The History Hour

Stories from around the world on women's reproductive rights. Women fighting both sides of the abortion debate as well as the first Muslim country to legalise abortion. Also, the development of the Pill and why Japan took so long to make it legal for women.(Image: Speakers from Tunisia Women's Union at an event. Credit: Saida El Gueyed)

In 1961 the first openly gay person ran for public office in the United States. He was a drag queen called Jose Sarria, well-known for his performances at the bohemian 'Black Cat' bar in San Francisco. He was determined to stop gay people being second-class citizens. His friend and fellow drag performer Mike-Michelle spoke to Josephine McDermott about his memories of the campaign.In 1928 the smear test was invented by Dr George Papanicoloau, a Greek immigrant who had made a new life in the United States. He discovered a way of detecting changes in cells from a woman’s cervix, which meant cancer could be prevented from developing. His work has stopped millions of women worldwide getting cancer. Dr Papanicolaou’s great niece Olga Stamatiou speaks to Laura Jones.It’s 10 years since scientists in Geneva said they believed they had found the Higgs Boson - known as the 'God particle'. In July 2012 after more than 40 years of searching, teams taking part in experiments at the Large Hadron Collider confirmed the existence of the particle which gives everything mass. Dr André David from CERN speaks to Laura Jones.In 1968 and early 1969 university students across Japan fought pitched battles with riot police after they barricaded themselves into their lecture halls and went on strike. They were protesting about the poor quality of their education and the inequalities of Japanese society in a period of rapid economic change. Emily Finch talks to Kazuki Kumamoto who was a young student who joined the protests. This is a Whistledown production for BBC World Service.The south-east region of Nigeria declared itself to be the independent state of Biafra. In response, Nigerian forces invaded the state on the 6th July 1967, beginning the Nigerian Civil War. More than a million people died before the fighting stopped. We bring you one child’s story of getting caught up in the frontline. In 2021 Paul Waters spoke to Patricia Ngozi Ebigwe, now better known as TV and music star Patti Boulaye, who was 13 years old when she had to try to escape the conflict.(Photo: Jose Sarria in drag. Credit: The Jose Sarria Foundation)

Stories from Hong Kong, 25 years on since the handover from British to Chinese rule. We hear from the last governor of Hong Kong, a pro democracy campaigner and about life in Kowloon Walled City.(Photo: Chris Patten at the handover ceremony of Hong Kong from Britain to China. Credit: Getty Images)

In June 2012, Egypt held its first ever free democratic Presidential election. Mohamed Morsi, representing the Muslim Brotherhood, emerged victorious. Ben Henderson spoke to Rabab El-Mahdi, Chief Strategist to one of Morsi’s rival candidates. She described what it was like to be involved in the first election of its kind, how Morsi tried to recruit her, and the personal impact of political campaigning in such a polarised country.In June 1982 a young Chinese-American engineer was murdered with a baseball bat by two white men in the US city of Detroit. The lenient sentences the perpetrators received sparked an Asian-American activist movement with protests across the US. At the time, America was going through an economic depression and many blamed Japan, which was perceived to be flooding the US with its cars. For Asian-Americans, it was a time of fear. Farhana Haider spoke to Helen Zia, one of the activists who led the fight for justice. This programme was first broadcast in 2017.In 2003, Dr Nayana Patel, who ran her own fertility clinic in the state of Gujarat in India, carried out her first surrogacy procedure. It involved a surrogate mother and her own daughter. Dr Patel's clinic would go on to become one of the biggest in India attracting Western couples. It was legalised in 2002 but due to growing criticism, the government banned couples from the West from paying Indian surrogates to bear their children in 2015, arguing that the industry was exploiting poor women. Reena Stanton-Sharma spoke to Dr Nayana Patel.In 1985, the first robot-assisted medical surgery took place in Vancouver, Canada. It’s now become a standard feature of operating theatres worldwide. The original gadget was named Arthrobot. A member of the original project team, Geof Auchinleck, told his story to Kurt Brookes. A Made in Manchester production.The UK’s first official gay Pride march took place 50 years ago – on 1st July 1972. Alex Collins talked to Ted Brown, who took part in the London march.

