The playwright, the school teacher and the lost Xhosa king

How South Africa’s first published black female playwright restored her people’s history

• 40 mins

‘My heart goes out to the mums’

The mum who’s found compassion for the mothers of murderers after her own family tragedy

• 26 mins

Witness to a gangland murder: a mediator’s dilemma

Roegchanda Pascoe put her own safety and freedom on the line to take on Cape Town’s gangs

• 40 mins

Glitter, high kicks and finding freedom

The joy that dance brings us in extraordinary and sometimes surprising ways

• 40 mins

Saving the lost tapes of a musical genius

A grieving lover’s mission to share his partner’s unknown music with the world

• 40 mins

How the kindness of strangers stopped my terror attack

Ex-US Marine Mac McKinney planned to bomb a mosque but ended up converting to Islam

• 40 mins

The drag queen who ran for president of the United States

Joan Jett Blakk ran for office in 1992 to raise awareness about the Aids crisis

• 26 mins

The battlefield of the mind

Toby Gutteridge was one of the best soldiers in the world when he was shot in the neck

• 40 mins

I was interviewed on live TV by accident

Four stories of mistaken identity

• 40 mins

Cracking Germany’s 'biggest' art theft case

The mayor and the top art theft detective who unravelled a 40-year-old German crime

• 40 mins

Painfully honest: A brain surgeon looks back on his mistakes

Living with cancer had made Henry Marsh reflect on the people he could not save

• 40 mins

The cookbook that became a lifeline

How eccentric but pioneering chef Julia Child became a role model for Julie Powell

• 26 mins

My father’s hidden crimes

Analía’s dad was accused of being a government torturer - he said it was a lie

• 40 mins

Hugh Bonneville: From dress-up to Downton

Actor Hugh Bonneville on catching the acting bug as a child and dealing with rejection

• 40 mins

The private eye bringing psychic fraudsters to justice

Bob Nygaard enters a dark underworld of soothsayers exploiting the vulnerable for money

• 40 mins

The argument that led a singer to the truth about her family

Gina Williams believed she was an only child until a major revleation, aged 18

• 40 mins

I went through puberty at two years old

Patrick Burleigh was born with precocious puberty, meaning his body developed very early

• 26 mins

He knocked on my door and said: 'I believe you'

How the friendship of a stranger helped Betsy when she needed it most

• 40 mins

Michael Johnson: How the world's fastest man learned to walk again

US Olympic champion Michael Johnson had to learn to walk again following a stroke

• 40 mins

Why did my mum give me away? An adoptee's quest for answers

Korean-Danish adoptee Sun Hee Engelstoft, flew over 5000 miles in search of her mum

• 40 mins

The truffle in my pocket that changed my life

Guy Debbas from Lebanon survived being held hostage to run a sucessful chocolate business

• 40 mins

I created a mass Marilyn Monroe swim for my mother

How dressing up as the Hollywood icon helped Sarah Tinney cope after her mother’s death

• 26 mins

The bombshell revelations that turned my family on its head

Carmen Rita Wong on coming to terms with a lifetime of family secrets and hidden pasts

• 40 mins

My body has given me everything

Bonita Norris overcame an eating disorder to make history climbing Everest

• 40 mins

'I could've been her and she could've been me'

For journalist Brandi Morin exposing the harrowing stories of her community is personal

• 40 mins

Fighting for peace in a violent city

Fartuun Adan and her daughter Ilwad Elman risked everything to help rebuild Mogadishu

• 40 mins

My teacher became my torturer

Mirsad Solakovic was just 13 when his teacher came to school and pointed a gun at him

• 26 mins

The sketchpad that saved my life

How painting gave Muniba Mazari hope after being paralysed in a car crash in Pakistan

• 40 mins

Out of the swamp: Uncovering a hidden US slave ship

Ben Raines set out to expose a 160-year-old secret and found himself in murky waters

• 40 mins

Murder in the heart of the Amazon

When her brother was brutally murdered, Claudelice Silva dos Santos took up his fight

• 40 mins

Birdsong, blindness and my ‘super brain’

Juan Pablo Culasso’s rare avian sound skills led to a life-altering moment on national TV

• 40 mins

England's secret cowboy town

The town of Laredo is filled with cowboys and saloons in the style of the Wild West

• 26 mins

The Palestinian tapes, part 1

Mo’min Swaitat’s magical discovery of lost family music and a mysterious yellow cassette

