Myra Anubi presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes. We hear about the Irish law that banned married women from working in state jobs until 1973 and Apollo 13's attempted trip to the Moon in 1970. Plus the Umbrella protest in Hong Kong, the ancient Egyptian mummy who flew to France for a makeover and the Argentine basketball player and wrestler nicknamed the Giant. Contributors: Bernie Flynn - one of the first married women to keep her job after the marriage bar was abolished in Ireland. Irene Mosca - economics lecturer at Maynooth University, in Ireland. Fred Haise - NASA astronaut who was on board Apollo 13. Nathan Law - leader of the Umbrella protest in Hong Kong. Anne-Marie Gouden - receptionist at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris. Julio Lamas - Jorge Gonzalez's basketball coach. Bill Alfonso - wrestling referee and Jorge Gonzalez's personal assistant. (Photo: A couple on their wedding day. Credit: Getty Images)
Hello and welcome to the History Hour podcast.
This week's stories from witness history from the BBC Royal service.
With me, Myra Anubi.
This week, a failed mission to the moon.
A number of readings on several meters told me immediately we had lost one oxygen tank.
I immediately had just a sick feeling in my stomach because I knew that that constituted an abort.
One of the largest protests ever in Hong Kong.
You didn't know whether the government would step up and use rubber bullets or even real firearms is supposed to crowd.
You didn't know whether the next tenement square would happen in Hong Kong.
A giant athlete from Argentina, plus a 3000 year old mummy who flew to France for a makeover.
No one spoke, not even to whisper anything.
It was very, very impressive.
Even today, I remember it like I was still there.
But first, let me tell you about a bar in Ireland, but not the kind you might be thinking.
Back in the 1970s, a law existed that banned Mandev married women from working in state jobs.
It was called the marriage bar, and Ireland was one of the longest lasting in the world.
Rachel Naylor spoke to a woman who postponed her wedding and became one of the first married women to keep her job.
It's the 8 December 1972, and we're in Sligo, a town in the northwest of Ireland.
Bernie Hart, a 22 year old clerical officer at the council, has just got engaged to her boyfriend, Jimmy Flynn.
This would normally be called the celebration, but for lots of women in 1970s Ireland, there was a catch.