The Lampedusa shipwreck tragedy

In 2013, a ship carrying more than 500 migrants sank off the coast of Lampedusa.

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The first cat cafe

In 1998, the world’s first cat cafe opened in Taiwan

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The oil crisis of 1973

In October 1973, Arab nations slashed oil production causing prices to sky rocket

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The oilfield that changed Kazakhstan

In 1993 Kazakhstan partnered with Chevron and started drilling for oil

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Nigeria strikes oil

In 1956 commercial quantities of oil were discovered in Nigeria

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The Amoco Cadiz oil spill

In 1978, a crude oil tanker was shipwrecked off the coast of France

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Protectors of the Amazon

In 2003, the Sarayaku community began a legal battle against an oil company

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Yinka Shonibare: Nelson's Ship in a Bottle

On 24 May 2010, artist Yinka Shonibare unveiled his sculpture, Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle

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The 84-year-old primary school pupil

In 2004, Kenyan great grandfather Kimani Maruge became the oldest person to start school

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Theodosia Okoh: Designer of Ghana’s flag

Ghana's independence in 1957 was marked with a new flag designed by Theodosia Okoh

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Kwame Nkrumah: Ousted from power

In 1966, Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah, one of Africa's most famous leaders was ousted from power

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Surviving an acid attack and changing the law

In 2013, acid attack survivors in India celebrated a landmark Supreme Court ruling

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Cambodian peace walk

In 1992, Cambodia held its first peace walk aimed at uniting a country torn apart by war

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Rana Plaza building collapse

In 2013, an eight-storey building in Bangladesh collapsed killing more than 1,000 people

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Mexico’s murdered women

In the 1990s, hundreds of young women were murdered in a Mexican border town

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Launching Lagos Fashion Week

Lagos Fashion Week was launched in 2011 putting Nigerian style on the global map

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Osmondmania

Donny Osmond shares his memories of teen hysteria in 1973

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The first Bosphorus Bridge

In 1973, the first bridge connecting Europe and Asia was completed

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The 1980 Turkey coup

On 12 September 1980, the military took control of Turkey

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The 1993 MAD hijack

In 1993, a Nigerian Airways flight from Lagos to Abuja was hijacked

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'The streets of Harare were littered with money'

Professor Gift Mugano describes when Zimbabwe’s inflation hit 89.7 sextillion per cent

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Turkey: Gezi Park protests

In 2013 protests in Istanbul’s Gezi Park led to civil unrest across Turkey

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The billion dollar bid to stop oil drilling in the Amazon

In 2010 a $3.6billion fund began to stop oil drilling in Ecuador’s Yasuni national park

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The discovery of the HIV virus

In 1983, scientists at the Pasteur Institute in Paris first discovered the HIV virus

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Inventing the black box

In 1962 a prototype of the cockpit flight recorder was tested in Australia

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Che Guevara’s daughter: A Cuban doctor in Angola

In 1986 Dr Aleida Guevara travelled from Cuba to treat children in communist Angola

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Freddie Mercury 'marries' Jane Seymour

The actress Jane Seymour shares what it was like being rock star Freddie Mercury's bride

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Ycuá Bolaños supermarket fire

More than 300 people died in Paraguay's capital in 2004

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Debbie McGee in Iran

Showbiz star, Debbie McGee describes being caught up in the Iranian revolution in 1978

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The Pakistani teens who became disco superstars

How Nazia and Zoheb Hassan changed South-East Asian pop with their album, Disco Deewane

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Destruction of Mostar Bridge

On 9 November 1993 the historic bridge was destroyed during the Bosnian War

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The hippo and the tortoise

In 2004, a hippo and a tortoise became friends. Their story gained worldwide fame

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The invention of the EpiPen

How engineer Sheldon Kaplan and his team made the EpiPen, the lifesaving allergy device

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Eyjafjallajökull: The volcano that stopped a continent

In 2010, a cloud of volcanic ash brought Europe’s planes back to earth

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Rosalind Franklin: DNA pioneer

The scientist produced an X-ray photograph in 1952, that helped show the structure of DNA

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The Bolivian Water War

How Bolivians in the city of Cochabamba fought against the “leasing of the rain”

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Discovering the ancient city of Thonis-Heracleion

In 2000 Franck Goddio made one of the greatest ever underwater discoveries

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The independence of Zambia

How Zambia became independent in 1964

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The invention of bubble tea

Chun Shui Tang tea house in Taiwan began selling bubble tea in 1987

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Kennedy’s nail-biter election victory

In 1960, John F Kennedy became the youngest person to be elected United States president.

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The Paris heatwave

In 2003, Paris was overwhelmed by the hottest European heatwave for 500 years

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The Mumbai attacks

In 2008, 10 gunmen killed more than 100 people in Mumbai’s busiest hot spots

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Cabbage Patch Kids

Christmas 1983 saw frenzied shoppers buy three million Cabbage Patch Kids

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The bird that defied extinction

In 1977, the white-winged guan was rediscovered in Peru after a century

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Inventing Nutella

How the chocolate and hazelnut spread was created in 1946

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Kiwi: How New Zealand hijacked China's fruit

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

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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

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Ken Hom's 'Chinese Cookery'

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

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Earth: A pale blue dot in the universe

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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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Silenced by the Vatican

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

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Brazil's Landless Workers Movement

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

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The Arctic’s doomsday seed vault

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

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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

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Queen of the 'fro

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

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How a young mother was saved from death by stoning

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

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Lucha Reyes: Peruvian music star

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

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How Rosa Parks took a stand against racism

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

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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

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The WW2 escape line that fooled the Nazis

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

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Patty Hearst: Rebel heiress

In 1974, a kidnapped socialite joined forces with her captors

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