The assassination of the Mirabal sisters

Three sisters, all political activists, were murdered in 1960 in the Dominican Republic

• 9 mins

The Aids 'patient zero' myth

How Gaetan Dugas was mistakenly identified as the 'patient zero' of the Aids epidemic.

• 9 mins

The early days of HIV/Aids

The experience of a Ugandan-born woman diagnosed with HIV in the early days of the virus.

• 9 mins

AZT: The breakthrough treatment for Aids

How the first successful Aids drug was developed and approved in record time in 1987

• 9 mins

South Africa and Aids drugs

How activists fought successfully for cheaper Aids treatment in South Africa.

• 9 mins

Derek Jarman

The British experimental film-maker who spoke out about Aids in the 1980s.

• 9 mins

Fighting 'virginity tests' in the Indonesian police

How an Indonesian policewoman campaigned to ban intrusive examinations of female recruits

• 9 mins

The V2 rocket

How the Nazis secretly developed the first modern ballistic missile

• 9 mins

Spies or plane-spotters?

Why a group of British aircraft enthusiasts were arrested for spying in Greece in 2001.

• 9 mins

The Aldi kidnap

The abduction of Theo Albrecht, co-founder of the discount supermarket chain ALDI.

• 9 mins

The explosion heard by millions

In 2005 people across southern England woke up when a huge fuel depot exploded.

• 9 mins

The Bengali language movement

How a march in defence of Bengali galvanised demands for an independent Bangladesh.

• 9 mins

The birth of Bangladesh

How Pakistan's first elections sparked civil war and the creation of a new country

• 9 mins

Rape as a weapon in Bangladesh

How Bengali women suffered appalling sexual violence during the war of independence.

• 9 mins

On the front line in Bangladesh

A Pakistani soldier's account of fighting in the Bangladesh war of independence in 1971.

• 9 mins

Bangladesh wins independence

An inside account of the moment Bangladesh won independence from Pakistan in 1971.

• 9 mins

Tanzania's first elected albino MP

How Salum Barwany overcame discrimination and fear to make history in Africa

• 9 mins

Rudolf Nureyev defects

In 1961 the great ballet dancer stunned the world by defecting from the Soviet Union.

• 9 mins

The right to drive in Saudi Arabia

The Saudi women who used social media to campaign against being banned from the roads.

• 9 mins

Bahrain's 2011 protests

In 2011 thousands of protestors occupied Pearl Roundabout in Bahrain’s capital.

• 9 mins

The home of Santa Claus

How Rovaniemi, a small town in Lapland, became the centre of Christmas tourism.

• 9 mins

Pong and the birth of computer games

The pioneering table tennis simulator which started the video games industry.

• 9 mins

Grand Theft Auto

The controversial action-adventure gaming series developed in Scotland in the 1990s.

• 9 mins

Tetris

In 1984 one of the most popular computer games ever was invented in Moscow.

• 9 mins

Lego

One of the world's most popular toys was invented in a small Danish town in 1958.

• 9 mins

The secret history of Monopoly

The true story of one of the world's most popular board games, Monopoly.

• 9 mins

The "Wild Lily" protests in Taiwan

In 1990, Taiwan’s students took to the streets in their thousands to demand democracy.

• 9 mins

The end of Stalinist rule in Albania

In 1990 Albania’s communist government agreed to allow independent political parties.

• 9 mins

Marcel Proust

The great French writer remembered by one of his friends and by his faithful maid.

• 9 mins

Mozambique's Eduardo Mondlane: From professor to freedom fighter

The leader of Mozambique's fight against colonial rule remembered by his daughter

• 9 mins

The sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff

In January 1945, nearly 10,000 people died in the worst maritime disaster in history.

• 9 mins

India's freedom fighter: Subhas Chandra Bose

The man who campaigned against colonial rule, allying himself with Hitler during WW2

• 9 mins

Kazakhstan's nuclear legacy

The secret plan to clear a huge nuclear testing site after the fall of the Soviet Union.

