the democratic presidential candidate, joe biden, has choosen senator kamala harris as his running mate for november's us election. the former prosecutor and california attorney—general is the first black woman on a major presidential ticket in american history. they will take on donald trump and mike pence in three months time. ceremonies have been held in the lebanese capital, beirut to mark the moment a week ago when the city was hit by a devastating blast. there was also a minutes‘s silence in the port area. many groups held pictures of those who died in the disaster. the main opposition leader in belarus has fled the country after disputing the re—election of president alexander lu kashenko in last sunday's poll. nationwide protests have continued against a result widely regarded to have been tainted. the police have blocked off city centres and thousands of opposition supporters have been detained.

now on bbc news, it's witness history. hello and welcome to a special edition of witness history with me, razia iqbal, here at the british academy in london as we present five amazing stories from the world of art. coming up, how the acclaimed british sculptor henry moore changed modern art. we speak to the man who wrapped the reichstag in 1995 and a nigerian artist inspired by the oil pollution of her homeland. plus the pioneer who photographed tsarist russia in colour. but first, we go to china where in 1974 an accidental discovery revealed one of the wonders of the world. a vast terracotta army which laid buried beneath the earth for more than 2000 years. archaeologist li xiuzhen worked

on the astonishing find. newsreel: it is a vast pottery army that is slowly being unearthed from the tomb where it has lain for more than 2000 years.

now to something more modern. the british artist henry moore revolutionised the world of sculpture during the 20th century, changing the way we see the human body

and setting his work in a natural landscape. his daughter, mary moore, talks to us now about her memories of her father and the ideas that inspired him. newsreel: the work of henry moore has been seen in almost every country in the world. he has made a staggering total of something like 900 sculptures, many of them immense, as well as thousands of drawings and nearly a thousand graphics. his work seems so comfortable that you can't believe there was a feeling that it was dangerous, that it was outrageous and that it would defile youth. his first exhibition was in 1928. already his work was causing controversy. the art schools that he was studying in called his work ugly and disgusting

and he fed on a cesspit. what took people aback was a manner of expression that emphasised the sexual nature of his subjects and rejected the realistic treatment of the human figure. it was considered to be primitive, decadent and savage and in a way it was. he wanted to arouse in us the deepest forces and instincts. henry moore: a great deal can still be done with 3—dimensional forms as a means of expressing what people feel about themselves and about nature and about the world around them. my father and his generation looked rather to ethnographic works, what they called primitive works. my belief is that no matter what advances we make in technology, and in the controlling of nature, the real basis of life is human relationships. it is through them that we are happy or unhappy.

in 1950, his daughter mary who had been born during the war, was now four years old and a great source of pride. our home and his studios were kind of interchangeable. he had a few basic subjects that he could not help from returning to again and again. one of them was the reclining figure. what is the particular significance of that? it may be that it connects the human figure with landscape more easily than what a standing figure could. and landscape is one of my great obsessions. another one was the mother and child. i have done many mother and child structures and most of them have been the idea of the larger form, a relationship with the smaller form in a protective sense and a sense of a gentleness and tenderness. moore remains a countryman at at heart. his studios are surrounded

by fields, hedges and woods. he is happiest seeing his sculpture in the open air. there was an exhibition in florence in 1972 which was a remarkable exhibition and it was a first in many many ways. moore assembled in the fort and the ramparts, nearly 200 sculptures and 100 drawings. the big sculptures in the open air, each one sited by moore himself, was what made the exhibition unique. one would have to travel the world to see so much at any othertime. my father was very worried. he thought that people wouldn't go, tourism back in the 1970s was not quite such a big deal and getting to places was much harder. in the end it was a fantastic success.

something like 400,000 visitors. i think they need to be set outside. i want to go up and touch them. but you can go up to them and run your hand around them. he wanted sculpture to be part of everybody‘s life and experience and enrich their lives. and we should go on fighting that fight. henry moore's daughter mary. certainly the power of sculpture lives on in our next story. sokari douglas camp is an acclaimed artist based in london but the inspiration for her work comes from her homeland of the niger delta in nigeria, a world of rivers and creeks that has been devastated by decades of pollution from the oil industry.

i like metal because it has tensile strength that is fantastic. something very small can hold up something gigantic. i love the fact that you can stretch it in the most incredible way, make things that look like fabric and look soft. my childhood started off in independent nigeria and i was sent to boarding school in england so i had one foot in nigeria and one foot in england. my people, the kalabari, live on 22 islands in the niger delta and our transport was by boat. dugout canoes that women could take out and they would gather periwinkles on the mudflats and make the most incredible stew. you had oysters growing on the roots of mangroves, dangling in the water.