• 40 mins

The Palestinian tapes, part 2

Disco, protest and poetry – Hanan and Riad’s story of making the Intifada album

• 40 mins

Watergate’s 'lady lawyer' facing sexism and scandal

Jill Wine-Banks’ historic role as the only woman investigating the Watergate cover-up

• 40 mins

The illegal nude that made me a security expert

After a photo of Mia Landsem was leaked online, she fought to change the law

• 40 mins

Surviving apartheid to make maritime history

Captain Knowledge Bengu led the voyage to discover Shackleton's lost ship Endurance

• 26 mins

My friend was a serial killer and I had to stop him

Nurse Amy Loughren discovered that her colleague and confidant was murdering patients

• 40 mins

Guns, guards, snarling dogs: A child migrant’s story

Javier Zamora travelled alone from El Salvador to the US when he was just nine years old

• 40 mins

Olympic gymnast and representative of life on Earth

An image of Cathy Rigby is on board a Voyager space probe to teach aliens about humans

• 40 mins

Unrepeated: Damo Suzuki's improvisations in music and life

The iconic Can vocalist on walking away from fame to follow a life of improvisation

• 40 mins

The tip-off and the 30-year treasure hunt

A story told over drinks in the 1980s set two metal detectorists on a very long hunt

• 26 mins

I was 71 when I first heard my father’s voice

Margaret Ann Harris got a life-changing Christmas gift when she heard a wartime radio show

• 40 mins

The famous love songs written about me

Something about Pattie Boyd inspired two rock stars to compose hits about her

• 40 mins

Anick and Destin, the miracle conjoined twins of DR Congo

The remarkable story of DR Congo's first successful separation of conjoined twins

• 40 mins

Young hearts run free: The life and soul of Candi Staton

Candi Staton’s dance anthem revealed her heartbreak behind the scenes

• 40 mins

Discovering Stalin's million-dollar wine cellar

Wine merchant John Baker on trying to buy Josef Stalin's secret wine collection

• 26 mins

Did my birth mother fake her own death?

How a failed insurance scam saw Donna Freed put up for adoption in the US

• 40 mins

The Syrian artist bringing beauty to a desert refugee camp

When Malak fled Syria she packed the essentials: her sketchbook and pencils

• 40 mins

How the Spice Girls saved my life

Isolated and rejected as a gay teen, a pop band showed David Montgomery how to live again

• 40 mins

Victim and perpetrator: The two gunshots that changed my life

Mexican American Obed Silva is an English professor with a tangled past

• 40 mins

'A little bit Indiana Jones'

The archaeologist who risked his life for a mysterious prehistoric artefact

• 26 mins

Duty-bound: My secret life as Officer Clemmons

Becoming one of the first African American actors on children's TV came with an ultimatum

• 40 mins

Making memories before our children go blind

The diagnosis that led a family on a global adventure

• 40 mins

The Nazis killed my family but I decided not to hate

As a boy Peter Lantos survived Bergen-Belsen, then devoted his life to helping others

• 40 mins

Saving lives in Pinochet’s Chile with Superman’s help

Christopher Reeve and Angélica Malinarich-Dorfman helped actors facing death threats

• 40 mins

Wrongfully convicted of murdering my parents

Murder, a false confession and Marty Tankleff's 17-year fight for justice

• 26 mins

They said my brain was ‘on fire’

Consumed by a mystery illness, Susannah Cahalan almost lost her life and sanity

• 40 mins

‘No one can take my smile from me’

Burn survivor Sneha Jawale reclaimed her face and found a new identity in tarot reading

• 40 mins

The political poster child who became a million dollar model

Paulina Porizkova's face was used to show the hardships of Communist Czechoslovakia

• 40 mins

Connecting with Dad: a Pacific voyage and never-heard tape

A Pacific row gave Louis Bird courage to listen to a tape his dad had left him

• 40 mins

Trying to get my penpal out of prison

A letter, a murder, and a boxer’s dying wish turned a teenager’s life around

• 26 mins

Learning to live with the voices in my head

Debra started hearing voices aged five. Comforting at first, they soon took control

• 40 mins

The man who calls a river his 'family'

Salman Khairalla risked his life to protect Iraq's historic wetlands

• 40 mins

I escaped my abusive boss and found a sisterhood

Mariam was mistreated while working as a cleaner in Lebanon and now campaigns for others

• 40 mins

I was there the night Emmett Till was taken

Wheeler Parker is Emmett Till's cousin and the last surviving witness to his abduction

• 40 mins

Hugh Bonneville: From dress-up to Downton

Actor Hugh Bonneville on catching the acting bug as a child and dealing with rejection