• 9 mins

Malick Sidibé: Mali's superstar photographer

How a Malian photographer's pictures of Mali's swinging '60s and '70s amazed the world.

• 9 mins

Costa Concordia

The dramatic story of the cruise ship which sunk in the Mediterranean, killing 32 people.

• 9 mins

The first silicone breast implants

How a Texas woman became the first in the world to have the popular cosmetic procedure.

• 9 mins

The rise of Boko Haram

How a small Nigerian Islamist group launched a brutal insurgency

• 9 mins

The first bicycle-sharing scheme

How a Dutch engineer invented a scheme to share bikes and cut pollution in the 1960s.

• 9 mins

The Stanford Prison Experiment

The story of the famous psychology study, the Stanford Prison Experiment, of 1971

• 9 mins

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

The story of Coretta Scott King’s campaign to have her late husband honoured in the US.

• 9 mins

A Cold War love affair

The story of a West German woman who crossed the Iron Curtain for love.

• 9 mins

British troops in Northern Ireland

The British army was sent to keep the peace in 1969; it stayed for nearly four decades.

• 9 mins

Bloody Sunday

How British paratroopers opened fired on a civil rights march in Northern Ireland in 1972

• 9 mins

The Grand Hotel Bombing

The IRA tried to kill Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet in October 1984.

• 9 mins

IRA gun-running in America

How an undercover FBI agent bust an IRA gun-running operation in New York in 1981

• 9 mins

The Good Friday Agreement

The frantic last-minute negotiations that led to a peace deal for Northern Ireland.

• 9 mins

Kazakhstan's new capital

The story of Kazakhstan's new capital

• 9 mins

The murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl

The reporter who was killed by Islamist extremists in Pakistan while investigating 9/11.

• 9 mins

The day the world looked up

In 2012 a rare astronomical event occurred when Venus flew past the Sun

• 9 mins

The first Emirati female teacher

The trailblazing story of the first Emirati born teacher

• 9 mins

The Death of King George VI

How Britain marked the death of its wartime monarch and the accession of Queen Elizabeth

• 9 mins

The demise of the Soviet Union

How the leaders of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus plotted to break up the USSR in 1991.

• 9 mins

The invention of Google Maps

How the revolutionary online mapping service was created in 2005.

• 9 mins

Shoe designer Manolo Blahnik

How the Spaniard became a legend in the world of ultra-fashionable shoes.

• 9 mins

Ukraine's 'Maidan Revolution'

Throughout the winter of 2013/14 protesters camped out in the centre of Kyiv

• 9 mins

The 1972 mass killings in Burundi

In 1972 Burundi’s Tusti led army massacred Hutu civilians following a Hutu led uprising

• 9 mins

The first LGBT film in war-torn Yugoslavia

How the ground-breaking film "Marble Ass" was made amid war in the former Yugoslavia

• 9 mins

"Don't ask, don't tell" in the US Armed Forces

For decades LGBT people in the US military had to keep their sexuality secret.

• 9 mins

The Berlin Patient

Timothy Ray Brown was the first person in the world to be cured of HIV/AIDS.

• 9 mins

Bollywood's pioneering lesbian drama

"Fire" was one of the first films in Indian history to depict a lesbian relationship.

• 9 mins

The world's first civil union

In 1989, Denmark became the first country to celebrate same-sex civil unions

• 9 mins

The first sex worker strike

When 200 French sex workers took refuge in a church in Lyon, it started a movement.

• 9 mins

Nixon in China

The historic visit by the American president which normalised US relations with China.

• 9 mins

The Navajo Code Talkers in World War 2

The Native American soldiers who talked in a secret code, helping the Allies to victory

• 9 mins

The death of Trayvon Martin

The black Florida teenager killed by a Neighbourhood Watch volunteer while buying sweets.

• 9 mins

The 2014 annexation of Crimea

A personal account of how Russia took over the Crimean peninsula in 2014

• 9 mins

Economic 'shock therapy' in Russia

Chaos and hardship hit Russia when free-market reforms were introduced overnight in 1992

• 9 mins

Putin's war in Chechnya

An eyewitness account of the Russian invasion of the breakaway republic in 1999

• 9 mins

Boris Yeltsin's surprise resignation

How the Russian president quit and apologised to the nation in a New Year's Eve address.

