Cameroon’s mysterious lake deaths

In 1986, remote parts of Cameroon were turned into ghost villages overnight

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Tanzania adopts Swahili to unite the country

Tanzania's leader, Julius Nyerere, made Swahili the official language in the early 1960s

• 9 mins

World's first solar-heated home

In 1948, the Dover Sun House, in the US, was the first home to be heated by solar power

• 9 mins

La Haine: The film that shocked France

How Mathieu Kassovitz's critique of policing shocked French society

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Thousands of Danish brains in plastic buckets

In 1945, a collection that would amass 9,479 brains was started

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A Greek coup: The day the colonels took power

In 1967, army officers seized power in Greece in a US-backed coup

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‘The disappeared’ of Argentina

In 1977 a woman became one of thousands who disappeared from the streets of Buenos Aires

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The release of DOOM

In 1993, a controversial sci-fi video game called DOOM was released

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Murder of the Romanovs

In 1918, the Russian royal family were killed by the Bolsheviks

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Yeltsin speaks at the reburial of the Romanovs

In 1998, the Russian president condemned the Soviet violence that killed Tsar Nicholas II

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Anna Akhmatova: The poet who defied a regime

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

• 9 mins

Vatican citizen Emanuela Orlandi disappears

In 1983, a suspected kidnapping led to scandal

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The funeral of Nelson Mandela

In 2013, South Africa's first black president was buried in his ancestral village

• 9 mins

Tsunami devastates Samoa

In 2009 a tsunami killed 149 people. Lumepa Hald tells the story of destruction and loss

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The assassination of King Faisal

In 1975, the king of Saudi Arabia was shot by his nephew

• 9 mins

The mysterious death of Pablo Neruda

In 1973, the poet and prominent communist tried to flee persecution in Chile

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Al Jazeera Three: Imprisoned in Egypt

There was an international outcry in 2014 when three journalists were imprisoned in Egypt

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'The bad boy of Welsh politics'

In 1969, the singer Dafydd Iwan campaigned for official recognition of the Welsh language

• 9 mins

Inventing Nutella

How the chocolate and hazelnut spread was created in 1946

• 9 mins

Kiwi: How New Zealand hijacked China's fruit

How the Chinese gooseberry became the kiwi and one of New Zealand’s biggest exports

• 9 mins

Flavr Savr tomato: The world's first genetically-engineered food

In 1994, a tomato became the world's first genetically-engineered food on sale

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The disputed history of pad Thai

Exploring the different theories behind the creation of pad Thai

• 9 mins

Ken Hom's 'Chinese Cookery'

In 1984, Ken Hom taught TV audiences to cook Chinese food for the first time

• 9 mins

Earth: A pale blue dot in the universe

In 1990, a space probe's photograph of Earth captured the enormity of space

• 9 mins

Discovery of the hole in the earth’s ozone

In 1985, news broke of a major environmental discovery: a hole in the earth’s ozone layer

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The invention of the wingsuit

In 1999, skydiver Jari Kuosma developed the first commercial wingsuit

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The Hindenburg airship disaster

In 1937, the Hindenburg bust into flames during mooring, killing 35 people on board.

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What the 1989 solar storm did to Quebec

In 1989, a huge solar flare ground life to a halt in Quebec

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The world’s first lesbian couple to get married

In 2001, the Netherlands became the first country to legalise gay marriage

• 9 mins

The mystery of France's lost king

The fate of Louis-Charles, imprisoned in 1795, was for years shrouded in rumour

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Russian ballerina defects to the West

In 1970 Natalia Makarova became the first female ballet star to defect from Russia

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The first World Laughter Day

The first World Laughter Day took place in Mumbai, India in January 1998

• 9 mins

Gürtel scandal: Spain's Watergate

How one man's secret recordings revealed one of Spain's biggest corruption scandals

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The hunger-striking Bolivian president

In 1984, President Zuazo went on hunger strike, in an attempt to stabilise Bolivia

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The Green March: Moroccans take over the Sahara

