Witness History: Archive 2012

Twenty-five years ago, during the Cold War, a German teenager Mathias Rust, managed to evade Soviet air defences to land his single-engine plane in Moscow's Red Square.

Photo Associated Press: Rust's plane in Red Square in 1987.

On 6 December 1989, a college shooting in Canada left 14 women dead. The killer sent all the men out of the classroom before opening fire on the women. One of the survivors, tells her story.

Photo: Marc Lepine, the killer. Credit: Associated Press.

In 1952, the worst smog in living memory descended over London, reducing visibility so badly that people could barely see a metre in front of them.

Public transport came to a standstill, cinemas and theatres closed, and the weekend's football matches were cancelled.

The pollution also caused the early deaths of around 5,000 Londoners and finally forced the government to tackle pollution.

Witness speaks to Rosemary Merritt, whose father died in the smog.

PHOTO: Getty Images.

In 1932 a row between England and Australia over cricket became a diplomatic incident.

The row erupted over controversial "Bodyline" tactics used by the English cricket team to win the Ashes.

Photo: Australian captain W Woodfull ducks to avoid rising ball from Larwood. Getty Images

In December 1984 thousands of people in the Indian city of Bhopal were killed by leak from a chemical plant. The city was enveloped by a cloud of poisonous gas. Two survivors of the disaster have spoken to Witness.

Photo:Waiting for treatment outside the hospital. Copyright: Bedi/AFP/Getty Images

It is 60 years since newspapers in the US announced the successful operation of Christine Jorgensen. Once a soldier called George, she transformed herself into a woman and a glamorous Hollywood star.

In November 1979 Iranian revolutionaries stormed the US embassy in Tehran taking everyone inside hostage. But six Americans escaped - they sought refuge in the Canadian embassy. Their story is told in the Hollywood movie Argo.

Canadian Ambassador Ken Taylor had to get them safely out of the country.

Photo: Iranians climbing the gates of the US embassy at the beginning of the hostage crisis. Copyright: AFP/Getty Images.

He was one of the most prolific art forgers of the 20th Century. A talented painter in his own right he became disillusioned with the art world and enjoyed fooling the experts. His drawings found their way into many of the grandest galleries in the world.

Image: Boy with a dog. Stefano della Bella, Imitator British, National Gallery of Canada. Photo ©NGC

In November 2005 doctors in France carried out the first ever face transplant. The patient, Isabelle Dinoire, had lost part of her face after being mauled by her pet dog.

In a rare interview, Isabelle talks about how she has struggled coming to terms with her new appearance.

Photo: Isabelle Dinoire at a press conference just months after her transplant operation. (AFP/Getty Images)

In November 1975, an incredible mutiny took place aboard a Soviet warship, the Storozhevoy, in the Baltic sea. The Kremlin ordered the Soviet military to sink the ship. We speak to Boris Gindin, one of the survivors of the mutiny.

Photo: A Soviet frigate similar to the Storozhevoy.

Twenty years ago the world's first webcam was created - and it was pointed at a pot of coffee. A camera was set up because computer scientists wanted to be able to see if a coffee pot in a room at Cambridge University was was full and fresh - or empty - and thus not worth a journey to the room where the coffee pot was kept. Soon computer geeks around the world were checking it daily.

Lee Harvey Oswald, the man accused of killing President John F Kennedy in November 1963 had spent more than two years living in the USSR. He had defected there after serving as a US Marine. He got a job in Minsk, and got married but was then welcomed back to the USA.

Photo: Associated Press, Lee Harvey Oswald in police custody.

In November 1969 the first President of Uganda, Edward Mutesa, died in exile in London.

He had been forced to flee his homeland by Milton Obote.

He died in a small flat in Bermondsey - and his friends still dispute the reasons for his death.

Photo: The Kabaka Edward Mutesa II with Pope Pius XII in 1951. AFP/GettyImages

In November 1992, a fire devastated Windsor Castle - a symbol of the British monarchy and Queen Elizabeth's weekend home. Coming at the end of a year of family problems, the blaze upset the Queen deeply and led her to declare 1992 her "Annus Horribilis".

Sir Hugh Roberts, one of the Queen's art experts, recalls the fire and the five-year project to restore Windsor Castle to its former glory.

PHOTO: Press Association.

In November 1971 a young American artist decided to get a friend to take a shot at him. His name was Chris Burden and the shooting would go down in the history of performance art. He has been speaking to Witness about the ideas behind the event.

In the 1960s, a wave of strikes and protest marches by Mexican-American farm-workers inspired Latinos across the US.

The movement was led by Cesar Chavez - a man now regarded by his community as a civil rights hero.

Witness speaks to Dolores Huerta, who worked closely with Chavez and coined the slogan "Yes We Can!"

In the 1970s the Filipino government annouced they had discovered a group of cave dwellers who were still living as people did in the stone age. But the tribe turned out to be a hoax that fooled the scientific community.

Photo: Members of the Tasaday tribe photographed by Oswald Iten in the 1980s after they admitted the hoax.

A Chinese government think tank has recommended bringing an end to the one-child policy.

It was launched in the late 1970s to tackle China's expanding population.

Hear from one woman about her personal experience of the one-child programme.

Photo: Reuters.

It's 27 years since more than 20,000 people died when a volcano erupted in western Colombia. The town of Armero disappeared under tonnes of mud, lava and water. Gilma Murillo was among the survivors. She spent 18 hours clinging onto a tree.

Photo: Gilma Murillo today.

In 1984 doctors in California tried a revolutionary operation on a two-week-old baby girl. She had been born with a fatal heart condition - but there was no infant human donor available. Hear from the lead surgeon, and an intensive care nurse involved in the fight to save Baby Fae's life.

Photo: Baby Fae listening to her mother's voice in the isolation unit. Courtesy of Loma Linda Hospital

The memories of a German Jew who grew up across the street from Adolf Hitler. As a young boy, Edgar Feuchtwanger watched the comings and goings at the Nazi leader's luxury flat.

Edgar's family were forced to flee Germany after the Nazis attacked Jewish homes and properties on Kristallnacht in November 1938.

Photo: Edgar aged 12, courtesy of Feuchtwanger family.

In 1789, one of the most famous naval mutinies of all time took place near Tahiti. Mutineers led by a young officer called Fletcher Christian took control of the British ship, casting its commander, William Bligh, adrift in the uncharted South Seas.

Using contemporary eye-witness accounts, Witness pieces together what happened.

Image: William Bligh is set adrift. Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

One of the longest-serving leaders of the Soviet Union died on the 10 of November 1982. Hear about his final moments and the glitch at his state funeral.

Photo: Associated Press

In London in 1984, a joint Nigerian-Israeli team attempted to kidnap and repatriate the exiled former Nigerian minister Umaru Dikko.

Dikko, who'd fled Nigeria after a military coup, was accused of stealing $1 billion of government money.

We hear from Charles David Morrow, the young British customs officer who foiled the kidnap plot.

Photo: Umaru Dikko shortly after his release. BBC

In the 1930s the Nazi party hatched a secret plan to breed an elite race of blonde blue eyed children. Young German women were told it was their duty to have affairs with SS officers in order to create Aryan babies. The breeding programme was managed by the Lebensborn organisation. Image: Ayran German children greet Hitler in 1937 (Getty Images)

At the age of 30, the British photographer, Don McCullin, travelled to Asia for his second ever war assignment - Vietnam.

His graphic photographs of the fighting made his reputation and influenced public opinion in the West.

But even now, McCullin is still pained by his experiences in Vietnam.

PHOTO: Don McCullin with his iconic photo of a US marine. (AFP/Getty Images)

In 1985 a Frankfurt theatre attempted to stage a play by the provocative German writer, Rainer Werner Fassbinder. But the local Jewish community said the work was anti-semitic. Hear from an actress, and a protestor involved in the controversy.

Photo: Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Copyright: BBC

It is 95 years since the October Revolution which led to the creation of the Soviet Union.

Hear an account from the BBC's archive, of a young woman living in Moscow.