• 26 mins

Walking away from the crash that killed my friends

Lech Blaine on guilt, grief and accepting his luck after surviving a fatal car accident

• 40 mins

Grandma and the great gold rush of Suriname

Hennah Draaibaar is on the trail of her family’s legendary lost gold

• 40 mins

Surviving 'Doomsday' and learning to live again

Claire Ashman spent nearly a decade in a doomsday cult with her eight children

• 40 mins

Debt and oil: My two years as a migrant worker

Kate Beaton took a job in a Canadian oil facility and was cut off from the outside world

• 40 mins

The Syrian artist bringing beauty to a desert refugee camp

When Malak fled Syria she packed the essentials: her sketchbook and pencils

• 26 mins

The headteacher changing young boys' lives with philosophy

Kevin McArevey uses Plato to help his students overcome the lasting legacy of conflict

• 40 mins

Rebel gunmen in Ugandan skies

Pilot Firoz Khimji witnessed his country's wars from above. Then conflict came for him.

• 40 mins

Bringing the Muppets to Moscow

Natasha Lance Rogoff’s daunting challenge of making Sesame Street in post-Soviet Russia

• 40 mins

A map and a mission: On the trail of my family's buried silver

A hand-drawn treasure map took Jan Glazewski from South Africa to a forest in Ukraine

• 40 mins

Revelations from El Salvador that healed my family

Roberto Lovato didn't understand his dad until he discovered the history of his homeland

• 26 mins

The fearless former nun fighting for India's seamstresses

From convent to marriage to factory floor, Thivya will stand up for herself, and you

• 40 mins

Bringing the beat back: The accidental heroes of hip hop

The self-taught teen funk musicians who unknowingly shaped the golden age of hip hop

• 40 mins

Breaking my addiction to war

Fergal Keane's work as a war correspondent was destroying him, but he couldn't stop

• 40 mins

I didn’t know I was part of an experiment

When Greenlander Helene Thiesen was just seven, two Danish men came to take her away

• 40 mins

From teen single mother to top gourmet chef

Claudette Zepeda overcame huge hurdles to wow the culinary world with her Mexican food

• 26 mins

The chicken who sailed the world

Guirec Soudée sailed around the world with just his chicken Monique for company

• 40 mins

Cockroaches, mice and mouldy walls: Why I fight for better homes

Kwajo Tweneboa’s own experience inspired him to stand up for Britain's poorest tenants

• 40 mins

We left as kayakers and came back as dissidents

Andrzej and Jacek escaped Communist Poland on an adventure. Life would never be the same

• 40 mins

How a kids’ TV star ended up on China’s most wanted list

Uyghur Gulchehra Hoja’s heavy price for leaving China and becoming a dissident reporter

• 40 mins

The sport I love damaged my brain

Former rugby player Alix Popham can't remember some of his finest moments on the pitch

• 26 mins

An SMS changed our lives: 'Brother. do. you. love. me.'

Brothers Manni and Reuben Coe, and the text that prompted a lockdown rescue mission

• 40 mins

How a camera lens helped us rediscover our love

Yemeni couple Mariam and Mohammed experienced war and loss but found solace in filmmaking

• 40 mins

Terror below deck: How I survived a pirate hijack

The marine engineer held hostage by pirates for eight gruelling months

• 40 mins

Falling in love with the Tinder Swindler

Norwegian Cecilie Fjellhøy on the fateful Tinder match that led her to bankruptcy

• 40 mins

How the girl who was denied an education founded her own school

As a child Ashwini Angadi was turned away from school because of her visual impairment

• 26 mins

Italy’s revolutionary basketball team

Massimo Antonelli set up team Tam Tam, and blazed a trail for 'foreign' kids in sport

• 40 mins

Eyes on the prize: Pakistan’s first trans film star

Rejected by family and society, Alina Khan carved her own path to big screen fame

• 40 mins

My long-distance race to making an Oscar-nominated film

The triathlete behind 'All Quiet on the Western Front'

• 40 mins

Michael Rosen’s stories for life: The happy, silly, and sad

Children have been captivated by Michael’s poems, but his work has also dealt with loss

• 40 mins

I was surfing world champion but no one knew my name

Pauline Menczer won her title in 1993 with the odds stacked against her in every way

• 26 mins

My dad helped me across the Olympic finish line

Derek Redmond was competing at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics when he tore his hamstring

• 40 mins

Miracle at Point Nemo: Rescued from the remotest spot on Earth

Isabelle Autissier was alone in the Pacific, trapped in a capsized boat

• 40 mins