How a tiny Pacific Island became a limbo for asylum seekers Read more
now playing
Refugee Island
How a tiny Pacific Island became a limbo for asylum seekers
When US police dropped explosives on a Philadelphia home
How 11 people died when explosives were dropped on a house by a police helicopter
The Sharpeville massacre
In 1960, South African police shot dead 69 black protestors, sparking worldwide outrage
Churchill's 'Iron Curtain' speech
How the historic speech in March 1946 came to symbolise the beginnings of the Cold War
The women of Egypt's Arab Spring
In 2011 women were at the forefront of protests calling for a change in power in Egypt
Cixi: China's most powerful woman
She was the power behind the Chinese throne for decades
Jane: The underground abortion network
How feminists ended up performing abortions for women in 1960s America
The woman who asked Britain to return the Parthenon marbles
Melina Mercouri, actress turned politician, requested the marbles be returned to Greece
The first Indian to win Miss World
Reita Faria was the first Indian to win the Miss World beauty competition in 1966
Paris is Burning
The groundbreaking film about drag queens and LGBTQ+ people in New York
Jamaica鈥檚 鈥榙rug lord鈥
The hunt for the Jamaican drug lord which left dozens of civilians dead
Alva Myrdal - the woman who made modern Sweden
The story of Swedish social reformer, Alva Myrdal, who won the Nobel peace prize in 1982
Mars-500 isolation experiment
Why six men were locked inside a spacecraft on earth for 520 days
The dirtiest chess match in history
How the 1978 World Chess Championship was overshadowed by allegations of dirty tricks
The Ulster Workers' Strike
Protestant workers went on strike in Northern Ireland in 1974
Banksy鈥檚 first street art mural
It鈥檚 difficult to pinpoint the first major piece of Banksy street art, could this be it?
The woman who got America talking about sex
Dr Ruth Westheimer first became popular on a radio show in New York in the early 1980s
South Africa takes on big pharma
The fight between Big Pharma and South Africa over the right to import cheap drugs.
The fight against slavery in Mauritania
Brahim Bilal Ramdhane was born into slavery in the 1960s, now he fights against it.
Anorexia nervosa
The death of the singer, Karen Carpenter, showed how devastating the illness could be.
When the prisoners ran the prison
Prisoners at Walpole maximum security prison were in charge for three months in 1973
Mrs Thatcher鈥檚 ground-breaking Soviet TV interview
How Mrs Thatcher shook up the Soviet media with a landmark interview in Moscow.
Kidnapped on an orchid hunt
How two Englishmen were seized by Colombian rebels while crossing the lawless Darien Gap
Black Jesus
In 1967 an African American church minister began preaching that Jesus was black.
The women who reclaimed the night
How women in England took to the streets to protest against a serial killer
Mexico's female serial killer
Juana Barraza was found guilty of murdering at least eleven elderly women in Mexico city
David Attenborough's first expedition
The 成人快手 programme that launched the career of the famous nature broadcaster
From Leningrad to St Petersburg
How the people of Russia's second city dropped the great communist leader's name
Discovering the Jet Stream
Air raids and balloon bombs - the strange story behind the discovery of the Jet Stream
The US Supreme Court's first woman justice
In 1981 Sandra Day O'Connor became the first woman judge at America's top court
How a worm helped explain human development
The nematode worm c. elegans has enabled all sorts of discoveries about human biology