Photo: A demonstration in Moscow during the revolution. AFP/Getty Images

Allen Ginsberg first read his poem Howl, in San Francisco in October 1955.

It marked a turning point in American literature.

Michael McClure, a fellow poet, took part in the reading that night.

Photo: Allen Ginsberg with other poets in 1965. Express/Getty Images.

Fifty years ago, the USA and the Soviet Union were poised to go to war over nuclear weapons in Cuba.

The Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev finally offered to withdraw the missiles as the crisis came to a head.

His son Sergei remembers those fraught few days.

Photo: Courtesy of Sergei Khrushchev.

In the autumn of 1980 one of the longest wars of the 20th Century began.

For more than seven years conscripts from both sides found themselves living in trenches under enemy fire.

Hear from a young Iraqi medic who ended up on the front line.

Photo:An Iraqi tank north of Baghdad. AFP/Getty Images.

It is 10 years since heavily-armed Chechen rebels took an entire theatre full of people hostage. They threatened to kill them all if the Russian government didn't call off the war in Chechnya.

When Russian special forces stormed the theatre they let off gas to stun the Chechens - it killed many of the hostages as well.

Photo: AFP/Getty Images

On October 24 1929, the New York Stock Exchange began to plummet.

It would continue to fall for more than two years and when it finally settled - America had entered the Great Depression.

Hear testimonies from the BBC's archive.

Photo: Copyright Getty Images

It is 50 years since the beginning of the Cuban Missile Crisis, bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war.

Witness hears from a Cuban who found himself caught up in events as the Soviet missiles were moved into place.

(Photo: US-taken aerial view of a Soviet Medium Range Ballistic Missile site on Cuba. Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

It's 15 years since an extraordinary building was opened in a Spanish industrial city.

Designed by the American architect Frank Gehry, it was an immediate success.

The museum has helped transform the city that surrounds it.

Photo: BBC

The last serious attempt to end Colombia's long civil war was more than a decade ago.

Talks between the government and the Farc rebels eventually broke down after three years.

Ex President Andres Pastrana led the government's failed bid for peace.

(Photo: A rebel of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,FARC.AP)

British troops liberated Greece from the Nazis in October 1944.

But what followed was a fight against Communism that developed into civil war.

Photo: Communist partisans being arrested in Athens in December 1944. AFP

The Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.

Dino Brugioni was a CIA expert whose job was to interpret the photographs of missiles in Cuba.

Photo: President Kennedy in the White House during the crisis. Associated Press

It is 35 years since the opening of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art.

It contains one of the finest collections of modern Western art outside Europe and North America.

Hear from its founder and architect - Kamran Diba

Photo: A woman visitor to the Museum. AFP/Getty Images.

It is 25 years since the most in-depth and expensive survey of Loch Ness.

The scientists were searching for infallible evidence of the mythical monster.

Hear from the man in charge of Operation Deepscan - Adrian Shine.

(Image: A 1934 picture of the alleged monster. Credit: Getty Images)

How the Soviet dissident smuggled his writing to the outside world.

A young Swedish journalist became his courier to the West.

His first mission was to take Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Nobel Prize acceptance speech out of Moscow.

Photo: Stig Fredriksen with Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Picture by Ingrid Fredriksen.

In 1965 the Latin-American revolutionary went to fight with rebels in the Congo.

Che Guevera and around 200 Cuban soldiers spent seven months in the jungle, waging guerrilla war against the US-backed Congolese army.

Guevara later described the diaries he kept about his time in Africa as "the history of a failure."

(Photo: Che Guevara shaving while crossing Lake Taganika in the Congo/ AFP/ AFP/Getty Images)

In 1985 the crew and passengers of an Italian luxury cruise liner were held hostage by gunmen from the Palestine Liberation Front in the Red Sea.

The hijackers spent three days attempting to negotiate the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails before trying to make a get away.

Photo: The Achille Lauro and Egyptian security forces. AFP/Getty Images.

In October 1986 a CIA plane carrying arms to "contra" rebels was shot down in Nicaragua.

There was one survivor, a former US marine named Eugene Hasenfus.

American journalist James LeMoyne met Hasenfus shortly after his capture by the left-wing Sandinista government.

(Photo: Eugene Hasenfus at his trial in Nicaragua/ Getty Images)

In 1993, US forces were part of a UN mission to end the civil war and humanitarian crisis in Somalia.

But in October an operation by elite American troops in Mogadishu met fierce resistance.

It would have a major impact on US foreign policy.

(Image: UH60 Blackhawk US Army Gunship patrolling Mogadishu. Credit: AP)

It is 16 years since the Taliban took control of the Afghan capital.

One of their first acts was the killing of the former communist President Najibullah.

Hear from 2 people who were there that day.

Photo: Taliban fighters - Associated Press.

At the end of World War Two, many ethnic Germans in Central Europe were forced to leave their homes.

No longer welcome outside Germany they ended up in internment camps, sometimes for years at a time.

Hear from one woman who lived through that time.

(Photo: Martha Kent and her siblings after their release from Potulice concentration camp)

In September 2000 the Israeli opposition leader visited the Al-Aqsa compound in Jersualem's old city.

Hear from an Israeli, and a Palestinian who were there that day.

Photo: Ariel Sharon at the compound. Credit: AFP/Getty Images.

In September 1983 a group of IRA prisoners escaped from the high security Maze jail in Northern Ireland.

Most of them had been jailed for bombings and killings carried out as part of their campaign against British rule.

Hear from 'Bik' McFarlane - one of the leaders of the breakout.

(Image: The Maze prison with its H blocks Credit: Press Association)

It's 16 years since the closure of the last Magdalene laundry in Ireland.

The laundries were violent workhouses where young women and girls were forced to work for nothing - unable to leave.

They were run by Roman Catholic Nuns.

Photo: Ellen Murphy today

It is 55 years since a groundbreaking musical, West Side Story, opened on Broadway.

Hear from a dancer and a producer involved in the original show.

With music by Leonard Bernstein, it transferred the story of Romeo and Juliet to New York City.

Photo: Leonard Bernstein. Copyright BBC.

How Oxford academic JRR Tolkien came up with The Hobbit, a story that charmed children for generations.

Hear excerpts from the BBC's archive of interviews, including JRR Tolkien himself.

(Image: JRR Tolkien in 1967. Credit: Associated Press)

In 1998 a Roman Catholic Bishop killed himself in protest at Pakistan's blasphemy laws.

His name was Bishop John Joseph - and he believed that the laws were being used to persecute Christians.

Hear from a Catholic priest who knew him well, but who still believes he should not have taken his own life.

Photo: AFP/Getty Images.

Twenty-five years ago, a shipment of mules was sent from the USA to Afghanistan.

They were part of Ronald Reagan's effort to help fight the Soviets.

Witness hears from a Mujahideen commander and an American vet who dealt with the animals.

Photo: AFP/Getty images.

In the early 1950s, Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie sent thousands of Ethiopian troops to fight in the Korean war.

They were called the Kagnew Battalions.

They were part of the American-led UN force supporting the South against North Korea and their Chinese allies.

We hear the story of Captain Mamo Habtewold.

One girl's story of exile and soldiering during World War II.

Danuta Maczka was just 14 when her family was sent to Siberia in 1940.

By the time she was 16 she had been recruited into a Polish army in the Middle East and was fighting the Nazis.

Sixteen years ago, the American hip hop star Tupac Shakur was killed in a drive-by shooting.

His bodyguard Frank Alexander has been talking to Witness about that day.

Photo of Tupac Shakur in 1993. Associated Press.

It is 30 years since an Australian woman, Lindy Chamberlain, was accused of murdering her 9 week old baby.

Lindy claimed her daughter was stolen by a wild dog.

Photo: Getty Images

It is 30 years since a teenage Indian woman spread fear in the North East of the country.

She committed ruthless and violent acts as revenge, she said, for the abuse she had suffered at the hands of upper-caste men.

Listeners may find some of the descriptions of violence in this report shocking.