In 2009, Rob Hamill testified in the trial of Comrade Duc, who ran the notorious Tuol Sleng prison during the Cambodian genocide. Josephine McDermott spoke to him. It is 50 years since Kim Phuc's village in Vietnam was bombed with napalm. The photograph of her, running burned from the attack, became one of the iconic images of the Vietnam War. Kim Phuc talks to Christopher Wain, the man who helped save her.In 2001 a violent, sectarian dispute took place outside Holy Cross Primary School in Belfast. Loyalist protesters tried to block the school run for Catholic pupils and their parents for months. Rachel Naylor spoke to one of the parents, Elaine Burns.This year is the 100th anniversary of Ulysses by James Joyce, one of the most influential novels of the 20th Century. Ulysses is the story of one day in the life of a young Irishman in Dublin; that day, June 16th, is now known as Bloomsday. To mark Bloomsday, Simon Watts brought together the memories of some of Joyce’s friends. The programme was first broadcast in 2012.In 1985, a unique High School opened in New York to provide a safe environment for LGBT students needing specialised education. The publicly-funded Harvey Milk High School was founded by former social worker, Steve Askinazy. Alex Collins talked to Steve Askinazy.(Photo: Kang Kek lew (Comrade Duc) as Director of Tuol Sleng Prison, c.1976-8. Credit: Getty images)

Max Pearson introduces first-hand accounts of the 2006 suicide bombing attack on Sri Lanka's president, the 75th anniversary of Anne Frank's diary and the 1968 assassination in the US of Bobby Kennedy. Plus, the birth of a crime fighting women's rights group in India and the moment the President of Gabon was shown the treasures of the rainforest.

Max Pearson introduces first-hand accounts of the 2013 chemical weapons attack in Syria and the opening of a refugee camp for Syrians fleeing the civil war. Plus, how lynching was finally outlawed in America, the opening of the Sydney Opera House and the Queen's coronation.PHOTO: A UN inspector at work in Ghouta, Syria in August 2013 (Reuters)

Max Pearson introduces the memories of people who knew Picasso, Frida Kahlo and Georgia O'Keeffe; plus, how a collector in the Soviet Union managed to open a museum for Russian artists banned by Stalin, and how a festival in Senegal in the 1960s inspired artists across a newly-independent Africa.PHOTO: Pablo Picasso in 1955 (Getty Images)

Max Pearson introduces first-hand accounts of the rule of Ferdinand Marcos Senior in the 1970s and 80s; plus, Shanghai during World War Two, and the opening of the first McDonald's in the Soviet Union. The History Hour also hears how the murder of a young West Indian called Kelso Cochrane changed race relations in Britain in the late 1950s.PHOTO: Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos in Manila in 1977 (Getty Images)

With speculation mounting that President Putin might mount an attack on Moldova, Max Pearson hears a first-hand account of the war in the 1990s between the Moldovans and Russian-backed separatists in the disputed region of Transnistria. There's also a chilling story from the Cold War about how a Soviet air defence official prevented a potential catastrophe by realising that a computer warning about a US nuclear attack was a false alarm.In the second-half of the History Hour, an Egyptian poet remembers how 48 hours of unrest in 1977 forced the government to scrap a huge increase in the cost of bread, and an Icelandic geophysicist recalls how the 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano caused disruption all over Europe. PHOTO: Russian-speaking Transnistrian fighters during the war (Getty Images)

Max Pearson gets a first-hand account of how the minority Uyghur community in China staged some of the first protests against the all-powerful Communist Party in the 1980s. Plus, the young lawyer who won the landmark Roe v Wade abortion rights case in the US, the chemistry of cannabis and the personal stories of two veterans of the 1982 Falklands War.PHOTO: A Uyghur yurt on the Xinjiang steppe (Getty Images)

Sixty years after Algeria's independence from France, first-hand accounts of a traumatic 'birth of a nation': a female Algerian bomber who was part of the battle for Algiers; how the French military responded with brutal tactics; a massacre on the streets of Paris; and reprisals against Algerians who fought alongside the French. Plus,the flowering of a national spirit through football.(Photo: French soldiers in the kasbah of Algiers, 1960. Credit: Getty Images)

