Witness History: Witness Archive 2017

How two pilots, Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, became the first to fly non-stop around the world without refuelling in December 1986. Their experimental aircraft was designed by Dick's brother, Burt Rutan. It had to be incredibly light to carry the huge weight of fuel required. But that meant the plane was vulnerable to breaking up in turbulence. Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager endured storms and equipment malfunctions to set the world record. They spent 9 days, 3 minutes and 44 seconds in the air. Alex Last speaks to Dick Rutan about their achievement. Photo: The Voyager aircraft designed by Burt Rutan (NASA).

Mountaineers risked their lives to camouflage churches and palaces in the great Russian city during World War Two. The city was besieged by the Germans and under bombardment. The climbers used paint and canvas to conceal the landmarks from enemy attack. Mikhail Bobrov was just 18 years old when first got sent up the city's spires. He's been speaking to Monica Whitlock about his wartime experiences.

Photo: A climber suspended from a spire in Leningrad. Credit: Tass/PA.

In December 1966, a group of Black activists in Los Angeles created the winter holiday Kwanzaa to try to reclaim their African heritage. It's now celebrated by millions across the US.

Lucy Burns speaks to Terri Bandele, who attended the first Kwanzaa celebrations aged 11.

Picture: Children at the first Kwanzaa celebration - courtesy of Terri Bandele (on right)

The game has become a holiday tradition with families around the world since its launch in 1981. Ashley Byrne has been speaking to the designer of Trivial Pursuit, Michael Wurstlin, about how it was first created.

Photo: The original Trivial Pursuit game. Credit: BBC.

One of the most successful American films of all time was released on Christmas Day 1962. Written by the best-selling author Harper Lee it starred Gregory Peck as a lawyer who stood against prejudice in the Deep South of the USA. Louise Hidalgo has been speaking to Gregory Peck's son Carey Peck about the film, and about his family's long-standing friendship with the reclusive Harper Lee.

Photo: Gregory Peck with the author Harper Lee in 1962. Credit: Getty Images.

When Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was a schoolboy, he was not allowed to drink from the same tap as his fellow students because he was a member of what was then known as an "untouchable" caste. But he went on to become a prominent leader in the campaign for Indian independence and oversaw the writing of the Indian constitution - which made the idea of "untouchability" illegal. A hero to many, he died in December 1956.

Lucy Burns hears recordings of BR Ambedkar from the BBC archives and speaks to biographer Ananya Vajpeyi.

Picture: A member of the Indian Congress Party places flowers on a statue of BR Ambedkar to mark the 122nd anniversary of his birth in Amritsar on April 14, 2013 (NARINDER NANU/AFP/Getty Images)

When Chinese universities reinstated entrance exams in December 1977 it was a sign that the Cultural Revolution was really over. For the previous decade students had been judged on their political fervour, rather than their academic abilities. Wu Yuwen, was one of the class of 1977 and she's been speaking to Michael Bristow about her student experiences. Photo: Wu Yuwen in 1978, during her first year at Peking University. Credit: Wu Yuwen

Australian scientists were central to the development of wifi. John O'Sullivan and David Skellern were among the group that gave us the ability to connect to the internet on-the-go. They've been speaking to Olga Smirnova about their breakthrough.

Photo: WiFi prototype Photo credit: Richard Keaney / Radiata

A controversial Islamic movement brought a brief moment of peace to Mogadishu in 2006 after years of war. The Islamic Courts Union (ICU) came to power after defeating rapacious American-backed warlords. They had no unified ideology or leadership. Some were moderates, some were hardline Islamists. But they brought law and order to the capital unseen since civil war began in 1991. But their rule would only last for six months and from the ashes would emerge the radical militant group Al-Shabab.

Photo: Somalia's Supreme Council of Islamic Courts (SCIC) militia display their flag in front of Hotel Ramadan, in Mogadishu, 15, July 2006 (STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images)

The Australian Prime Minister, Harold Holt, disappeared after going for a swim in the ocean on December 17th 1967 - never to be seen again. Susan Hulme has been speaking to Martin Simpson who was with the group that went to the beach with the Prime Minister that day.

Photo: Harold Holt on the beach with three women the year before his disappearance. Credit: Evening Standard/Getty Images

In December 1967, the great American soul singer, Otis Redding, was killed in a plane crash as he stood on the brink of superstardom. Simon Watts introduces the memories of Otis’s guitarist, Steve Cropper, and trumpeter, Wayne Jackson, as recorded in the BBC archives.

(Photo: Otis Redding in 1967)

Thousands died as a thick polluted fog engulfed London in 1952. People with respiratory and cardiovascular conditions were most at risk. The smog was a combination of pollution from millions of coal home fires and freezing fog. Unusual atmospheric conditions trapped the pall over the city for four days. The civil disaster changed Britain. Two years later, the government passed the Clean Air Act to reduce the use of smoky fuels such as coal. Alex Last speaks to Dr Brian Commins, who worked for the Medical Research Council's Air Pollution Unit set up at St. Bartholomew's hospital in London in the 1950s. Photo: A London bus conductor is forced to walk ahead of his vehicle with a flare to guide it through the smog, 9th December 1952. (Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The African-American lab technician, Vivien Thomas, whose surgery helped save the lives of millions of babies but whose work went unrecognised for years. Claire Bowes has been listening to archive recordings of Vivien Thomas describing his long partnership with Dr Alfred Blalock, the man solely credited with inventing an operation in 1944 which helped manage a congenital heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot.