(Image: Phoolan Devi)

The Somali-born runner, Mo Farah, has become one of the heroes of the London 2012 Olympics after winning Gold in the 5,000 and 10,000 metres for his adopted country.

As Farah leads a parade of British athletes through London, Witness speaks to Alan Watkinson, the school sports teacher who transformed Farah's life.

(Image: Mo Farah. Credit: Associated Press)

In 1911, an American Indian called Ishi emerged from the North Californian forest after decades in hiding from Indian-hunters.

He is thought to be the last survivor from the Yahi tribe.

Ishi became a tourist attaction in San Francisco and many recordings were made of his stories and music.

Louise Hidalgo retraces Ishi's story.

PHOTO: Courtesy of the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, University of California.

In 1981 anti-apartheid protestors used a plane to attack South African rugby players.

They wanted to stop them from playing against New Zealand's All Blacks.

Hear from a player, and a protestor who were there.

In 1956 a Hungarian Cardinal sought refuge in the US Embassy in Budapest.

Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty had been imprisoned by the communists in 1948.

Released during the uprising against Soviet rule he faced re-arrest when Moscow ordered tanks into Budapest.

(Image: Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty. Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

In 1968, a riot overshadowed the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. An anti-Vietnam War protest had long been planned, but things soon spiralled out of control. Witness talks to one of the organisers of the protest, Tom Hayden, who was hoping to persuade the government to stop the war.

(Photo: APA/Getty Images)

Arnold Schwarzenegger first made his name in the 1960s as Mr Universe.

He was a shy young man with little English, but he took the world of bodybuilding by storm.

Witness meets two men who knew him in those days; a fellow competitor and a Mr Universe judge.

Picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger courtesy of Getty Images.

Diana, Princess of Wales, was killed in a car crash in Paris on 31 August 1997.

Her companion, Dodi al-Fayed and the driver of the car also died.

Witness speaks to one of her closest friends and a French doctor who attended the scene of the accident.

(Image: Princess Diana. Photo credit VINCENT AMALVY/AFP/Getty Images)

In 1999, the people of East Timor voted for independence from Indonesia.

In response, militias loyal to Jakarta went on the rampage killing up to 1,000 people and overwhelming the United Nations mission.

As the UN compound in Dili came under siege, British journalist Richard Lloyd Parry had to decide whether or not to stay in East Timor.

PHOTO: Pro-Indonesia militiamen in Dili (Associated Press)

In 1954 the president of Brazil, Getulio Vargas, chose to die rather than submit to the military.

His sudden death resulted in a wide expression of public grief.

His legacy was a letter to the Brazilian people that has passed into history.

(Image: Getulio Vargas)

In 1972, the world was transfixed by a Chess match.

At the height of the Cold War, volatile American Bobby Fischer took on Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union for the World Championship.

Played in Iceland, the showdown was known as the "Match of the Century".

Alex Last speaks to an Icelandic policeman who became a close companion of Bobby Fischer.

PHOTO: AP

On August 8th, 1963, a gang of thieves held up a Royal Mail train bound from Glasgow to London

They stole over £2 million.

Most of the Great Train robbers ended up behind bars, but most of the money has never been recovered.

Presented and produced by Chloe Hadjimatheou.

First broadcast on the BBC World Service in August 2012.

In August 1992, Hurricane Andrew hit southern Florida, killing 44 people and causing billions of dollars of damage.

Amid the chaos, weather forecaster Bryan Norcross stayed on air, dispensing calm advice to his viewers. The marathon broadcast made him a local hero.

Bryan Norcoss recalls the hurricane for Witness.

The audio in this programme was provided by The Lynn and Louis Wolfson II Florida Moving Image Archives

(Image: Two people clearing rubble away from their family store. Credit: AFP)

It's the summer of 1976 and the England cricket team is preparing for a series against the West Indies.

The England captain, the South African-born Tony Greig, says in a pre-series interview that he intends to make his opponents "grovel".

This was a highly provocative remark, made about a team of mainly black cricketers from the Caribbean in the era of apartheid; and a remark that Greig was made to regret once the teams took the field.

(Image: Man of the match Michael Holding acknowledging the crowd after the fifth test for the Wisden Trophy at the Oval in 1976. Credit: Getty Images)

The exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico City in August 1940, stabbed in the head with an ice-pick.

Trotsky's grandson, Esteban Volkov, then aged 14, lived with his grandfather, and describes arriving home from school that fateful day.

He also recalls a previous assassination attempt three months earlier.

Photo: Esteban Volkov with his grandparents, Leon Trotsky and Natalia Sedova (courtesy of Trotsky Museum, Mexico City)

In August 1965, at the age of just 20, the British cellist Jacqueline Du Pre recorded the Elgar cello concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir John Barbirolli.

It became one of the most famous classical recordings of the 20th Century.

Du Pre's career was cut short less than a decade later by multiple sclerosis.

(Image: Jacqueline Du Pre in rehearsal)

Former anti-apartheid activist Alpheus Manghezi recalls the day in August 1982 when his colleague Ruth First was killed by a parcel bomb delivered to her office. Both Manghezi and First were living in exile in Mozambique. Manghezi describes how he visited the scene together with the Mozambican president, Samora Machel. The assassins were later identified as agents of the South African state.

(Image: Former South African president Nelson Mandela unveiling a plaque dedicated to Ruth First and Joe Slovo in London. Credit: Getty Images)

On the 35th anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley, Witness goes back to a television special that revived his career at the end of the 1960s.

At the time, Elvis was struggling to compete against new bands such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

Witness speaks to Steve Binder, the director of what became known as the Comeback Special.

PHOTO: Elvis in the late 1960s. (Getty Images)

The daughter of the last British viceroy in India, Lord Mountbatten, remembers the transfer of power in 1947. Lady Pamela Hicks, who is now in her eighties, accompanied her father as he attended celebrations in both Karachi and Delhi. She remembers encounters both with Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founding father of Pakistan, and Pandit Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India.

For six years following the end of World War II in August 1945, Japan was occupied by the US.

Akira Iriye was ten years old at the time and vividly remembers the surrender of his country to the Allied forces and the arrival of the first American GIs in Tokyo.

(Photo: US President Harry S Truman holds up the official Japanese document of surrender with Emperor Hirohito's signature - Sept 1945. Getty Images)

Shawn Fanning talks about how, as a teenager, he founded the file sharing website Napster.

His was an extraordinary but shortlived success.

The site attracted millions of users but also became a target for the music industry. Founded in 1999, it was closed down in 2001.

(Image: Shawn Fanning. Credit: AP Photo/George Nikitin)

In 1964 an 18-year-old Scottish anarchist was part of an anti-Franco group in London. He smuggled explosives into Spain in a plot to kill General Franco.

Stuart Christie, who is now in his sixties, recalls his clandestine journey across Europe, the secret signals and passwords he used, and his eventual arrest by Franco's secret police.

Photo: Stuart Christie, photographed by Spanish police shortly after his arrest.

At the 1960 Olympics in Rome an Ethiopian athlete stunned the world.

He was the first black African to win an Olympic gold medal and he did it without wearing shoes.

Photo: AFP

It's quarter of a century since the world's most popular cosmetic treatment was discovered by two doctors working in Vancouver.

The husband and wife team discovered the skin-smoothing properties of botulinum toxin, which until then had been viewed primarily as a poison.

Photo: Associated Press

In 1968, seven Soviet intellectuals held a pioneering protest against the power of the Communist Party.

Held in Moscow's Red Square, the demonstration was against the Soviet decision to crush the reformist movement in Czechoslovakia known as the Prague Spring.

Although tiny in the number, the intellectuals attracted media attention in the West, even inspiring a protest song.

Dina Newman talks to Pavel Litvinov, who organised the Moscow demonstration.

In 1987, a 30-year-old American swimmer called Lynne Cox swam across the "Ice Curtain" between the USA and the Soviet Union.

