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

How Tinder changed the dating game

How the dating app with the swipe revolutionised the world of online romance

• 9 mins

The World Wide Web

How the World Wide Web was created

• 9 mins

Erasmus: Europe's student exchange scheme

The programme that's let millions of EU students live and study in other countries.

• 9 mins

Women's rights in Basra

How women in the southern Iraqi city were persecuted for "anti-Islamic" behaviour

• 9 mins

Britain's Soviet spy scandal

In 1971 during the Cold War, the UK expelled 90 Soviet diplomats suspected of spying.

• 9 mins

Iranian revolution: The Kurdish uprising

A boy caught up in the forgotten battle for Kurdish autonomy in Iran in 1979

• 9 mins

The battle for Kinder Scout

How workers in Manchester fought for the right to walk in the nearby countryside.

• 9 mins

Algeria’s Milk Bar Bomber

Zohra Drif targeted an ice-cream parlour in Algiers during the war of independence

• 9 mins

The War in Algeria: A French soldier's experience

A first-hand account of the brutal French tactics against Algerian independence fighters

• 9 mins

Algeria: The Massacre in Paris

How French police turned on Algerian demonstrators in Paris in 1961, killing dozens.

• 9 mins

The Algerians who fought for France

The bitter experiences of the fighters who opposed their own country's independence.

• 9 mins

Algeria's rebel footballers

Algerian players secretly left their French clubs to form their own national team in 1958

• 9 mins

The sinking of the Belgrano

An Argentine survivor remembers being torpedoed by the British during the Falklands War.

• 9 mins

Surviving the Falkands War

British soldier Simon Weston was severely burned in an Argentine attack in 1982.

• 9 mins

Roe v Wade

How a young lawyer from Texas got the US abortion laws changed in 1973

• 9 mins

The chemistry of cannabis

How an Israeli scientist discovered the crucial compounds in the widely-used drug

• 9 mins

Fighting for Uyghur rights in China

A first-hand account of taking on the Chinese Communist Party in the 1980s

• 9 mins

Soviet nuclear missile alert

The Soviet colonel who realised that a warning of a US nuclear attack was a false alarm.

• 9 mins

China opens up to capitalism

How China's Communist rulers established the country's Special Economic Zones in May 1980

• 9 mins

Eyjafjallajökull: The volcano that stopped Europe

How the eruption of a little-known Icelandic volcano grounded flights in Europe in 2010

• 9 mins

Egypt's bread riots

How huge unrest forced the Egyptian government to ditch a plan to increase bread prices

• 9 mins

The war in Transnistria

The bloody conflict between Moldova and Russian-back separatists in the early 1990s

• 9 mins

People Power in the Philippines

In 1986, four days of huge public protests brought down President Ferdinand Marcos

• 9 mins

The murder of Kelso Cochrane

How a street killing in 1950s London led to Britain's first race relations inquiry

• 9 mins

The first McDonald's in Moscow

The American fast-food chain was a huge hit when it opened in the Soviet Union in 1990

• 9 mins

Shanghai at War

A first-hand account of living through the Japanese occupation in the 1930s and 40s

• 9 mins

Chasing the Marcos millions

The lawyer who's spent decades tracking the fortune of the former Philippines president

• 9 mins

Meeting Picasso

A British art historian on becoming a friend of the great Spanish artist in the 1950s

• 9 mins

The last days of Frida Kahlo

The great Mexican artist remembered by a friend who lived with her at the end of her life

• 9 mins

The museum of banned Russian art

How Igor Savitsky saved thousands of works from Stalin's censors, and started a museum

• 9 mins

The World Festival of Black Arts

A landmark event for African artists was held in newly-independent Senegal in 1966

• 9 mins

Georgia O'Keeffe

One of the world's most famous woman artists remembered by her assistant

• 9 mins

The attack on Lod Airport

A survivor on how gunmen opened fire at an Israeli airport in 1972, killing 26 people.

• 9 mins

Civil Rights activist Ida B Wells

How a pioneering African-American journalist campaigned against lynching in the US

• 9 mins

Life in the biggest Syrian refugee camp in the world

A Syrian family living in Za'atari Refugee Camp for nine years share their experiences.

• 9 mins

Sarin attack in Syria

How UN inspectors investigated a devastating chemical weapons attack in Ghouta in 2013

• 9 mins

The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II

Two Maids of Honour at the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II recall their memories

• 9 mins

The assassination of Bobby Kennedy

The killing of the US presidential candidate remembered by a friend who was also shot

• 9 mins

The Diary of Anne Frank

One of the most powerful accounts of the Holocaust was published in June 1947

• 9 mins

Saving Gabon's rainforest

How a network of national parks was set up to protect Gabon's forests in 2002

• 9 mins

How Sri Lanka's president survived a suicide bombing

A survivor of the 2006 suicide bombing attack shares their experience.

• 9 mins

The Gulabi Gang

Sampat Devi started a women's rights group in India which now has a national following.

• 9 mins

Holy Cross school dispute

A violent sectarian dispute took place outside a school in Northern Ireland in 2001

• 9 mins

Vietnam's 'Napalm Girl'

It’s 50 years since Kim Phuc's village in Vietnam was bombed with napalm

• 9 mins

New York's LGBT High School

A school offering specialised education for LGBT students opened in the city in 1985

• 9 mins

James Joyce and Ulysses

It's 100 years since one of the most influential novels of the 20th century was published

• 9 mins

Cambodia war crimes

In 2009 Rob Hamill came face-to-face with the man responsible for killing his brother

• 9 mins

India's surrogacy capital

In 2003, fertility expert Dr Nayana Patel carried out her first surrogacy procedure.