• 9 mins

The takeover of NTV in Russia

How NTV journalists tried in vain to keep their station out of President Putin's control.

• 9 mins

Russia's war in Georgia in 2008

First-hand accounts of Russia's battle with another former Soviet republic in 2008.

• 9 mins

Anna Akhmatova - Voice of Russia

How the great poet kept writing even through the darkest days of Soviet history.

• 9 mins

Gloria Steinem and Ms Magazine

The launch of the first magazine in America owned, run and written by women

• 9 mins

The Australian women who protested against the Vietnam war

The Fairlea Five were jailed in 1971 for campaigning against military conscription.

• 9 mins

Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi

The Iranian human rights lawyer who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003: Dr Shirin Ebadi

• 9 mins

The Wages for Housework campaign

How feminists in Italy began an international campaign for payment for housework in 1972.

• 9 mins

The Frauenkirche - Dresden's symbol of war and reconstruction

The story of the painstaking project to rebuild Dresden's historic baroque church.

• 9 mins

Chandigarh: India's city of the future

How the modernist architect Le Corbusier designed a city for newly-independent India

• 9 mins

Teheran's Freedom Tower

The vast monument built for the Shah, but now a centrepiece for protests in Iran.

• 9 mins

Zaha Hadid's Cincinnati Arts Center

The ground-breaking building was the first American museum to be designed by a woman

• 9 mins

The Shard

The building of the controversial London skyscraper, designed by Italian Renzo Piano.

• 9 mins

The Chernobyl nuclear disaster

In 1986, a reactor exploded in Soviet Ukraine causing the worst nuclear accident ever.

• 9 mins

The Budapest Memorandum

The security "assurances" offered to Ukraine after it gave up its nuclear weapons in 1994

• 9 mins

The Holodomor: Ukraine's great famine

Several million people died in the 1930s in what became known as The Holodomor

• 9 mins

Ukraine's Babi Yar massacre

The mass killing of Ukrainian Jews by Nazi Germany during World War Two.

• 9 mins

Soviet holidays in Crimea

Artek, on the Black Sea coast, was the Soviet Union's most popular children's camp.

• 9 mins

The 'Snow Revolution' against Vladimir Putin

A decade ago protestors tried to stop the Russian leader tightening his grip on power

• 9 mins

The black stunt performers who took on Hollywood

The battle to fight prejudice behind-the-scenes in the American film industry.

• 9 mins

Afghanistan's women's newspaper

Aina-E-Zan, or Women's Mirror, was launched in 2002 at a time of hope for Afghan women.

• 9 mins

Selling Van Gogh's Sunflowers

How one of the Dutch artist's masterpieces was auctioned for a world record in 1987.

• 9 mins

Escaping a Maoist cult

Aravindan Balakrishnan ran a cult in London for 30 years; then two of its members fled.

• 9 mins

The Falklands War - An islander's account

A local radio broadcaster remembers keeping calm as Argentine troops invaded his studio.

• 9 mins

The Falklands War - an Argentine account

An Argentine conscript remembers his country's doomed military campaign in 1982.

• 9 mins

The Soviet Union's Afghan War

How what Moscow planned as a short military operation turned into the Soviet "Vietnam".

• 9 mins

The handshake in Space

How Russian cosmonauts and American astronauts met up in space during the Cold War

• 9 mins

The Great American Grain Robbery

How a catastrophic trade deal between the US and Moscow sparked a global food price shock

• 9 mins

Nato intervenes in Kosovo

How the US and its allies backed air strikes against Serbian forces to stop atrocities.

• 9 mins

The largest war crimes trial in history

The former Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic, went on trial at The Hague in 2002.

• 9 mins

Greece's Great Famine

How hundreds of thousands of Greeks starved to death under Nazi occupation.

• 9 mins