The Diomede Islands in the Bering Strait were only 2.7 miles apart, but divided by near-freezing water and Cold War rivalry.

Lynne Cox talks to Witness.

Her experiences are also recalled in her autobiography, Swimming to Antarctica.

PHOTO: Lynne Cox on the Bering Strait. (Copyright Rich Roberts)

Omarska was the first concentration camp discovered in Europe since World War II.

One survivor, Satko Mujagic, tells of the torture and beatings inmates suffered during his ten weeks of incarceration.

(Image Survivors of Omarska. Credit AP)

Marilyn Monroe is perhaps Hollywood's most enduring sex symbol and on the 50th anniversary of her death, two of her photographers - Eve Arnold and George Barris - remember the woman, her charm, her insecurity, her films and her affairs.

(Image: Marilyn Monroe on set in the film, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Credit: AP Photo/Courtesy Running Press)

In 1947, Thor Heyerdahl sailed his balsa wood raft, the Kon-Tiki, across the Pacific Ocean to add weight to his belief that ancient peoples were capable of long sea journeys.

He also wanted to prove that it was possible that Polynesia was first colonised by natives of South America.

(Image: The Kon-Tiki raft. Credit: Getty Images)

In 1958, the nuclear submarine USS Nautilus travelled under the Arctic icecap to the North Pole.

Admiral Ken Carr remembers a mission spurred by the Cold War battle for technological supremacy.

(Image: the USS Nautilus)

It was one of the defining battles of the First World War.

Britain and its allies had ambitious plans to break through German lines - but they ended up mired in mud.

Listen to the voices of soldiers who took part - from the BBC archive.

Photo: Getty Images.

Eighteen years ago a little girl was raped and murdered in New Jersey, USA.

After her death her parents began campaigning for a change in the law to force public awareness of sex offenders.

(Photo: Megan's mother Maureen testifying at the trial of her murderer. Credit: AP)

How a mole in the KGB sent secrets to France and the USA in 1981.

His codename was 'Farewell' - and the information he gave to the West helped helped to hasten the end of the Soviet Union.

Photo: Francois Mitterand and Ronald Reagan outside the White House. AFP

It is 60 years since the Argentine first lady died.

During her short life she had become an icon for women and the poor in Argentina

Hear from two very different women who remember meeting her.

(Photo: Juan and Eva Peron in 1950. Credit: Associated Press)

In July 1978 the first baby to be conceived in a laboratory was born in England.

She was called Louise Brown and her mother had been treated with a new technique, in vitro fertilisation.

Millions of children have since been born using IVF.

(Photo: Louise Joy Brown. Credit: Getty Images)

After Theodore Roosevelt lost the American presidential election of 1912, he decided to explore an unknown tributary of the Amazon called the River of Doubt.

It was a trip that nearly killed both Roosevelt and his son, Kermit.

Witness brings together first-hand accounts of the trip, with the help of Candice Millard, author of River of Doubt - Roosevelt's Darkest Journey.

PHOTO: Roosevelt on the campaign trail in 1912 (Getty Images).

It is 25 years since the poet was imprisoned without trial in Malawi.

He was held for over 3 and a half years in one of Hastings Banda's jails.

Photo: Dr Jack Mapanje on his return to Malawi from exile in 1995.

Beginning in the 1950s the CIA made attempts to brainwash psychiatric patients in an effort to develop methods they could use in the Cold War.

Hear from one man whose father was experimented on by Canadian psychiatrists at the request of America's Central Intelligence Agency.

(Image: The CIA symbol is shown on the floor of CIA Headquarters, in Langley, Virginia. Credit: Getty Images)

In July 1997, the armed Basque separatist group, ETA, kidnapped a young local councillor called Miguel Blanco and threatened to kill him within 48 hours.

The ultimatum sparked nationwide protests against ETA on a scale never previously seen in Spain.

Witness speaks to former Spanish Interior Ministry official, Gustavo de Aristegui.

PHOTO: Miguel Angel Blanco's sister, Maria del Mar, in front of a mural of her brother. (Getty Images)

In July 1997 the Italian fashion designer, Gianni Versace, was shot dead outside his Miami mansion.

His murder set off a huge manhunt across the US and shocked the tightly-knit world of fashion.

(Image: The late Italian fashion designer Gianni Versace. Credit: Associated Press)

It is 35 years since the streets of the Big Apple were plunged into darkness.

In the height of a summer heatwave there were riots on the streets.

But as one New Yorker remembers - it wasn't all bad.

Photo: New Yorkers walking home in the dark. Copyright: Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

This weekend, the South African group Ladysmith Black Mambazo are reuniting with the American singer, Paul Simon, to play the Graceland album in full at a concert in London.

Recording the album in the mid-1980s turned the African choir into global superstars.

Albert Mazimbuko, one of Ladysmith Black Mambazo's oldest singers, recalls the making of Graceland for Witness.

PHOTO: Reuters

In July 1976 four foreign mercenaries were executed for their part in Angola's civil war.

Three of the men were from Britain, a fourth was from America.

American attorney Bob Cesner, was one of the defence lawyers.

(Image: Bob Cesner at the 1976 trial)

The BBC World Service is leaving Bush House in central London after 70 years there.

It first started broadcasting from the building during World War II.

Lisa Hirsch worked for the Yugoslav service, as a secretary and an announcer - she remembers the atmosphere and the people of the time.

Photo: Bush House control room in 1943.

After 70 years, the BBC World Service is leaving its home at Bush House in central London.

BBC Arts Reporter Vincent Dowd uncovers the story of Irving T Bush, the American businessman who gave his name to an iconic building.

(Image: Bush House)

It is 50 years since the first ever transatlantic satellite TV broadcast.

France, Britain and America worked together to make it happen.

Telstar was the name of the satellite which beamed the live pictures across the world.

Hear from one of the engineers who helped to make it possible.

On 7 July 2005, London was thrown into chaos by four bomb attacks.

Fifty two people were killed and hundreds injured - and even those who weren't physically injured were deeply affected.

Adela is just one young woman who was caught on a bombed underground train that day.

It is 50 years since the end of French colonial rule in Algeria.

It came after a bloody and brutal war for independence.

Hear the story of one young woman who joined the fight against France and paid a high price for her beliefs.

(Image: An Algerian flag. Credit: Reuters)

Egypt now has a president from the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist movement which began 84 years ago.

Its founder was Hassan al-Banna - an Egyptian teacher and imam.

His grandson, the Islamic intellectual, Tariq Ramadan talks to Witness.

(Image: An undated picture of Sheikh Hassan al-Banna (1906-1949), the founder of Egypt's Moslem Brotherhood. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

In 1982 4,000 people got married in a mass blessing carried out by Reverend Sun Myung Moon.

He founded the Unification Church in Korea and his followers believe he should choose their spouses.

Hear from an American bridegroom who married his Korean wife that day.

(Image: Philip Shanker and his Korean bride)

In July 1937 the female flyer disappeared in her plane somewhere over the Pacific Ocean.

She was attempting to fly around the world following the Equator.

With her record breaking solo fights and her striking looks she had become an international celebrity by the time she died.

Photo:Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan shortly before their disappearance. Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

During World War II, Allied bombing raids brought death and destruction to German cities.

A controversial memorial to the British aircrew who flew on bombing missions is being unveiled in London.

Douglas Hudson is one of the airmen who took part - many of his fellow fighters were shot down.

(Image: British Airforce AVRO Lancaster Bomber of the 50 Squadron in flight during World War II. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

In 1997 Hong Kong was handed back to China after 150 years of British rule.

There were ceremonies and fireworks to celebrate the end of colonialism - but some residents were not happy.

Emily Lau, was a leading pro-democracy campaigner at the time, she remembers that day.

(Photo: Hong Kong in 2007. Credit: China Photos / Getty Images)

It is 15 years since a replica of Shakespeare's Globe theatre was first opened in London.

Built on the banks of the Thames it stands almost exactly where the original 17th Century building had been.

It came into being because of the passion of an American actor, Sam Wanamaker.