(Photo: Vivien Thomas, US Surgical Technician, 1940) (Audio: Courtesy of US National Library of Medicine)

In 2001, American hypnotist Larry Garrett was invited to Iraq to treat an "important businessman". When he arrived in Baghdad he was told his special patient's true identity: Uday Hussein, the volatile and violent eldest son of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Mike Lanchin speaks to Garrett about the time he spent with Uday, about their long conversations and how he coped with the challenges of treating one of the most feared men in Iraq.

Photo: Larry Garrett in Baghdad, 2001 (courtesy of Larry Garrett)

The Russian Revolution of 1917 led not just to huge political and social change, but to a new artistic freedom. Russian avant-garde artists like Malevich, Kandinsky and Chagall flourished in the immediate aftermath of the revolution. One of their greatest supporters was art curator Nikolai Punin. Louise Hidalgo has been talking to Punin's granddaughter, Anna Kaminskaia, about how that freedom was gradually replaced with censorship and repression, and her grandfather ended his life in the Gulag.

Picture: 1920 painting by Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev (1878-1927), Bolshevik (oil on canvas), Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia

In 1967 a biologist began listening to strange sounds recorded way out at sea, he realised it was whales and that they were singing. Claire Bowes has been talking to Dr Roger Payne about the discovery that helped change people's perception of whales and helped found the modern conservation movement at a time when whales were close to extinction.

(Photo: Humpback Whale, courtesy of Christian Miller of Ocean Alliance)

In December 1917 Finland proclaimed its independence. For many centuries it had been controlled by its powerful neighbours, Sweden and Russia. As World War One raged across Europe and Russia was embroiled in its own revolution, Finnish intellectuals took the opportunity to push for their own state. But many ordinary people were more concerned with dire food shortages and the chaos caused by conflict. Olga Smirnova hears memories of that time.

(Photo: 1917: A Communist base burning during the Finnish civil war. Credit: Getty Images)

More personal stories from history of independent Finland can be found at the Finnish Institute in London http://www.taleoftwocountries.fi/frontpage/

In 1967 the British withdrawal from their colony of Aden led to the creation of the People's Republic of South Yemen. Britain had colonised the port city in 1839. Aden had been at the centre of the British colonial trading system and had been one of the busiest ports in the world. The handover has been described as one of the most chaotic in British colonial history. Farhana Haider has been speaking to the former British diplomat, Oliver Miles and to Ghassan Luqman who says the scars of Britain's quick withdrawal are still being felt in Yemen today.

Photo: Aden 1967 Copyright: Alamy.

The four huge granite heads of former presidents on Mount Rushmore have become one of America's most famous monuments. Construction started on the site in 1927, led by sculptor Gutzon Borglum. His granddaughter Robin Borglum Kennedy speaks to Lucy Burns about his work.

Picture: Mount Rushmore, June 1995 (KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images)

Thousands of scientists moved to deepest Siberia to dedicate their lives to research. The Soviet authorities began building the city in 1957. Academics were enticed there by the promise of housing and interesting work. Olga Smirnova spoke to Dr Victor Varand who made his life in Akademgorodok, or Academic City.

Photo: Scientists at work in Academic City. Credit: Victor Varand.

Alexander Litvinenko was a former colonel in the Russian secret service, but fled to London seeking political asylum when he became critical of the Putin government in 2000. In November 2006 he was poisoned with the highly radioactive substance Polonium 210. Rebecca Kesby has been speaking to his wife, Marina, about his life and excruciating death.

(PHOTO: Alexander Litvinenko in a London hospital a couple of days before his death in November 2006. Credit Getty Images.)

In November 2002, an oil tanker, the Prestige, sank off the coast of Galicia in north-west Spain, causing one of the worst environmental disasters in the country's history. In the following months, thousands of people from all over Spain travelled to Galicia to help clean up the spill. Simon Watts talks to Xavier Mulet, one of the volunteers.

(Photo: Volunteers cleaning up after the Prestige. Credit: Xavier Mulet)

Colonel Domingo Monterrosa was one of El Salvador's most successful and ruthless military commanders in the fight against leftist rebels. But in October 1984 the rebels carried out an audacious plan to kill him. Mike Lanchin has spoken to one former rebel and a war correspondent about the man and the plot.

(Photo: Colonel Domingo Monterrosa (R), speaking with one of his company commanders, 1983. Credit: Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)

It was one of the most notorious spy cases in US history. On 27th November 1954, former US diplomat Alger Hiss was released after spending four years in jail for allegedly lying about being a Soviet agent. Alger Hiss had been seen as a potential secretary of state, but was unable to shake off allegations that he'd passed official documents to Moscow. His conviction was the prelude to a Communist witch-hunt in America that became known as the McCarthy era. Louise Hidalgo has been talking to Alger Hiss's son Tony Hiss about growing up in the shadow of the scandal, and his belief that his father was innocent.

