to support her people. Her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, explains how he begged Bhutto not to go back Rawalpindi because they knew it would be too dangerous. The family is understandably emotional in their descriptions of their last days with her and they clearly all understand why she had to leave for her ill-fated trip.

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Bhutto’s Family Remembers the Days Before Her Assassination appeared first on Witnify.