Photo: The Globe Theatre. BBC

It is over 40 years since a brief but bloody war between Honduras and El Salvador.

The conflict coincided with the two countries meeting in the qualifiers for the 1970 football World Cup.

Hear the story as told by the captain of El Salvador's football team - Salvador Mariona.

In June 1947 the diary of Anne Frank was published for the very first time.

Witness has been speaking to her first cousin and closest surviving relative, 87-year-old Buddy Elias.

(Photo: Anne Frank/Press Association)

Reform in the Soviet Union, known as perestroika, was launched 25 years ago in 1987.

It was accompanied by glasnost, openness, which meant that classics of Russian literature could be published.

Louise Hidalgo talks to three people who remember those exciting days in Moscow. As she hears, there were many that greeted the initial policy changes with scepticism.

(Photo: Mikhail Gorbachev (centre right) meets with participants of the Warsaw Pact Foreign Ministers' Committee in Moscow on March 25, 1987 Credit: AFP / Getty Images)

In June 1940, France surrendered to Nazi Germany, leading to four years of occupation and the rule of a puppet government led by Marshal Petain.

Henriette Dodd lived through the occupation and shares her memories with Witness.

PHOTO: Marshal Petain (second left) with the Nazi leader Hermann Goering. (AFP)

In June 1948 Soviet troops cut supply lines around West Berlin in Germany.

America and its West European allies decided to airlift food into the city.

Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

The biggest refugee camp in the world was established 21 years ago.

It has become home to hundreds of thousands of Somalis who fled civil war.

Photo: A child waiting to be registered at Dadaab, 2011. Getty Images.

On June 18, 1982 an Italian banker was found dead in mysterious circumstances in London.

He had been in charge of a bank with close ties to the Catholic church.

He was known as God's Banker.

Photo: Express Newspapers/Getty Images

It is 90 years since one of the most influential novels of the 20th century was published.

It told the story of one day in the life of a young Irishman.

Its innovative style influenced generations of writers.

Photo: Associated Press.

Thirty years ago the war ended between Britain and Argentina over the Falkland Islands, which are known in Argentina as the Malvinas Islands .

British forces had defeated Argentinian troops, which had landed on the islands two months earlier.

A British veteran has spoken to Witness about life for British soldiers during the campaign.

(Photo: British troops raising the Union Jack flag during the Falklands War. Credit: Press Association)

It is 10 years since Hamid Karzai was first appointed as interim President of Afghanistan.

But what was his background and how did he come to be the leader of the war-torn country?

One of the President's old friends talks to Witness.

(Image: Hamid Karzai. Credit: AP / Brennan Linsley)

It is over 50 years since the great Russian ballet dancer left the Soviet Union for good.

He asked for asylum at a Paris airport.

Pierre Lacotte, a French dancer, was with him. In a programme first broadcast last year, he spoke to Witness.

(Image: Rudolf Nureyev)

In 1971, the New York Times published one of the most important leaks in US history - 7000 pages of top-secret Defence Department documents known as the Pentagon Papers.

The Papers were leaked by a Pentagon analyst called Daniel Ellsberg in an attempt to end the Vietnam War.

He tells his story to Witness.

(Photo: Daniel Ellsberg in the 1970s Credit: Hulton Archive / Getty Images)

In June 1968, Senator Robert Kennedy was gunned down during his campaign for the American presidency.

Amid the nationwide mourning that followed, his funeral train travelled from New York to Washington with huge crowds lining the tracks.

Witness speaks to Kennedy's former press secretary and to his former bodyguard.

(Photo: Robert Kennedy campaigning in 1968. Credit: Getty Images)

It's 26 years since an American intelligence analyst admitted selling secrets to Israel.

Jonathan Pollard sold tens of thousands of confidential documents to Israeli agents over an 18-month period.

We hear from one of the investigators who brought him down.

Photo: Jonathan Pollard/AP

It is 35 years since the opening of the iconic modern art centre in Paris.

Richard Rogers was one of the two architects who won the commission to build it.

Photo: Miguel Medina/AFP/Getty Images

In 1969 an American psychologist called David Rosenhan put psychiatrists to the test.

He and several volunteers had themselves admitted to psychiatric hospitals, although they were perfectly sane.

They then waited for the doctors to notice their normal behaviour.

In 1977, The Sex Pistols punk rock band mocked Britain's Silver Jubilee celebrations.

They even wrote a song with the same title as the national anthem - God Save the Queen.

(Image: The Sex Pistols - left to right - Paul Cook, Johnny Rotten, Steve Jones and Glen Matlock. Credit: Press Association)

Between 1967 and 1970 there was a civil war in Nigeria over the formation of the state of Biafra.

Over a million people died through famine, disease and fighting.

Witness hears from a man who fought in the war as a boy.

(Image: a starving child in Biafra. Credit: Partington/Express/Getty Images.)

Note that some people might find today's programme upsetting.

It is 40 years since Japanese gunmen attacked the Lod airport in Tel Aviv, Israel. They were left-wing militants working for a Palestinian organisation.

Twenty-six people were killed that day and more than 70 others were injured.

Witness hears from Ros Sloboda, one of the survivors of the shooting.

(Image: the aftermath of the attack. Credit: AFP)

In May 1984 a bomber tried to kill an anti-Sandinista rebel leader in Nicaragua.

The attack took place at a press conference and several journalists were killed and injured.

Swedish journalist Peter Torbiornsson believes he inadvertently helped the bomber.

In May 1934, the first quintuplets ever to survive birth were born in a tiny rural settlement in northern Canada.

The Dionne babies became global superstars and millions of people visited their specially-built nursery.

But, once their fame was over, the Dionne Quintuplets all struggled to adapt to daily life and had to fight for compensation.

Witness speaks to a biographer of the Quintuplets and brings together archive recordings from the height of their fame.

PHOTO:

Thirty-five years ago, gunmen took 105 young children hostage in a school in Holland.

The hijackers, from the Moluccan islands, wanted Dutch support for their claims for independence from Indonesia.

The siege ended after 20 days when the military stormed the school.

Geert Kruit, a former hostage, was just nine years old at the time.

Photo: Geert Kruit as a young child

In 1982, the legendary Hacienda nightclub opened in Manchester.

Over the next 15 years, the club hosted some famous concerts and spearheaded the Acid House dance craze.

But Hacienda lost its owners millions of pounds and had to close in 1997.

Witness speaks to Hacienda DJ Dave Haslam and one of the club's owners, Peter Hook of New Order.

(Image: A sign from Hacienda nightclub saying 'Sold out, guest list only'. Credit: BBC)

Twenty years ago the anti-mafia judge was assassinated by a bomb under his car.

Hear from one of his colleagues about the fight against organised crime in Italy.

Photo of Giovanni Falcone. Credit: Associated Press.

The USA sent two monkeys into space and brought them back alive for the first time in 1959 - a watershed moment for the US space agency, Nasa. It paved the way for future manned missions.

Photo: Keystone\Getty Images

It is 35 years since one of the biggest movie franchises of all time hit cinema screens.

It was made on a low budget and much of the filming was done in England.

Hear from one of the English actors who found fame through Star Wars, playing the robot C3PO.

Photo: Anthony Daniels with C3PO. (Getty Images.)

On May 18th 1980 there was a huge volcanic eruption in Washington state in the USA.

Geologists Dorothy and Keith Stoffel were flying over the volcano when it blew.

Hear Dorothy's story - this programme was first broadcast in 2010.

Photo: AP/Photofile.

In May 1998 a nuclear arms race began in South Asia.

First the Indians tested nuclear devices - then the US began intense diplomacy to stop Pakistan from following suit.

But by the end of the month they too had carried out tests.

Hear from one man at the heart of the negotiations.

Photo: Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announces the nuclear tests. Associated Press.

In May 1536 the Queen of England was executed on the orders of her husband Henry VIII.

She was the second of his six wives - but why did she have to die?

Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

In March 1938 Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany - it would not regain its independence for more than 17 years.

One Vienna resident remembers the day that Hitler's troops marched in.