Picture: US state department official, Alger Hiss, denying he was a member of a Communist cell before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in Washington on 28th August 1948. (Credit: William Bond/Keystone/Getty Images)

East Germany's most famous singer-songwriter was exiled to the West in November 1976, causing an international outcry. Wolf Biermann was stripped of his GDR citizenship while on tour in West Germany.

Wolf Biermann speaks to Lucy Burns about his political songs and his fame on both sides of the Berlin Wall.

Picture: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

The buddy movie about a cowboy doll and a toy astronaut used computer-generated images to tell a story that appealed to audiences around the world. Animator Doug Sweetland has been speaking to Ashley Byrne about his work on the Pixar film.

Photo: Woody (R) and Buzz Lightyear (L) in a Japanese cinema. (Credit:Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images)

The president of South Vietnam was overthrown and murdered in a coup in November 1963 - with the support of the American government.

Lucy Burns speaks to Ngo Dinh Diem's niece Elisabeth Nguyen Thi Thu Hong, and American official Rufus Phillips.

Picture: Keystone/Getty Images

Charles Manson's followers murdered nine people on his orders. But how to prove his guilt when he wasn't on the scene at the time of the killings? Vincent Bugliosi was the young prosecutor who succeeded in bringing him to trial. Mr Bugliosi spoke to Chloe Hadjimatheou for Witness - the former prosecutor died in 2015.

Photo: Charles Manson in 2009. Credit: Getty Images.

In 1979 Islamic militants seized control of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the holiest site in Islam. Hundreds were killed as Saudi security forces battled for two weeks to retake the shrine. The militants were ultra-conservative Sunni Muslims who believed that the Mahdi, the prophesied Redeemer, had emerged and was a member of their group. The BBC's Eli Melki spoke to eyewitnesses who were inside the Grand Mosque during the siege. Photo: Fighting at the Grand Mosque in Mecca after militants seized control of the shrine, November 1979 (AFP/Getty Images)

Manfred Marx was the man who discovered the diamonds which transformed Botswana's economy. As a young geologist in 1967 his find in the Kalahari desert completely changed the country's fortunes after independence.

(Photo: Uncut diamonds. Credit: Getty Images)

Thousands of people went missing during Lebanon's long and brutal civil war. But in 1982 a group of women started an organisation to try to track down their family members. Nidale Abou Mrad has been speaking to Wadad Halawani whose husband was taken from their home by two gunmen and never came back.

Photo: West Beirut under shellfire in 1982.(Credit:Domnique Faget/AFP/Getty Images)

A British national institution closed in October 1964. The Windmill Theatre had been one of the few places where it was possible to see naked women on stage, due to a loophole in the censorship laws. Lucy Burns speaks to former Windmill Girl Jill Millard Shapiro about her memories of performing at the theatre.

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Curry first became popular in the UK in the 1950s with the arrival of immigrants from South Asia. They introduced spicy food to the British diet. Nina Robinson has been speaking to Nurjuman Khan, an early pioneer of the Indian restaurant business in the English Midlands. His story also forms part of the 'Knights of the Raj' exhibition in Birmingham by Soul City Arts.

Photo: A youthful Nurjuman Khan (Credit: Nurjuman Khan)

A dead sperm whale washed up on a beach in Florence, Oregon in November 1970. It was so big that the authorities decided to blow it up - with disastrous consequences. Years later, a local news report about the story resurfaced in the early days of the internet, and became one of the most famous viral videos ever. Lucy Burns speaks to Paul Linnman, the reporter behind the story.

Picture: a sperm whale washed ashore in Skegness, England in January 2016 (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Remarkable recordings from the BBC archive of two people who felt the cost of war first-hand. Their experiences were tragically common, but for many years, were rarely recorded or voiced in public You'll hear from a German soldier, Stefan Westmann, who tried to come to terms with the act of killing. And the story of Katie Morter, a British civilian from Manchester, and the man she loved, Percy. Photo: Katie Morter (BBC)

The Russian street dog was the first living creature to orbit the Earth. She was sent into space in November 1957. She died after orbiting the Earth four times. Professor Victor Yazdovsky was nine years old when his father brought Laika back from the laboratory to play with him. He has been speaking to Olga Smirnova for Witness.

Photo: Laika the dog. Credit: Keystone/Hulton/Getty Images.

On 7 November 1917, Bolshevik revolutionaries overthrew the provisional government set up in Russia after the fall of the Tsar earlier that year, and created the world's first communist state - a state that would become the Soviet Union. Louise Hidalgo has been listening back to eye-witness accounts of that tumultuous time.