• 9 mins

Robot Surgeon

In 1985 the first robot-assisted medical surgery took place in Vancouver, Canada

• 9 mins

The killing of Vincent Chin

In 1982 a Chinese-American man was murdered with a baseball bat by white men in Detroit

• 9 mins

Egypt's first democratic presidential election

In June 2012, Mohamed Morsi was elected in Egypt's first free presidential election.

• 9 mins

The UK's first official gay Pride March

The UK’s first official gay Pride march took place 50 years ago – on 1st July 1972.

• 9 mins

Hong Kong: The handover

Chris Patten remembers the day Hong Kong was handed back to China from Britain

• 9 mins

Hong Kong: Democracy campaigner

In 1997 Britain handed Hong Kong back to China but Emily Lau campaigned for democracy

• 9 mins

Hong Kong: The 5-19 football riot in China

The 5-19 football riot after Hong Kong won their World Cup qualifying match over China.

• 9 mins

Hong Kong - Kowloon Walled City

The end of a unique way of life in one of the most densely populated places in the world.

• 9 mins

Hong Kong: Abandoned children

The Chinese babies left on the streets of 1960s Hong Kong in the hope they'd be adopted

• 9 mins

The Higgs Boson: A scientific discovery that explains how the universe works

The discovery of the Higgs Boson by scientists at CERN using the Large Hadron Collider

• 9 mins

Japanese university student riots

In 1968 and early 1969 Japanese students fought pitched battles with riot police

• 9 mins

Escaping Nigeria’s Civil War

One child's story of getting caught up in the Nigerian Civil War

• 9 mins

How the smear test was invented

The discovery by Dr George Papanicolaou in 1928 which led to the smear test

• 9 mins

The US’s first gay election candidate

In 1961 the first openly gay person ran for public office in the United States.

• 9 mins

How abortion was legalised in Great Britain

The campaign to allow abortion in Great Britain which resulted in a new law in 1967.

• 9 mins

Poland's strict abortion law

In 1993 abortion laws were tightened up in Poland after the fall of Communism

• 9 mins

When Tunisia led on women's rights

Tunisia became the first country in the Muslim world to legalise divorce and abortion.

• 9 mins

The man who invented the Pill

In 1951, Dr Carl Djerassi created the Pill's active ingredient from Mexican wild yams.

• 9 mins

Fighting for the pill in Japan

The contraceptive pill was approved for use in the US in 1960, but in Japan it was 1999.

• 9 mins

The school for telenovela stars

In 1987, in Mexico City, a TV station opened a school to train telenovela actors.

• 9 mins

Madhur Jaffrey’s ‘Indian Cookery’

A ground breaking Indian cookery programme broadcast on the BBC launched 40 years ago.

• 9 mins

Who shot JR?

The world's reaction to leading man JR, being shot in the American TV series, Dallas.

• 9 mins

The Soviet James Bond

The most successful TV spy series in the USSR went on air in 1973.

• 9 mins

Nigerian sitcom Papa Ajasco

In 1996, Wale Adenuga’s sitcom Papa Ajasco first hit Nigerian TV screens.

• 9 mins

Ukraine's Revolution on Granite

In 1990, a hunger strike led by Ukrainian students brought down the Soviet regime in Kyiv

• 9 mins

The Surkov leaks

In 2016, Ukrainian hackers leaked the emails of Vladimir Putin's aide, Vladislav Surkov.

• 9 mins

Inventing nicotine patches

Nicotine patches became available in the 1990s but their origins go back to the 1980s.

• 9 mins

The Tangshan Earthquake

A deadly earthquake hit the city of Tangshan killing hundreds of thousands of people.

• 9 mins

The Leaflet Bomber

In 1971 communist Bob Newland goes on a secret mission to South Africa to fight Apartheid

• 9 mins

Why Asians came to Uganda

In the early 20th century many South Asians migrated to Uganda in search of a better life

• 9 mins

When Asians were forced to leave Kenya

Many Asians migrated to Kenya in the early 20th century but were later forced to leave

• 9 mins

The exodus of Asians from Uganda

In 1972, dictator Idi Amin announced that all Asians had just 90 days to leave Uganda.

• 9 mins

The city shaped by Ugandan Asians

Some 10,000 Asians made Leicester their home after being expelled from Uganda in 1972.

• 9 mins

The return of Asians to Uganda

When Yoweri Museveni came to power in 1986, he asked exiled Asians to return to Uganda.

• 9 mins

The resignation of President Nixon

On 8 August 1974, Richard Nixon became the first US president in history to resign

• 9 mins

Sweden’s pronoun battle

How campaigners fought to get ‘hen’ included in Swedish dictionaries.

• 9 mins

Indonesia's forest fires

Forest fires in Indonesia caused huge damage and a dense smog across South East Asia

• 9 mins

Discovering Hale Bopp

The Hale Bopp Comet was discovered in 1995 which resulted in advances in science

• 9 mins

The nightclub that changed Ibiza

In June 1973, the nightclub Pacha opened in Ibiza and it changed the island forever

• 9 mins

India's Partition - Part One

Saleem was five when his family escaped to the new Muslim country of Pakistan in 1947

• 9 mins

India's Partition - Part Two

Chandra Joashi was caught on the wrong side of the border during India's partition

• 9 mins

The last Viceroy of India

The daughter of the last British viceroy in India remembers the transfer of power in 1947

• 9 mins