nature was full. gradually these things have been dying out because of pollution. because of the way that oil is being extracted there. newsreel: oil was discovered in the niger delta in 1956 and now nigeria is one of the largest oil producing countries in the world. newsreel: the ogoni people say their homeland has been ruined by oil. we are going to demand our rights peacefully, nonviolently and we shall win. ken saro—wiwa, poet, environmentalist, and leader of the ogoni people. the nigerian government says he is a murderer and has sentenced him to death. ken saro—wiwa tried to get the oil companies to behave differently by talking. there was no violence involved.

nigeria's military leaders provoked a storm of international outrage today when they went ahead with the executions of nine human rights activists, including the playwright and activist ken saro—wiwa. no—one could believe it, no—one could believe it. pure, pure sadness, yeah. ken's memorial was extremely important to me, to make sure people remembered him. this is a mini version of the real bus, the real bus is life—size. the memorial had ken's name on a banner at the front, and then on top of the bus were barrels with the names of the other eight that were killed at the same time. on it, it had words that ken saro—wiwa said in one of his last interviews, before he was executed. the battle bus had

quite an adventure. the environmentalists from nigeria decided that they would like the memorial to travel to nigeria, and when it got to lagos port it was arrested by nigerian customs. because it was believed that it would cause havoc. it's still locked away. it's still arrested. our problem is global. our clothing, toilet seats, lipstick, everything has this crude oil element to it. it's an incredible product. it's a magic product. and yet it is killing us. so it keeps on turning up in my work. the wonderful sokari douglas camp. remember, you can watch witness history every month

on the bbc news channel, or you can catch up on all our films, along with more than 1,000 radio programmes, in our online archive. just search for "bbc witness history." our next story takes us to germany, where in 1995 a public art project was seen by millions. it became a symbol for berlin's renewal after the fall of the wall and the collapse of communism. it's the story of the couple who wrapped the reichstag. newsreel: it's an eccentric dream, but one that a husband and wife team have cherished for nearly a quarter of a century, and this weekend the bulgarian—born artist christo and his wife jeanne—claude began rubbing the german parliament building in silver fabric. it is very difficult to explain if you don't see it. no drawings, no sketch, no scale model can match the complexity of the project. the fabric isactually, it's not completely touching the stone, the surface of the structure.

the project started in 1972. the cold war is still in full speed, you know, the berlin wall was built. permission to wrap the reichstag was refused three times. if the wall were not fell down, probably we'd never do the reichstag. for more than two decades, the artist christo and his wife jeanne—claude have wanted to work with the building that, for them, symbolised the cold war. you know, i was born in bulgaria in 1935. highly soviet—ic, communist country. and i escaped to the west alone, speaking only russian and bulgarian. coming from a communist country i tried to do something involving the east—west relations. it's been bombed and set on fire, seen war and revolution. but never before has the reichstag been wrapped in silverfabric. we never can believe what is the project until we see it for real. christo himself is paying

for the project, helped su bsta ntially by sales of his sketches and other work. the reichstag cost us $12 million in 1995. which is probably today about $20 million or $25 million. this project, we need to build an entire structure of engineers, specialists, lawyers, services. very much like building a highway or a bridge or an airport. it was wrapped by nearly 100 rock climbers. they came down, installing all this 100,000 square metres of fabric and matter for one week. jeanne—claude and myself, we are born together artist. and this, i miss so much jeanne—claude today. we were partners, we lived together, we would fight together. it was like an adventure that you cannot repeat it. newsreel: this novel treatment is, they say,

in the classic tradition of art. the reichstag was a victorian building with lots of ornaments, decoration. suddenly it was changed, like a sketch. like what is essential, to height, the width, the forms, they are all hidden by this fragile material that moved with the wind. it was in constant motion. newsreel: the building took on a shrine—like nature and was treated with something approaching reverence. it is very special and it always changes with the light. first time in history probably that this building is nice and makes people happy. i came to germany especially to see this project, and i think it is great. for two weeks, the area has witnessed one continuous party, with scenes reminiscent of when the berlin wall came down six years ago. everybody who comes to see the project, and there were 5 million people in two weeks in the reichstag, they know that they were seeing