(Photo: Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin addressing crowds in the capital Petrograd during the Russian Revolution of 1917. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Days before Kabul fell to anti-Taliban forces in November 2001, Osama bin Laden met Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir in a secret location before going into hiding. It would be 10 years before he was discovered and killed in Pakistan. Hamid Mir tells Rebecca Kesby about their last conversation and how they were both nearly killed in an airstrike.

(PHOTO: Osama bin Laden (left) with Pakistani Journalist Hamid Mir (right) at an undisclosed location. Credit Getty Images)

In 1967 the zoologist and broadcaster, Desmond Morris, wrote about humans in the same way that animals were described. The Naked Ape provoked criticism from religious thinkers and feminists alike, but it was an instant bestseller. His idea that we're not so different from our animal cousins was revolutionary at the time. Farhana Haider speaks to Desmond Morris about his provocative book.

Photo: Desmond Morris author of the Naked Ape. Credit: BBC

In 1997 the US Supreme Court ruled against censoring sex on the internet. It overturned a law, signed the previous year which had been designed to protect children from sexual content on the internet. Claire Bowes has been speaking to an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who fought the case for freedom of speech.

Photo: A computer. Credit: Anilakkus/iStock

In the Lebanese city of Tripoli there is an exceptional architectural site which has never been used. The great modernist architect Oscar Niemeyer designed all the buildings for an international fair which was about to open when civil war broke out in the 1970s. Architect Wassim Naghi has been speaking to Nidale Abou Mrad about the fair.

Photo: The Tripoli international fair from above. Credit: BBC.

When German monk Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of All Saint's Church in Wittenberg on 31 October 1517, he started a religious revolution. The document was about the church's practice of selling indulgences - but Luther's protest would grow into the Protestant Reformation. Witness hears primary sources from the time, and speaks to historian Lyndal Roper.

(Photo: A portrait of Martin Luther by Lucas Cranach the Elder on display at the German Historical Museum in Berlin, Germany (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

In October 1975 the prominent Brazilian journalist Vladimir Herzog was killed by the secret police. His murder became a symbol of the brutality of the military regime. Mike Lanchin speaks to his son, Ivo, who was just nine years old at the time.

Photo: Vladimir Herzog with Ivo as a baby (courtesy of the Herzog family).

In October 1929 Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir began their fifty-year love affair after meeting in Paris. Louise Hidalgo speaks to the writer and leading French feminist, Claudine Monteil, who knew Sartre and de Beauvoir, about their legendary status and their famously open relationship.

Photo: Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre sitting in a cafe in Paris, 1970. (STF/AFP/Getty Images)

An eyewitness to the assassination of the campaigning Nigerian journalist Dele Giwa. He was murdered in Lagos in 1986 while the country was under military rule.In October 1986, Dele Giwa was the founder of the investigative magazine Newswatch. In 2014, Alex Last spoke to his friend and colleague, Kayode Soyinka, who was with him when he died. Photo: Dele Giwa

Soon after Hitler ordered the invasion of Hungary in March 1944, the Nazis began rounding up hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews. Most were immediately sent to their deaths in the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. David Gur was a member of the Jewish Hungarian underground, who helped produce tens of thousands of forged identification documents. These allowed Jews to hide their true identities and escape deportation to the death camps. Now 91 years old, David has been telling Mike Lanchin about his part in one of the largest rescue operations organised by Jews during the Holocaust.

Photo: False Hungarian ID document (BBC)

On October 25th 1961 a new satirical magazine called Private Eye was published for the first time in London. It was part of a new era of comedy, poking fun at the powerful and politicians, and helping Britain to laugh at itself after the austerity of the post-war years. Louise Hidalgo has been talking to one of Private Eye's founders, Richard Ingrams.

Picture: the Private Eye office in 1963. From left to right, editor Richard Ingrams, Christopher Booker and actor, cartoonist and broadcaster Willie Rushton. (Photo by John Pratt/Keystone Features/Getty Images)

Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu made abortion illegal in October 1966 - but many women still tried to end their pregnancies, by sometimes desperate means.

Sorina Voiculescu was one of the millions of Romanian women who had an illegal abortion under the ban.

(Photo shows: A pregnant woman. Photo credit: PA)

How British Jewish ex-servicemen and volunteers came together to form The 43 Group to fight a resurgent British fascist movement on the streets of post-war Britain. Fascist leaders, like Sir Oswald Mosley, had been released from detention at the end of the World War Two. Soon they were holding meetings in London and around the country, often espousing the same violently anti-Semitic rhetoric used before the war.

In response the 43 Group was formed in the late 1940s to gain intelligence on the fascist movement, expose their activities and physically break up their meetings. Its activities became a model for future militant anti-fascist groups. Alex Last has been speaking to 43 Group veteran, Jules Konopinksi.

(Photo: British Fascist Sir Oswald Mosley speaking at a rally, Hertford Road, Dalston, London, 1 May 1948. Credit: Getty Images)

When the socialist leader of Mozambique and many of his senior advisers were killed in a plane crash on the border with South Africa, many were suspicious. It was October 19th 1986 and the two countries were divided over Apartheid. The plane made a sudden direct turn straight into a range of mountains, and one of the air crash investigators at the scene, Dr Alan Diehl, told Rebecca Kesby there are reasons to suspect the plane was deliberately diverted off course.