In 1975, unarmed Moroccans faced off against gun-carrying Spanish soldiers

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Tortured in Iran's Evin Prison

Protests after Iran's 2009 election caused one man to be interrogated for 118 days

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Ibadan Zoo

Bob Golding turned Ibadan Zoo into one of Nigeria's biggest attractions in the 1970s

• 9 mins

Jamuna Tudu: The real life 'Lady Tarzan'

In the early 2000s, a woman known as ‘Lady Tarzan’ fought India’s so called timber mafia

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Vidkun Quisling: Norway’s traitor

In 1939, Vidkun Quisling asked Hitler to invade Norway

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Axis Sally: World War II traitor who broadcast for the Nazis

Mildred Gillars became the first woman in American history to be convicted of treason

• 9 mins

Wang Jingwei: China’s traitor or protector?

The national hero was branded a traitor for collaborating with Japan during World War Two

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The Hungarian footballer executed for love

Sándor Szűcs was hanged for trying to escape communist Hungary with his lover

• 9 mins

Jack Strong aka Ryszard Kukliński: Cold War traitor or hero?

During the Cold War a high-ranking Polish colonel passed Soviet secrets to the CIA

• 9 mins

Silenced by the Vatican

How Brazilian priest Leonardo Boff was punished for his writing on liberation theology

• 9 mins

Brazil's Landless Workers Movement

In 1980, poor rural workers occupied land owned by the rich and violent clashes followed

• 9 mins

The Arctic’s doomsday seed vault

In 2008, seeds began arriving at a frozen vault designed to save the world’s food supply

• 9 mins

First internet cafe

Cyberia, billed as the World's first internet cafe opened in London in 1994

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Inventing the Covid N95 mask

In 1992, Peter Tsai invented the N95 mask filter

• 9 mins

Queen of the 'fro

In 1986, Charlotte Mensah went to work in the UK's first luxury Afro-Caribbean hair salon

• 9 mins

How a young mother was saved from death by stoning

In 2003, human rights lawyer Hauwa Ibrahim defended Amina Lawal from death by stoning

• 9 mins

Lucha Reyes: Peruvian music star

She overcame poverty, health problems and racism to become one of Peru’s greatest singers

• 9 mins

How Rosa Parks took a stand against racism

Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her bus seat helped end segregation in the United States

• 9 mins

The Battle of Versailles: Catwalk clash of American and French fashion

In 1973 a fashion show was held in France which the media dubbed the Battle of Versailles

• 9 mins

The WW2 escape line that fooled the Nazis

In 1940 a rescue operation helped Allied servicemen escape from Nazi-occupied France

• 9 mins

Patty Hearst: Rebel heiress

In 1974, a kidnapped socialite joined forces with her captors

• 9 mins

The Juliet letters

Since the 1990s the Juliet Club has answered letters to the Shakespearian heroine

• 9 mins

The small Irish town known as ‘Little Brazil’

How Gort in the west of Ireland became home to so many Brazilians

• 9 mins

Supermalt: The malt drink created after the Nigerian civil war

In 1972, a Danish brewery created Supermalt

• 9 mins

The Soviet scientist who made two-headed dogs

Soviet scientist Vladimir Demikhov shocked the world with his two-headed dog experiments

• 9 mins

Icelandic women's strike

In 1975, 90% of all women in Iceland took part in a massive nationwide protest

• 9 mins

Trans murder in Honduras

The 2009 murder of Vicky Hernandez forced recognition of transgender rights in Honduras

• 9 mins

Columbus Lighthouse

A memorial for the ashes of Christopher Columbus opened in the Dominican Republic in 1992

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Whistler: Creating one of the world’s biggest ski resorts

In 2003, Whistler Blackcomb won its bid to host the Winter Olympics

• 9 mins

Russia annexes Crimea

In 2014, Russia took over the Crimean peninsula

• 9 mins

Crimea's Soviet holiday camp

The hugely popular Soviet holiday camp, Artek

• 9 mins

The lost Czech scrolls

The Torah scrolls stolen by the Nazis, rescued by an London Jewish community.