something that would never happen again. newsreel: last night was the final and the biggest party, with 100,000 people swarming around the building well into the early hours. today the dismantling work began and germany's former and future parliament building came blinking into the summer sunshine. after two weeks it's gone forever. cannot be repeated. something happened, it will stay forever in that particular unique moment. the world —famous artist christo. and for our final story we go back more than 100 years to a time when the tsar still ruled russia. while the world was using black and white film, a pioneering russian photographer, sergey prokudin—gorsky, developed a new method of colour photography and used to document life in russia before the revolution. the results, as you'll see now, were stunning. my grandfather, sergey mikhaylovich prokudin—gorsky, was one of the pioneers

of colour photography. my grandfather, sergey mikhaylovich prokudin—gorsky, was one of the pioneers of colour photography. it is a unique example of this quality of colour. this is close to a 100—year—old production. at that time, you have to realise, that the only photographs in colour were taken indoors. and he was probably the first to do a lot of work outside. this is a very nice picture on the mariinsky canal, where he had done a lot of shots.

you really feel you are seeing something natural. you can really feel that this guy was very so pleased, probably, to be taken. and at the same time, the composition of the picture is great. he was able to travel anywhere in the empire. he got permission from the tsar to travel everywhere, even the part which was very difficult to access. bukhara is today in uzbekistan, but at the time it was turkestan, which is really in the south—east of the empire, bordering iran, afghanistan and china. my grandfather was somebody who was extremely open—minded.

he was really a renaissance man. in his work he tried to show the different category of people in terms of religion, origin. this is a jewish school with, i would say, the teacher and some pupils. at the origin, the images were obtained by projecting the free negative on glass in black and white, through a colour lens for the projection, creating the colour. this is the original lab book of my grandfather with a lot

of technical description, and the more you learn, the more you find this person extremely attractive, quite fascinating. the grandson of pioneering photographer sergey prokudin—gorsky. that's all from witness history this month at the british academy. we will be back next month with more first—hand accounts of extraordinary moments in history. but for now, from me, and the rest of the witness history team, goodbye.

hello. there is quite a mix of weather on offer across the british isles just at the moment. the headlines are being made by the heat but, at times, some low cloud is running in to some of the coastal areas, making it a great deal cooler and then, when all that heat really powers on through, we get that possibility of some thunderstorms and that is the mix that will take many of us through wednesday. there is heat to be had widely across western europe at the moment. the moisture being fed around this low out of biscay, up towards the british isles, where we start wednesday on another really humid note. widely across the british isles temperatures in the teens if not the low 20s. the bulk of the morning thunderstorms to be found across the north—eastern quarter of scotland. these gradually drifting towards shetland by evening, and then leaving behind just the chance of one or two thunderstorms dotted around, but generally they will begin to gang up across parts of wales, the midlands, and central, southern england as we get on through the afternoon, where again the temperatures widely will exceed 30 celsius.

although, underneath the cloud and murk, around about some of the coast, you could be closer to 17—19, something of that order. through the evening and overnight, those showers just getting a little bit further north and a little bit further out towards the west, and the murk becoming ever more extensive across parts of northern and eastern scotland, and into the eastern side of the pennines, and again where it's going to be a very close—night again. widely temperatures into the teens to the low 20s. thursday gets off to a pretty grey start. the cloud more extensive than we have seen it of late but a really close—feeling day, and it is that mixture of heat and humidity again that will spark those thunderstorms widely across the southern half of britain. always that fraction fresher and perhaps drier too further towards the north. though if the sunshine pops out here, again, you will be off into the 20s. as you move towards friday, i think we're going to see again the low pressure very much the dominant feature. and always that risk of those torrential downpours affecting central and southern parts

of the british isles. further north, again, the onshore breeze is dragging some low—level cloud into the eastern side of scotland. most of the best of the sunshine for northern ireland and across western scotland. although those temperatures look as though they are dropping awayjust a touch, i think you will still feel pretty close and it is going to take quite a while before we get something a good dealfresher moving in from the atlantic to affect all parts of the british isles.

this program is

this is bbc news. i'm mike embley with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. making history: the democratic presidential candidate, joe biden, chooses black senator kamala harris as his running mate for november's us election. they take on donald trump in three months time — his campaign team has already weighed in, saying ‘americans will resoundingly reject‘ the pair at the ballot box. the people of beirut observe a minute's silence, marking the moment an explosion ripped through the city one week earlier. the main opposition leader in belarus flees the country after disputing the presidential election result. nationwide protests are continuing for a third night.