(PHOTO: The socialist leader of Mozambique Samora Machel delivers a speech. Credit: Getty Images.)

In October 2002 Chechen rebels seized a packed theatre in central Moscow and took hundreds of people hostage. They demanded the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya. Olga Smirnova has been hearing the story of Svetlana Gubareva who was in the theatre that night with her fiancé and daughter.

Photo: Images of some of the victims amid candles and floral tributes (Denis Sinyakov/Getty Images)

The two-time Booker prize-winning author drowned off the south-west coast of Ireland in 1979. Vincent Dowd has been speaking to people who knew him, and to Pauline Foley who was the last person to see him alive.

Photo: The road in front of Farrell's home in West Cork, leading down to the sea where he drowned. Credit: BBC.

On October 16th 1962 the American president, John F Kennedy, received news that the Soviets were secretly deploying nuclear missiles on the island of Cuba. In the two weeks that followed, the Cuban Missile crisis took the world to the brink of nuclear war. Louise Hidalgo has been listening back through the BBC's archives to some of those at the centre of the crisis in Washington and Moscow.

Picture: President Kennedy goes on national television to tell the American public about the Soviet nuclear missile deployment and announces a strategic blockade of Cuba, 22nd October 1962 (Credit: Keystone/Getty Images)

Ron Shipp was a close friend of OJ Simpson's but was also a police officer and decided to testify against him in a criminal trial for double homicide. In 1995 OJ Simpson was acquitted of killing his ex wife, Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman. Ron Shipp tells Rebecca Kesby why he wanted to testify.

Photo: O.J. Simpson (C) confers with attorneys Johnnie Cochran (L) and Robert Shapiro (R) during Simpson's murder trial in Los Angeles, CA. (Credit: POOL/AFP/Getty Images)

Italy's great works of art were threatened by bombing and looting during World War Two. But a plan known as 'Operation Rescue' was devised to keep the paintings and sculptures safe. Some were hidden in remote spots, others were moved to the Vatican. Pasquale Rotondi was a leading figure in the operation, his daughter Giovanna Rotondi spoke to Alice Gioia about his wartime work.

Photo: St George by Andrea Mantegna, circa 1460.(Credit DeAgostini/Getty Images)

In October 1940, the elected Catalan leader, Lluis Companys, was executed by a Spanish fascist firing squad in Barcelona. His death made Companys a hero to generations of Catalan nationalists, although his legacy is debated to this day. Simon Watts tells his story using accounts from the time.

PHOTO: A Catalan nationalist marking the 50th anniversary of Companys' death in 2010 (Getty Images)

In October 1967 the Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara was captured and killed in Bolivia. He had gone there to try to organise a Cuban-style revolution. Mike Lanchin has spoken to Felix Rodriguez, the CIA operative who helped track him down, and was one of the last people to speak to him.

(Photo: Felix Rodriguez (left) with the captured Che Guevara, shortly before his execution on 9 October 1967. Courtesy of Felix Rodriguez)

The murder of gay student Matthew Shepard in October 1998 shocked America. After a decade of campaigning, his mother, Judy Shepard, convinced lawmakers to change hate crime legislation, outlawing attacks based on gender, disability, gender identity, or sexual orientation. Claire Bowes has been speaking to Judy Shepard.

Photo: Matthew Shepard (Handout image from the Matthew Shepard Foundation)

There were riots when the first black student was enrolled at the University of Mississippi in the American south in October 1962. Mississippi's white segregationist governor only allowed James Meredith to be admitted after President John F Kennedy himself intervened. Louise Hidalgo has been talking to Norma Watkins, the daughter of the governor's lawyer, about that watershed moment and about growing up in one of America's most segregated states.

Picture: James Meredith walks to class at Ole Miss university accompanied by US marshals, October 1st 1962 (Credit: Marion S Trikosko courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington)

For five years Maisoon Bashir and her family lived on the front-line of the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip. Their house was directly opposite one of the Jewish settlements built by Israel after it captured the tiny heavily-populated territory from Egypt in the Six Day war in October 1967. Israeli troops occupied the top floors of Maisoon’s house, using it as a military look-out post, while Maisoon and her family continued living in the rooms below. They finally re-gained possession of their home when Israel withdrew from Gaza in September 2005. Maisoon tells Mike Lanchin about living with soldiers in her own home.

Photo: An Israeli armored personnel carrier deploys at sunrise to protect the evacuation of the Gaza Strip Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom (David Silverman/Getty Images).

King Henry VIII's favourite warship sank during a naval battle over 400 years ago. But the wreck and its contents were preserved in silt for centuries and finally raised to the surface in October 1982. Susan Hulme has spoken to Christopher Dobbs, one of the archaeologists who helped excavate the Mary Rose while she lay on the sea bed, and who is still uncovering its secrets today.

Photo: A reconstruction of the Mary Rose, in full sail. Copyright: BBC.