Photo: Austrians welcoming German troops. Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

In 1964, a TV programme introduced a group of seven-year-olds to the public.

It has returned to film them every seven years since then, creating a fascinating record of changes in British life.

The series has now reached 56 Up. Michael Apted, its director, talked to Witness History in 2012.

Photo: Getty Images Entertainment

On May 11th 1812, the British Prime Minister, Spencer Perceval, was killed in the House of Commons.

His assassin was businessman called John Bellingham who believed the government was responsible for his financial difficulties.

Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

How student protests and workers' strikes threatened to bring down France's government.

Paris saw some of the worst of the unrest as protesters clashed with riot police.

The students wanted changes to the archaic university system, while the workers pressed for reforms of the labour laws.

Photo: AP/Guy Kopelowicz.

In 1941, the deputy fuhrer, Rudolf Hess, flew out of Nazi Germany and landed in Scotland.

Keen to study the psychology of the Nazi leadership, the British government sent a psychiatrist called Henry Dicks to examine Hess at a safe house in Surrey.

Professor Daniel Pick, author of "The Pursuit of the Nazi Mind", retraces the encounter using BBC archive recordings and Dr Dicks' personal papers.

The programme is adapted from "The Psychiatrist and the Deputy Fuhrer", first broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

(Photo: Rudolf Hess, German politician and wartime deputy of Adolf Hitler, during a public speech in 1937) (Credit: Central Press/Getty Images)

The day the Nigerian military stormed the musician's compound in Lagos.

They burned down the buildings and threw his mother out of a window - she never recovered.

Hear from one of his former wives about the events of that day.

Picture: Fela Kuti in 1986, Credit: Associated Press

He was responsible for a series of gruesome murders in the Hollywood hills.

But he was not actually present at the killings.

Hear how the prosecution managed to persuade a jury that he was the man behind the deaths.

Photo: Manson before his trial. Associated Press

In May 1926 workers across Britain went on strike in support of coal miners.

Hear the memories of Hetty Bower, a left-wing Londoner who helped the strikers.

Photo: Armoured cars protect a food convoy in London during the strike. Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

Justin Fashanu, Britain's first openly gay footballer, killed himself in May 1998.

He committed suicide in London, following allegations that he had sexually assaulted a teenager.

His niece Amal Fashanu speaks to Witness about her favourite uncle.

In May 1992 the Bosnian president was taken captive by Serb soldiers.

The siege of Sarajevo had just begun.

With him, was his daughter Sabina - hear her story.

Photo: President Alija Izetbegovic - VT Freeze Frame.

In 2002 a paralysed woman, known as Miss B, was allowed to die in a London hospital.

She had gone to the High Court to win the right to have a ventilator which kept her alive, switched off.

The judge in the case was Baroness Elizabeth Butler Sloss.

Photo of Baroness Butler Sloss, Press Association.

In April 1932, hundreds of walkers organised a mass trespass on a mountain in the English Peak District called Kinder Scout.

The trespass was a major step in the fight for access to the British countryside. At the time, much wild land was privately owned and controlled by game-keepers.

Witness hears from one of the last survivors of the Trespass. The programme also includes accounts of the protest in the BBC archive.

PHOTO: Kinder Scout (BBC)

It is 35 years since the legendary New York night club opened its doors.

The door policy was strict and its dance floor was full of the coolest people in the city.

Listen to three people who knew it in its heyday.

Photo: Former Canadian First lady, Margaret Trudeau, dancing at Studio 54. (Central Press/Getty Images)

More than 40,000 men were killed during the Battle of Gallipoli in 1915. Among them was a large contingent of Australian and New Zealand troops who became known as the Anzacs. One New Zealander recalled one of the worst battles of World War One in a BBC interview.

PHOTO: Anzac Cove (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

In April 1937 the Basque town of Guernica was firebombed during the Spanish Civil War.

In the aftermath of the attacks thousands of children were sent to Britain to avoid the bombing.

Herminio Martinez was one of those child evacuees.

(this programme was first broadcast last year)

Photo: unknown children on board the liner Habana. (Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

How a court case ruined the 19th century playwright.

He championed the love that dare not speak its name, or homosexuality, but he was jailed and died in exile.

Photo: Oscar Wilde (l) and Lord Alfred Douglas (r). Hulton Archive/Getty Images

In April 1968 a politician put race at the centre of British politics.

Enoch Powell made a speech predicting dire consequences if immigration were to continue.

He provoked a huge reaction which left many non-white Britons feeling threatened.

Photo: BBC

One of the most successful TV series ever was created by cartoonist Matt Groening.

In 2002 he spoke to the BBC about the characters he based on his own family.

Photo: Matt Groening with the Simpsons. Getty Images.

In 1943, a group of Belgian Jews escaped from a train bound for the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.

In the only incident of its kind, they were helped by members of the Belgian resistance.

Witness speaks to Simon Gronowski, who at the age of 11, jumped from the train to safety.

PHOTO: Simon Gronowski with his parents (private collection)

In 1997, left-wing rebels held 71 people hostage for over four months in Peru.

One of the diplomats taken captive was the Bolivian ambassador to Peru.

Photo: Peruvian soldiers bring the siege to an end. AP Wire

In the USSR, the authorities routinely declared political dissidents as suffering from schizophrenia and confined them in mental institutions.

Witness speaks to Victor Davidov, a dissident who survived the experience, and to the international campaigner who helped win his release.

PHOTO: Victor Davidov in the 1970s (private collection)

It is 100 years since the great ocean liner sank on its maiden voyage.

Over 1,500 people died after the ship hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic.

Hear stories from survivors of the disaster.

Photo: Topical Press Agency/Getty Images

In 1981 a Pulitzer Prize was awarded to a young journalist who had made-up her story.

Janet Cooke worked for the Washington Post, and she had fabricated a tale of an eight year old heroin addict.

The scandal ended her journalistic career and tarnished the Post's reputation.

Photo: ABC News.

It is 25 years since the great Italian author died.

He had fallen down the stairwell of his apartment block.

Many believe he killed himself.

But he left behind one of the most compelling accounts of surviving Auschwitz - If This Is A Man - as well as poetry and fiction.

Photo: AFP/Getty Images

In April 1959, Fidel Castro visited the USA to try to win over critics of the Cuban revolution.

During a two-week stay, he addressed newspaper editors, Ivy League universities and large crowds.

Fidel Castro even met the then US vice-president, Richard Nixon.

Witness speaks to Ed Shaw, an art curator who heard Castro speak and lined up to shake his hand.

Picture: Fidel Castro addressing US newspaper editors in Washington. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

In April 1961, Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi official in charge of concentration camps, was put on trial in Israel.

The trial helped reveal the full details of the holocaust.

Witness speaks to one of the prosecutors, Gabriel Bach.

The programme was first broadcast in 2010.

PHOTO: Eichmann in the dock. (AFP/Getty Images)

In 1998, the political parties in Northern Ireland reached a peace agreement that ended decades of war.

But the Good Friday Agreement, as it became known, was only reached after days of frantic last-minute negotiations.

Witness hears from Paul Murpy, the junior minister for Northern Ireland at the time.

PHOTO: Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern (L) and British Prime Minister Tony Blair (R) pose with the mediator of the agreement, Senator George Mitchell. (AFP/Getty Images)

As Bosnia descended into civil war in 1992, thousands of people held a peace protest in Sarajevo.

The demonstrators occupied parliament and called for help from the international community.

It was a last, futile attempt to stop the Bosnian capital falling under siege.

Within days, the protests had failed. Sarajevo would be surrounded for four years and thousands would die.

Witness speaks to Zlatko Hurtic, one of the leaders of the demonstrations.

PHOTO: Street-fighting in Sarajevo at the time of the peace protest. (AFP/Getty Images)

In 1982, thousands of women - and men and children - took to the streets for the first Birth Rights rally - to demand the right to give birth naturally.

Pregnant women wanted to move around freely during labour and be in any position to give birth, rather than using the positions convenient for and encouraged by doctors and midwives at the time.