• 9 mins

The discovery of the Lord of Sipan in Peru

In 1987, the looting of an ancient pyramid led to an extraordinary golden discovery

• 9 mins

The Whisky War: Denmark v Canada

Beginning in 1984, a dispute over an island was marked by geniality, and bottles of booze

• 9 mins

Uruguay v the tobacco giant

In 2010, Uruguay was taken to court by a tobacco company for its trailblazing smoking ban

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French child evacuees of World War Two

In World War Two, tens of thousands of children left Paris to escape the threat of bombs

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The Carnation Revolution in Portugal

In 1974, a 41-year regime was overthrown in a day

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Rehabilitating Kony's child soldiers in Uganda

In 2002, a nun was sent to northern Uganda to help those suffering from a bloody conflict

• 9 mins

MH370: The plane that vanished

Ghyslain Wattrelos' wife and two children were on MH370, the plane that disappeared.

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11M: The day Madrid was bombed

Nearly 200 died when Spanish commuter trains were bombed in 2004

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Finding the longest set of footprints left by the first vertebrate

In 1992 a student found a set of fossilised footprints from the earliest vertebrate

• 9 mins

Paraguay adopts its second language

How Guarani was officially recognised in Paraguay’s new constitution

• 9 mins

Winifred Atwell: The honky-tonk star who was Sir Elton John’s hero

The forgotten story of Winifred Atwell, the pianist from Trinidad who broke sales records

• 9 mins

The last eruption of Mount Vesuvius

Vesuvius is famous for burying Pompeii but it last erupted in 1944, during World War Two

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Pinyin: The man who helped China to read and write

In 1958, Zhou Youguang introduced a new writing system in China

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Surviving re-education in China’s Cultural Revolution

Thousands of people were sent to re-education camps during China’s cultural revolution

• 9 mins

The 'comfort women' of World War Two

Hundreds of thousands of Asian women were forced into sex slavery in the 1930s and 1940s

• 9 mins

Discovering the Terracotta Army

In 1974, Chinese farmers stumbled upon an astonishing archaeological site

• 9 mins

Wham! in China

How Wham! became the first Western pop act to perform in communist China

• 9 mins

Britain's Mirpuri migration

In 1967, the Mangla Dam was built in Mirpur, Pakistan, spurring a huge global migration

• 9 mins

The Heimlich Manoeuvre

How the life-saving method to stop choking was developed

• 9 mins

Britain's first beach for nudists

In 1980, a seaside town opened a beach where people could strip off as they pleased

• 9 mins

The founding of Nato

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed to block the Soviet Union's expansion

• 9 mins

Surviving the Rwandan genocide

April 1994 was the start of the Rwandan genocide. One hundred days of atrocities followed

• 9 mins

Fifty years of Abba

In 1974, Swedish act Abba won the Eurovision song contest

• 9 mins

The man who invented the seat belt

In 1958, Swedish engineer Nils Bohlin invented the three-point safety belt for cars

• 9 mins

Sweden's pioneering paternity leave

Fifty years ago Sweden introduced gender neutral parental leave

• 9 mins

The Bluetooth story

Bluetooth was invented in the 1990s in Lund, Sweden

• 9 mins

Sweden's Cinnamon Bun Day

In 1999, a delicious new tradition was born in Sweden's kitchens

• 9 mins

Bonus: The Black 14

The lives of 14 black American footballers are changed forever in a fight against racism

• 32 mins

The 2010 Kampala bombings

Bombings in Uganda in 2010 killed 74. Many were football fans watching the World Cup

• 9 mins

How Lake Karla in Greece was drained

In 1962, Thessaly’s Lake Karla was drained by the Greek government

• 9 mins

The Scream: A stolen masterpiece

In 1994, an undercover operation was launched to recover the Scream painting

• 9 mins

St Teresa of Avila's severed hand

How General Franco kept the hand of St Teresa of Avila for spiritual guidance

• 9 mins

Hiroo Onoda, Japan’s last WW2 soldier to surrender

Hiroo Onoda spent 30 years fighting in the jungle, believing the war was still going on

• 9 mins