On the fortieth anniversary of the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands, Max Pearson hears two contrasting accounts of the war with Britain. Patrick Watts was the manager of the radio station on the Falklands; he kept broadcasting calmly as Argentine troops burst into the studio. Patrick Savage was a conscript in the Argentine army; for him, the fighting was a cold, frightening and brutal experience that culminated in defeat. Max also gets analysis of the conflict from Argentine political scientist, Dr Celia Szusterman.In the second half of the programme, there are first-hand accounts of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979; the US-USSR trade deal that fuelled inflation in the 70s; and a historic handshake in space between an American astronaut and a Soviet cosmonaut.PHOTO: Argentine troops on the Falklands shortly after the 1982 invasion (Getty Images)

Starting in late 2011, tens of thousands of protestors took to the streets to try to stop what they saw as a power grab by Russian leader Vladimir Putin. The movement was not successful, but analysts say it worried the Russian leader so much that he launched a crackdown on dissent that has lasted to this day. We hear from Russian rock journalist, Artemy Troitsky, who composed a song that became an anthem of what was sometimes called the "Snow Revolution".Also, the launch of the first women's newspaper in Afghanistan, how black stuntmen demanded work from the big studios in Hollywood, and the dramatic story of the women who escaped a violent cult based in South London.Photo: An anti-Putin rally in Moscow in December 2011. Credit: Getty Images

To mark the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a special edition on episodes from Ukrainian history. In April 1986 a reactor exploded at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Soviet Ukraine. Sergii Mirnyi monitored radiation levels in the exclusion zone around the plant. How the international community - including both Russia and the USA - offered security "assurances" to Ukraine in return for giving up its share of the Soviet nuclear arsenal. A survivor's account of Ukraine's great famine in the 1930s, the Holodomor, when several million people died. The mass killing of Ukrainian Jews by Nazi Germany during World War Two, and how Artek, on the shores of the Black Sea in Crimea, became the Soviet Union's most popular holiday camp. Photo: The Chernobyl plant shortly after the explosion in 1986 Credit: Getty Images

To celebrate International Women's Day, a special edition on five women who've made their mark on history. US feminist Gloria Steinem remembers founding Ms Magazine in 1972; Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi discusses the human rights campaigning which won her the Nobel Peace Prize; and a friend of Anna Akhmatova remembers the great Russian poet. Plus, a leading Italian feminist on the international movement in the 1970s which demanded women get paid for housework; and the Australian women who helped turn public opinion against the Vietnam War.Picture: Gloria Steinem, centre, at the offices of Ms Magazine in New York circa 1974 (Credit: PL Gould/IMAGES/Getty Images)

How Vladimir Putin, a former KGB agent, rose to power and transformed Russia. We hear eyewitness accounts of Putin's war in Chechnya, his campaign against Russia's independent media, and the war in Georgia, which became a blueprint for the invasion of Ukraine. Plus the BBC's Russia specialist Lucy Ash tells us why Putin was shaped by his experience of the end of the Cold War, and we talk to Dr Katerina Tertytchnaya of UCL about Putin's popularity and a turning point in Russian popular protest. Photo: A Russian soldier walks through the streets of the destroyed Chechen capital Grozny, February 25, 2000. (Photo by Oleg Nikishin/Getty Images)

In the 1990s, doctors in Berlin began a cutting-edge treatment programme that led to a patient being cured of HIV/AIDS. The so-called "Berlin patient" was Timothy Ray Brown: he was suffering from leukemia as well as HIV/AIDS, and was given a bone marrow transplant from a donor with a rare genetic mutation which killed off the HIV virus. We find more about Timothy Ray Brown's story and the latest research on an HIV cure.Also, in a special edition on LGBT history, how Bollywood lesbian drama "Fire" raised awareness of LGBT issues in India; the trans film star who made headlines in Yugoslavia during a time of war; and the first couple in the world to celebrate a same-sex civil union.PHOTO: Timothy Ray Brown in 2012 (Getty Images)

Former presidents and protestors recount two key moments in the history of the Ukraine crisis - from the historic meeting that ended the USSR to the dramatic anti-government protests in Ukraine in 2013-14. And the BBC's Lucy Ash explains how Russian-Ukrainian relations have evolved. Also in the programme, an eyewitness account of the forgotten mass killings in Burundi in 1972, plus the inventors of Google Maps and how Manolo Blahnik became a legend in the world of shoes.Photo: Kyiv, Ukraine - December 9th 2013. Anti-government protesters stand guard at one of the barricades defending Maidan Square against police. Credit: Etienne De Malglaive/Getty Images