Witness speaks to Janet Balaskas, the young mother and antenatal teacher who led the protests.

PHOTO: Baby George (AFP/Getty Images)

In the second programme on the Falklands War, Witness hears from an Argentine soldier who fought in the conflict.

Miguel Savage recalls the atrocious weather conditions faced by Argentine conscripts, as well as their mistreatment by officers.

And he remembers a terrifying final attack by British troops shortly before the Argentine surrender.

PHOTO: Argentine troops in the Falklands. (AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

It is 30 years since Argentine forces invaded the Falkland Islands.

In the first of two programmes, we hear the story from the point of view of a resident of the islands who lived through the invasion and the subsequent war between Britain and Argentina.

Photo: Press Association

In 2000, the USA agreed to take in some of the thousands of Sudanese children who'd become separated from their parents during a civil war in the south of the country.

The children - known as the Lost Boys - had been stuck in refugee camps for years.

Witness speaks to William Pay, one of the Lost Boys, and to Ann Wheat, the American volunteer who hosted him and many others.

The programme includes audio from the documentary Benjamin and his Brother (Courtesy of Documentary Educational Resources).

A 100 years ago the British explorer died after failing to be the first to the South Pole.

He and his team had been beaten by Norwegian rivals and had died returning to base.

Photo:The five men from the 1912 Scott Expedition to the South Pole (Associated Press)

How a young designer became a legend in the world of shoes.

Manolo Blahnik talks about his life and work in London.

Photo: Amy Sussman/Getty Images

In 1990 an Anglican priest living in Zimbabwe was the victim of a letter bomb.

He is in no doubt that it was sent to him by someone working on behalf of South Africa's apartheid government.

Father Michael Lapsley lost both his hands in the attack.

In 1998 the then Pope, John Paul II, made a visit to the communist island.

It marked a change in relations between the Church and the government of Fidel Castro.

But some Cubans hoped it would lead to much greater changes.

Photo: AP/Vatican, Arturo Mari

In 1961 President Kennedy set up a scheme to send idealistic young Americans abroad.

At the height of the Cold War the underlying idea was to help give the USA a positive image in developing countries.

Hear from one of the first volunteers who went to teach in Ghana.

Photo: Robert Krisko during his Peace Corps days.

In the 1950s, US engineers were sent to Afghanistan to build a huge dam.

The aim was to irrigate the deserts of Helmand.

The town of Lashkar Gah was built to house the workers.

Photo: Lashkar Gah from the air, 1957.

In March 1995 members of a Japanese cult released nerve gas in the metro.

Thirteen people died and thousands were injured.

Hear one man's account of the Aum Shinrikyo attack.

Photo of Shoko Asahara the Aum leader. AP WirePhoto

On 20 March 2003 the US and its allies began their air strikes against Iraq.

For millions of ordinary Iraqis it meant the beginning of three weeks of fear and helplessness.

Hear what it was like for just one schoolgirl who lived through the bombardment.

(Photo: Ramizi Haidar/AFP/Getty Images)

Forty five years ago it was the biggest oil spill the world had ever seen.

It happened when an oil tanker hit rocks off the south-west coast of England.

The air force tried to burn up the oil by dropping bombs on it.

Photo: AFP/Getty Images.

On 16 March 1968, US soldiers went on the rampage through a Vietnamese village.

They killed men, women and children in cold blood.

We hear from one survivor, Pham Thanh Cong, who was 11 years old when the rest of his family were killed.

Photo: Pham Thanh Cong now.

Credit Hoang Dinh Nam/AFP/Getty Images.

On 15 March 1990, a young British journalist was executed in Iraq - he had been accused of spying.

His name was Farzad Bazoft and he had been working for the Observer newspaper.

We hear from two of the last people to see him alive.

Photo: VT Freeze Frame

In 1982 a British director found himself in a court battle over sex and nudity on stage.

Michael Bogdanov had directed a play about the Roman invasion of Britain which drew parallels with the contemporary presence of British troops in Northern Ireland.

Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

Throughout World War II, Myra Hess organised concerts in London's National Gallery.

The lunchtime performances were intended to raise morale in the capital.

Many other concert venues had been shut because of the Blitz.

Photo: Myra Hess at the piano in 1944.

In 1929 a Russian inventor brought an electronic musical instrument to the USA.

His name was Leon Theremin, and at the time many people thought it would revolutionise music making.

He taught Lydia Kavina to play it when she was a child.

Photo: Leon Theremin and Lydia Kavina.

The daughter of the Soviet dictator, Svetlana defected to the West in 1967.

Brought up in the most privileged circumstances in the Soviet Union - she came to hate the system her father had created.

Photo of Stalin with Svetlana as a child. Credit: AFP/Getty Images.

It's 84 years since Alexander Fleming discovered the life-saving substance penicillin.

But it took a team of scientists another decade to turn it into the well-known anti-biotic of today.

PHOTO: Penicillium fungal spores (courtesy of Science Photo Library)

In the 1960s the pop artist turned his attention to film-making.

He made hundreds of films, many of them in the New York studio he called The Factory.

Photo: Andy Warhol. Express Newspapers/Getty Images.

It is 25 years since a car ferry capsized outside the Belgian port.

One hundred and ninety-three people died in the disaster - which happened because the vessel set off with its bow doors still open.

We hear from two survivors of that day.

Photo: Press Association

In 1975 a group of Californian computer enthusiasts began meeting to share ideas.

Among those who took part were the founders of Apple.

In those days though, many of them were students or even high school kids.

Photo: Former Homebrew member Len Shustek.

On 2 March 1969 the supersonic airliner took to the skies for the first time.

But at the time, some campaigners believed it could damage buildings by flying so fast.

Hear from the French pilot who guided it through its maiden trip.

Photo: VT Freeze Frame

It is 10 years since communal violence broke out in the Indian state.

It was sparked by an attack on a train full of Hindu pilgrims.

Photo: Rioters in Ahmedabad on March 1, 2002. Credit Associated Press.

The Bulgarian dissident was attacked by a man with a poisoned umbrella on his way to work at the BBC World Service in Bush House.

He died several days later in a London hospital.

We hear from a colleague and friend, and one of the doctors who tried to save him.

Photo: Georgi Markov

On 28 February 1986, the Swedish Prime Minister was killed on a Stockholm street.

He had been for an evening at the cinema with his wife.

The police investigation into his murder is still open.

Photo: Associated Press

The British designer Mary Quant, who has died aged 93, was one of the architects of 1960s fashion. In this episode, first broadcast in 2012, Louise Hidalgo presents archive clips in which Quant remembers how the look that came to embody swinging London was created.

Image: Mary Quant, pictured in 1965 (Credit: Keystone/Hulton Archive via Getty Images)

In the late 1920s Hollywood made the change from silent films to movies with soundtracks.

But it wasn't a simple transition and took the most up to the minute technology available.

Photo: Filming The Jazz Singer, one of the first talkies. Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Twelve years ago following the death of President Hafez al-Assad, Syria experienced a brief burst of freedom.

When his son Bashar, first came to power he promised democracy and change.

For a few months opposition politicians were allowed to meet and speak openly.

Photo: Bashar al-Assad (l) Hafez al-Assad (r). Credit: AFP

It's nearly 30 years since Broadway saw the opening of the most comprehensive flop ever - Moose Murders was so bad that it opened and closed on the same night.

Since then it's been heralded as the standard against which all other disastrous plays are judged.

We hear from the leading lady and the playwright.

PHOTO: Moose Murders set courtesy of Marjorie Bradley Kellogg.

It is 40 years since the US President went to China and met Chairman Mao.

The meeting normalised relations between the two countries for the first time in quarter of a century.

Winston Lord was there when the two leaders encountered each other.

Photo: AFP/Getty Images

In 1989, nine passengers were sucked out a plane when a cargo door opened over the Pacific.

United Airlines Flight 811 was flying from Hawaii to New Zealand when the accident happened.