A very modern museum opened in the Iranian capital in October 1977. It contains one of the finest collections of Western art outside Europe and North America. Iran's Islamic revolution just over a year later, led to many of the paintings being hidden from public view. Rozita Riazati spoke to Kamran Diba who was the architect, and first director, of the museum.

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

Just 33 days into his reign, Pope John Paul I unexpectedly died in September 1978. He was discovered in the early morning lying on his bed, a collection of sermons in his hand. He was considered an excellent communicator, and his warm personality earned him the nick name of "the smiling Pope". But his death shook the church. Rebecca Kesby spoke to Cardinal Beniamino Stella who knew him well.

(PHOTO: Pope John Paul I. Credit: Getty Images.)

Guinea became the first French West African colony to declare independence in October 1958. In a referendum held throughout French colonies, Guinea had been the only nation to vote for independence. Guinea was led by the charismatic politician Sekou Toure who famously declared "We prefer poverty in freedom, than riches in slavery". The French government under General Charles De Gaulle reacted to the decision by cutting off aid, withdrawing French workers, and stripping Guinea of equipment and resources. Alex Last has been speaking to Professor Lansine Kaba, a Guinean historian who was in Guinea as a student in 1958. Photo of Guinean leader, Sekou Toure, during a visit to London in 1959 (AFP/Getty Images)

It took 508 days for three friends to complete the first trek along the entire length of the ancient structure, well over 8000 kms. They finally reached the Jiayu Pass on September 24th 1985, having documented the condition of the wall every step of the way. The three men became national heroes as the press followed their progress. Their expedition also drew attention to the Great Wall, Chinese culture and history and sparked a new era of Chinese tourism. Yaohui Dong spoke to Rebecca Kesby about what inspired him to make the journey.

(PHOTO: Yaohui Dong, Wu Deyu and Zhang Yuanhua. Courtesy of Yaohui Dong)

Around 80 thousand women and girls volunteered to join the Women's Land Army during the Second World War. They helped provide vital food supplies to a country under siege. Kirsty Reid has spoken to Mona McLeod who was just 17 years old when she started working 6 days a week on a farm in Scotland. Mona has written a book about her experiences: 'A Land Girl's Tale'.

Photo: Land girls carrying bundles of straw in 1941. (Credit: Maeers/Fox Photos/Getty Images)

The anti-apartheid activist was buried on September 25th 1977. He had died in police custody just two weeks earlier. Thousands of people attended the funeral. Alex Last spoke to one of the early members of the Black Consciousness movement, Mamphela Ramphele who had a relationship with Steve Biko.

Photo: Anti-apartheid activist attending the burial ceremony of Steve Biko, October 1977. (Photo credit STF/AFP/GettyImages)

A showdown on the American/Mexican border on September 14th 1958 - in which two horses raced along either side of the border fence. Lucy Burns speaks to Ralph Romero, whose father was the owner of Relampago, the Mexican horse.

Photo: Relampago, courtesy of Ralph Romero

After the 9/11 attacks, a New York guide dog called Roselle was hailed as a hero for helping her owner safely down 78 flights of stairs and away from the Twin Towers before they collapsed. Simon Watts talks to Roselle's owner, Michael Hingson.

PHOTO: Roselle and Michael Hingson, right, meeting a 9/11 rescue team (Getty Images)

For decades, Australia's countryside was ravaged by billions of rabbits. So in the 1950s, the government released the disease myxomatosis to kill off the rabbit plague. We hear from farmer, Bill McDonald, who remembers Australia's battle against the bunnies. (This programme is a re-broadcast).

(Photo: Rabbits around a waterhole at the myxomatosis trial enclosure on Wardang Island in 1938. Credit: National Archives of Australia)

When Australian spearfishing champion Rodney Fox survived an horrific attack by a Great White Shark in 1963, it inspired him to learn more about the predator that tried to eat him. He invented the Shark Cage to help him do it safely. Rodney's was one of the worst non-fatal shark attacks ever recorded. He's been describing his miraculous escape from the jaws of death to Rebecca Kesby.

(Photo: A Great White Shark - Getty Images)

A plague of African desert locusts flew 5,000 kilometres non-stop to the Caribbean in 1988 in a journey never before recorded. They are thought to have come over with Hurricane Joan and the islanders were horrified at the sight of millions of dead and dying locusts on the beaches. Ministries of Agriculture feared the insects would become an established pest and would ruin crops but the surviving locusts seemed disorientated and soon died out. Claire Bowes has been speaking to an entomologist from St Lucia about the strange visitors who didn't like bananas.

Photo: Getty Creative Images

A doctor working in Sabra and Shatila refugee camp in Lebanon recalls the massacre there in September 1982. Over the course of three days, Lebanese Christian militiamen killed and raped hundreds of the Palestinian inhabitants of Sabra and Shatila in Beirut in revenge for the assassination of their leader, Lebanese president elect, Bashir Gemayel. Dr Swee Ang treated the wounded in the basement of the only hospital in the camp; she tells Louise Hidalgo her story.