How Kazakhstan's strongman president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, created a new capital, which would eventually be named after him; transformation in the UEA - the first Emirati female teacher in the 1960s; the murder of American journalist, Daniel Pearl; from 70 years ago, the passing of Britain’s King George VI; and a once-in-a-lifetime transit of Venus.Picture: Kazakhstan's capital, Astana, since renamed Nur-Sultan (credit: Shutterstock)

In one of the most controversial episodes of 'The Troubles' in Northern Ireland, UK soldiers fired on unarmed Catholic protesters, killing 13 in January 1972. We look at why British troops were there, what happened on that day, and how it further polarised Protestant Unionist and Catholic Republican communities. Successive UK governments insisted the soldiers had returned fire in self defence, until a public inquiry reported in 2010 that the soldiers had in fact fired first - and at fleeing, unarmed, protesters. The then Prime Minister, David Cameron, apologised on behalf of the government. We'll speak to former BBC Northern Ireland Editor, Eimear O'Callaghan, who as a teenager kept a diary of life in sectarian Belfast in the 1970s, later published into a book, and who reported for years on the struggle for peace.Photo: A British soldier grabs hold of a protester by the hair. (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

In 2009, Boko Haram, a small Islamist group, launched an insurgency in the north eastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri. The conflict would eventually force hundreds of thousands from their homes, and leave tens of thousands dead. We hear a witness account of how the violence started. Plus, this past week Americans have been observing the Martin Luther King Jr. Day national holiday. The long campaign to have Dr King formally recognized in the US was led by his widow, Coretta Scott King. We hear from her daughter, Dr Bernice King, about the campaign. We dip into the BBC archive to bring you the story of the notorious Stanford Prison Experiment. Also, from the 1980s, a time when many wanted to get out of East Germany and into the West, the young woman who decided to go the other way and set up a new life in the East. And the Dutchman behind the first bike sharing scheme. Photo: A suspected Boko Haram house in Maiduguri set ablaze by Nigerian security forces, 30th July 2009 (AFP/Getty Images)

The Indian independence campaigner, Subhas Chandra Bose, sided with Hitler's axis powers in World War Two to try to free his country from British rule. We'll hear from his great-niece about why she thinks that if he had lived he could have changed the course of India's history. We'll also hear from Dr Shruti Kapila of Cambridge University about why India's current government is celebrating Bose. Plus a nuclear scientist tells us about his role in a secret project to make safe vast swathes of nuclear-contaminated land in post-Soviet Kazakhstan - as well as preventing nuclear material from falling into the wrong hands. Also, the reckless actions which led to the sinking of the Costa Concordia cruise ship, the first woman to have silicone breast implants and Malick Sidibé, the Malian photographer whose work altered people's perceptions about 1960s Africa.Photo: Subhas Chandra Bose giving a speech in Nazi Germany in 1942.

Mozambique’s struggle to end Portuguese colonial rule and the assassination of Eduardo Mondlane, we'll hear from his daughter Nyeleti Brooke Mondlane and Dr Eric Morier-Genoud from Queen's University Belfast. Also, the brainwashing of Albanian youth under Stalinist Enver Hoxha's leadership, the fight for democracy in Taiwan and the worst ever loss of life at sea - the sinking of the German military transport ship, Wilhelm Gustloff in World War Two. All that plus, from the archives, the life and work of the celebrated French author Marcel Proust 100 years after his death.PHOTO: Eduardo Mondlane in 1966 (Getty Images)

The inside story of games that shaped the modern world. Including Atari's Nolan Bushnell on his game Pong which helped launch the video game industry. Plus the origin of Grand Theft Auto, the man who invented Tetris, the son of the Lego brick pioneer and the true story of Monopoly. Max Pearson also talks to the technology journalist Louise Blain about the development of the huge gaming industry and where it goes next.Photo: Pong being played at a retro games event in Germany (Getty Images)