We hear from two passengers on board the plane.

In February 1942 all Japanese Americans were ordered to internment camps.

They were viewed as a threat to US security during World War II.

Photo: A Japanese American family preparing to go to an internment camp.

(Credit: Dorothea Lange/Hulton Archive/Getty Images.)

In February 1942 Japan launched the largest ever attack against Australia.

American and Australian ships were sunk by Japanese bombers.

Jack Mulholland was a young anti-aircraft gunner who helped defend the town.

On 15 February 1989, the last Soviet soldiers rolled out of Afghanistan.

It was nine years since they had first been ordered in.

They left behind a country which would soon descend into civil war.

(Photo credit: Vitaly Arman/AFP/Getty Images)

In February 2005 a Catholic nun working in the Amazon was murdered.

Her killing had been ordered by powerful landowners who objected to her work with the rural poor.

Her brother David tells the story of her work, and her death.

Photo: Carlos Silva/AFP

Audio Clips: Courtesy of Greenpeace

It was the first time a computer had beaten a reigning world champion chess player.

The Deep Blue computer had been designed by a team at IBM.

Hear from two people who were at the match.

(Photo: IBM scientist Murray Campbell (R) makes a move for the IBM Deep Blue computer in a game 04 May in New York against World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov (L). Credit: AFP)

In 1962 Timmie Jean Lindsey became the first woman in the world to have the operation.

She was offered the implants free of charge by two pioneering cosmetic surgeons.

Photo: Timmie Jean Lindsey in 1964.

It is 50 years since nine French peace protestors died during a demonstration in Paris.

Most died in a crush at the entrance to a Metro station after the police began to attack them.

Witness hears from a schoolgirl who survived the protest.

On 7 February 1985 a US drug enforcement agent was abducted in Guadalajara.

His name was Enrique 'Kiki' Camarena.

James Kuykendall was a fellow DEA agent who knew him well - he tells the story of Kiki's kidnap and killing.

On February 6th 1952, King George VI died after a long illness.

Britain came to a standstill to mourn the monarch who had led the nation through World War II.

Witness brings together BBC recordings from the time.

PHOTO: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

The great Egyptian singer was buried 37 years ago.

Millions attended her funeral in Cairo.

Her stepson has been talking to Witness about that day, and about her life and art.

Photo: Umm Kulthum in 1967 Credit: Associated Press

It is 30 years since thousands of Syrians were killed by their own army.

The soldiers had been ordered to end the anti-government uprising in the city of Hama.

Hear one man's story of three weeks of terror.

In 1997 Diane Blood won the chance to conceive a child using sperm from her dead husband. The sperm had been removed before he died, but without his written consent while he was in a coma. The ethics of her case were debated across the UK.

Photo: Diane Blood. Credit: Press Association

In 1842, the young English novelist, Charles Dickens, was already the most famous writer in the world.

On his first visit to America, Dickens was greeted like a modern rock star, with dazzling receptions in New York, Boston and other cities.

But the trip soon turned sour - Dickens found Americans increasingly uncivilised; they resented the novlist's demand for an international copyright law to protect his works.

The mutual contempt exploded into a transatlantic row when the novelist published two books inspired by the trip.

Simon Watts brings together contemporary accounts of Dickens' visit to America with the help of Professor Jerome Meckier, author of Dickens - An Innocent Abroad.

PHOTO: Charles Dickens in later life (Hulton Archive/Getty Images).

It is 40 years since 13 civil rights marchers were killed in Northern Ireland.

British paratroopers had opened fire with live ammunition.

Tony Doherty was just nine years old at the time - his father was one of those who died.

Photo: AFP/Getty Images.

In January 1986 a space shuttle launch went horribly wrong.

Six astronauts and a teacher were killed.

Barbara Morgan was another teacher who had trained alongside the Challenger team.

Photo: Christa McAuliffe and Barbara Morgan in training. Credit: NASA

On January 25 1933 the last legal communist march was held in Berlin.

Just a few days later Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany.

Soon the Communist Party was banned and the Nazi grip on power was complete.

Eric Hobsbawm was a schoolboy communist.

Photo: Communist rally 1932. Hulton Archive/Getty Images

In January 1972 a Japanese soldier was found in the jungle of Guam.

He had been hiding out there for 27 years since the end of World War II.

His name was Shoichi Yokoi.

(Photo: Shoichi Yokoi/Credit: Associated Press)

It is one hundred years since the great American abstract painter was born.

His distinctive technique of dripping paint onto canvas was part of a new wave of post-war art in the USA.

Photo: AFP/Getty Images

It is 70 years since senior Nazi officials met to plan the killing of European Jews.

The meeting was organised by Reinhardt Heydrich.

It took place in a villa in a prosperous suburb of Berlin.

Photo: Getty Images News.

In January 1973 abortion was legalised across the USA.

Hear from one of the young female lawyers who took the case to the Supreme Court.

Sarah Weddington had just graduated from law school when she took on the cause.

Audio archive courtesy of Oyez Project at the Chicago Kent College of Law.

On the 18 of January 1943, German soldiers began a final drive to empty the Polish capital of Jews.

It was also the day on which the first shots were fired in the Warsaw ghetto uprising.

Janina David, 12-years-old at the time, survived.

(Photo: Keystone/Getty Images)

In 1950 a Boston gang stole over $2.5m and they almost got away with it.

It took the FBI nearly six years to catch the criminals.

Thomas Richardson, the son of one of the wanted men talks to Witness.

In January 1977 President Jimmy Carter said draft dodgers could come home.

It meant that people who had fled the USA to avoid serving as soldiers in Vietnam no longer faced jail.

Michael Hendricks had gone to Montreal in Canada.

In January 1968 the country legend Johnny Cash recorded a concert in a high-security jail.

"At Folsom Prison" made Cash a crossover star, and helped get through a difficult period in his personal life.

Witness hears from Johnny Cash experts and from his drummer, WS Fluke Holland.

Photo: Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

In January 1991 the UN Secretary General tried to stop the first Gulf War.

He made a last minute trip to Baghdad to try to persuade Saddam Hussein to withdraw Iraqi troops from Kuwait.

Photo: VT Freeze Frame

In 1898 the novelist Emile Zola took up the cause of the imprisoned Jewish army officer - Alfred Dreyfus.

He began by publishing an open letter to the French President under the title J'accuse.

Photo of Dreyfus at his court-martial. Getty Images/Hulton Archive.

When the Japanese Emperor died in 1989 it marked the end of an era.

He had been on the throne when Japan joined World War II.

He had announced its eventual surrender.

And he had ruled throughout its post-war economic transformation.

Photo: Press Association

Over 2000 years ago Julius Caesar made a decision which changed European history.

That decision to cross a river and lead his army towards Rome was a point of no return for the ambitious governor of Gaul.

Thirty-five years ago an opposition movement began in Czechoslovakia with a call for human rights.

More than 200 writers and intellectuals signed the original Charter - many of them were then arrested.

One of the leaders of the movement was Vaclav Havel, the playwright who went on to become President after the fall of communism.

Fifty years ago the USA launched an ambitious attempt to control the weather.

Its aim was to change the course of hurricanes away from populated areas.

Hear from Joe Golden, who worked on Stormfury.

Photo: a hurricane over the USA (Associated Press/NOAA)

A list of radicals in Hollywood and the entertainment industry was published by US anti-communists more than 60 years ago.

The list was known as Red Channels and people whose names were on it found their careers in jeopardy.

Walter Bernstein was a young screenwriter at the time.

In January 1968 an American spy ship was captured by North Korean forces.

Its crew were held for almost a year but they found small ways to resist.

Hear from one of the US sailors on board.

Photo of the Pueblo's crew taken by North Korean military.

At midnight on January the 1st 2002, the euro was launched simultaneously in 12 European countries.

Millions of people lined up at cash machines to take out their first notes in the new currency.

Louise Hidalgo talks to the European Central Bank official in charge of the biggest currency launch in history.

(PHOTO: AFP/Getty Images)