Photo: A Palestinian woman cries while civil defence workers carry the body of one of her relatives from the rubble of her home in the Palestinian refugee camp of Shatila in West Beirut, 19th September 1982 (Credit: STF/AFP/Getty Images)

Karl-Heinz Borchardt was arrested just after his 18th birthday by communist secret police in East Germany. His crime was writing a letter to the BBC World Service in protest at the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. He has been speaking to Abby Darcy about how he was caught out by the Stasi.

Photo: Karl-Heinz Borchardt at the time of his arrest. Copyright: Dr Karl-Heinz Borchardt .

A group of hippies known as the London Street Commune occupied a sixty-room mansion in central London in September 1969. 144 Piccadilly became a flash point for the conflict between alternative culture and the mainstream – and it was later cleared by the police. Lucy Burns speaks to Richie Gardener, who was one of the squatters.

Picture credit: A policeman removes a flag from the balcony of 144 Piccadilly as squatters are evicted from the building, London, 21st September 1969. (Photo by Terry Disney/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Customers queued for hours to take their savings out, fearing the mortgage lender was about to go under. The Bank of England had to step in to support it. It was the first sign in Britain of the coming global financial crisis.

Photo: Northern Rock customers queuing outside the Kingston branch, in order to take their money out on September 17th 2007. Credit: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

When West African tin miners unearthed evidence of a lost civilization. In the 1920s, terracotta heads and figurines were unearthed near the village of Nok in central Nigeria. They were ignored until a British colonial officer and archaeologist, Bernard Fagg, realised they were evidence of an unknown African culture dating back over 2,500 years. Alex Last speaks to Bernard's daughter, Angela Rackham. Photo: A Nok terracotta (Marie-Lan Nguyen)

The last man to be executed by guillotine in France was a disabled Tunisian murderer, Hamida Djandoubi. He was beheaded on September 10th 1977 at the Baumettes prison in Marseille. Ashley Byrne has spoken to the daughter of lawyer, Emile Pollak, who defended Hamida Djandoubi and who was present at his execution. The death penalty was outlawed in France in 1981.

Photo: A man looks at a guillotine in an exhibition. Credit: Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images.

In 1974 during a live broadcast of Carl Orff's, Carmina Burana as part of the BBC classical music season 'The Proms', the principal baritone singer collapsed into the orchestra pit in a dead faint. A member of the audience stepped forward to sing the rest of the piece. Patrick McCarthy had only just graduated from music school, but became something of a national hero when he rescued the show. He describes the night he saved The Proms at The Albert Hall in London to Rebecca Kesby for Witness.

(PHOTO: Patrick McCarthy outside The Albert Hall, London 1974. Getty Images)

An ambitious ecological experiment was launched in Arizona in September 1991. It aimed to see if human beings could produce everything they needed to survive - in a man-made environment. Rachael Gillman has been speaking to Linda Leigh, one of the eight scientists who spent two years sealed inside the giant greenhouse known as 'Biosphere 2'.

Photo credit: TIM ROBERTS/AFP/Getty Images

The photos taken in 1917 by two young girls were heralded by the Sherlock Holmes author, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, as proof of the existence of fairies. Cousins Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths were 15 and 9 when they took the photos in the village of Cottingley near Leeds in the north of England. In 1920 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published the photos in an issue of the Strand magazine as part of an article on fairy life. He was a leading member of the Theosophical Society, a movement interested in the spirit world which had gained a following in the devastating aftermath of World War One. In 1983 Elsie Wright finally admitted that the photos had been faked.

Photo: Copyright Alamy. Frances Griffiths and the "Cottingley Fairies" in a photograph made in 1917 by her cousin Elsie Wright with paper cutouts and hatpins.

A train carrying day-trippers crashed in September 1957 near the small town of Kendal, Jamaica. More than 200 passengers died and over 700 were injured. Mike Lanchin has been speaking to Earl Clarke, who was 14 years old when he survived the accident. Photo: (Alamy)

Diana's brother Earl Spencer made a passionate speech at her funeral, which was interpreted by many as an attack on the Royal Family and the British press. He speaks to Mishal Husain about delivering the eulogy - and about the "bizarre and cruel" decision that her children William and Harry should walk behind her coffin.

Picture: Earl Spencer and Prince William outside the funeral ceremony for the Princess of Wales. Credit: Joel Robine/AFP/Getty Images

The online auction site first went live in September 1995. Initially, it targeted collectors of antiques and memorabilia. Soon, you could sell virtually anything on eBay. Ashley Byrne has been speaking to Jim Griffith one of the company's first employees.

Photo: the eBay logo.

The novel Animal Farm was an allegory about the dangers of Soviet communism and of the communist leader Joseph Stalin. It was first published shortly after the end of World War Two, as the Cold War was just beginning. Louise Hidalgo has been speaking to Orwell's adopted son, Richard Blair, about George Orwell's work, and about his memories of his father.

Photo: George Orwell with Richard on his knee in the 1940s. Credit: Vernon Richards

1983 saw a major breakthrough in the treatment of facial deformities. When the first three-dimensional reconstruction of a human head using CT scans was presented to the medical world. The images allowed plastic surgeons a far more precise way of planning surgical procedures. Farhana Haider has been speaking to radiologist Dr Michael Vannier who invented the 3D imaging technique which has revolutionised medicine.

Photo: Three-dimensional CT scan of a male skull and arterial system. Credit SPL

In August 1958, Britain was shocked by nearly a week of race riots in the west London district of Notting Hill. The clashes between West Indian immigrants and aggressive white youths known as Teddy Boys led to the first race relations campaigns and the creation of the famous Notting Hill Carnival. Simon Watts reports.

PHOTO: Police making arrests in Notting Hill in 1958 (Getty Images)

Germany saw its worst racial violence since World War Two in August 1992, when a home for asylum seekers was set on fire in the city of Rostock. Lucy Burns speaks to journalist Jochen Schmidt, who was trapped in the burning building.

In BBC archive recordings, veterans tell the story of how medical care dealt with the horrors of WW1. Photo: Australian wounded on the Menin Road on the Western Front, 1917 (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

How an ophthalmologist and a dermatologist in Vancouver, Canada, discovered that small amounts of a deadly toxin could make frown lines disappear. Chloe Hadjimatheou spoke to Drs Jean and Alastair Carruthers about their breakthrough.

Photo: Doctor injecting a woman's face with botulinum toxin. Copyright: Pascal Goetgheluck/Science Photo Library.

Hear from one of the German prosecution lawyers who helped put Nazi war criminals on trial 20 years after World War Two had ended. Gerhard Wiese has been speaking to Lucy Burns about the trial, and about visiting the Auschwitz death camp with other members of the court.

Photo: Members of the Frankfurt court and several journalists pass through the Auschwitz camp gate with the words "Arbeit macht frei" (work brings freedom) above them. December 14,1964. Credit: Press Association.

In August 1941 one of the greatest poets India has ever produced died. Known as the "Bard of Bengal" Rabindranath Tagore was the first non-European to win a Nobel Prize for Literature and has been called one of the outstanding thinkers of the 20th century. Farhana Haider and has been listening to material from the BBC archives and hearing from Professor Bashabi Fraser, Director of the Scottish Centre of Tagore Studies.

Photo June 1921, Indian poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore in London. Credit: Getty Images

In August 1974, Turkey ordered its troops into northern Cyprus for the second time in less than a month, leading to the division of the island into a Greek Cypriot part and a Turkish Cypriot part, a division that still exists today. Louise Hidalgo has been listening to a Turkish account of those events from the son of Turkey's foreign minister at the time, Hursit Gunes.

Picture: an armoured vehicle filled with soldiers during fighting between Greek and Turkish Cypriots, August 16th 1974 (Credit: Reg Lancaster/ Express/Getty Images

The English-language newspaper was credited with standing up to Argentina's military dictatorship during the late 1970s and early 1980s. It published reports of people who'd disappeared when other newspapers were effectively silenced by the authorities. The paper's editor at the time, Robert Cox, has been speaking to Simon Watts for Witness.

Photo: Argentinian soldiers frisking a civilian at a checkpoint in Buenos Aires in 1977. Credit: Ali Burafi/AFP/Getty Images.

In the 1990s students began boycotting Nike after it became linked to sweatshops. Many were horrified to find their trainers were being made by poorly paid Indonesian workers.

Photo: Cicih Sukaesih telling her story in America in 1996 (courtesy of Jeff Ballinger)

For years Germans have been bathing nude at the beach. Many are members of a naturist movement called the FKK, which was banned under the Nazis and faced official disapproval during the early years of communist rule in East Germany. Mike Lanchin has been speaking to one East Berliner who recalls the heyday of naked sunbathing beside the Baltic Sea, and who still likes to bare all when he goes on holiday.

Photo: Bathers enjoying the beach at Baerwalder See, Eastern Germany (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

"We have outlawed Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes". It was just an unscripted joke by US President Ronald Reagan but it terrified ordinary Russians. Reagan's advisor Morton Blackwell tells Dina Newman about the president's love of anti-Soviet jokes and his determination to destroy Communism.

Photo: American president Ronald Reagan in the 1980s at his desk in the White House, Washington DC. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale - known to generations as the "lady with the lamp" - died on August 13th 1910. Lucy Burns hears a recording of Florence Nightingale's voice from 1890, along with memories of her life from her great-nephew Harry Verney and her private doctor May Thorne - and Dr Rosemary Wall from the University of Hull explains her legacy in the world of public health.

Recording courtesy of the Library at the Wellcome Collection

Picture: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Exactly a year before Indian independence there were deadly riots in India's second city of Calcutta. They followed mass demonstrations calling for the creation of a Muslim-majority state and persuaded many political leaders that India should be divided on its independence. Thousands of people were killed and thousands more left the city. Justin Rowlatt has been speaking to 2 survivors of the killings.

Photo: Calcutta policemen use tear gas during the communal riots in the city. (Credit: Keystone Features/Getty Images)