In 2011, cybersecurity expert Manal Al-Sharif helped found the Women2Drive movement. It was designed to force the Saudi Arabian government to overturn its ban on women driving cars - one of the many restrictions on women in the Kingdom. Inspired by the mood of the Arab Spring, Saudi women got behind the wheel and then posted videos of themselves all over social media. The movement attracted international attention and the ban on women drivers was eventually lifted. Saudi journalist Safa Al-Ahmad describes how the lifting of the ban was a radical change to Saudi society, but women in the country still face many severe restrictions. Plus, how in 2010 a Tanzanian man with albinism braved threats and discrimination to become the country's first albino elected politician. Also, the dramatic story of how the great Russian ballet dancer, Rudolf Nureyev, defected from the Soviet Union in 1961. Finally, the festive history of how a town in Finnish Lapland, eviscerated during WWII, rose from the ashes to become the unofficial home of Santa Claus. Presented by Max Pearson.

A special edition on the Bangladesh War of Independence, which ended 50 years ago in December 1971. The conflict killed hundreds of thousands of people and redrew the political map of South Asia. The programme features first-hand accounts from leading activists and politicians, as well as the people caught up in the war - from a Pakistani soldier to one of the many Bangladeshi women who suffered appalling sexual violence.There is expert analysis from Sabir Mustafa, the head of the BBC Bengali Service, and Witness History's Farhana Haider.PHOTO: The flag of Bangladesh is raised at the Awami League headquarters in 1971. Credit: Getty Images.

It’s forty years since the first report on HIV/Aids appeared in a medical journal. Back in the early days in the 1980s a misunderstanding made one man the face of the epidemic. A Canadian air steward, Gaetan Dugas was mistakenly identified as ‘Patient Zero’. A misreading of scientific data had given the impression that he was responsible for the spread of the disease. We hear from people who knew him. Also one woman who was diagnosed in the 1980s tells us of the stigma at the time. And the discovery of the first successful treatment for HIV/Aids, as well as the story of how South African activists led the charge to make drugs widely available. And we hear from the former partner of the British film maker, Derek Jarman who was one of the first artists to speak openly about being HIV positive. Photo: Gaetan Dugas. (Credit: Rand Gaynor)

The three Mirabal sisters were leading figures in the Dominican Republic's opposition movement against the dictator General Rafael Trujillo. They were all killed on the 25th November 1960. We hear from the daughter of one of them, Minerva, who tells us about her family and from Professor Elizabeth Manley on the Mirabal sister's legacy in the Dominican Republic. Also in the programme, the last case of Smallpox in Europe, the woman who helped her mother to die and laid the groundwork for the Netherlands becoming the first country in the world to legalise euthanasia. Also how Estonia led the way on connecting up schools to the internet and the painting by Gustav Klimt which was stolen by Nazis and only returned to its Jewish owners after a lengthy legal battle.Photo: The three Mirabal Sisters, Patria, Minerva and Maria Teresa (Credit: Mirabal family collection)

How in 1964 Sudanese civilian protesters first brought down a military regime, plus the hunt for former Serbian leader Radovan Karadžić later convicted of genocide and war crimes. Also in the programme, Russia's public outcry at the killing of human rights pioneer and leading female politician Galina Starovoitova in the 1990s, the birth of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for anxiety and depression, and getting shot in the arm for the sake of 'art' in the USA.Photo: People celebrate the fall of the military regime in Khartoum, November 1964 (Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

In 2008, the brutal murder of Eudy Simelane shocked South Africa and highlighted the widespread violence faced by South African women and members of the LGTBI community. But has anything changed? We hear from a friend of Eudy and speak to Sibongile Ndashe, a South African lawyer and human rights activist. Plus, we look back at the massive oil fires in Kuwait in 1991, battling racial discrimination in British schools in the 1960s, Cold War intelligence gathering in East Germany and the invention of Chanel No.5, 100 years ago.Photo: Eudy Simelane’s parents sat at the bridge named in their daughter’s honour. Credit: BBC

An hour of first hand accounts from the past. Starting with a crackdown on opposition voices in Eritrea from twenty years ago, plus memories of the 1956 Hungarian uprising, the Nuremberg trials, a breakthrough in orthopaedics, and how the fictional character Fu Manchu prejudiced popular opinion against China and the Chinese for decades.

To mark the start of the UN Climate Change Conference, or COP26, taking place in Glasgow in the UK, we’re looking back at the history of our awareness of climate change with some of the scientists and activists who have been trying to solve this global crisis in recent decades. We hear from environmental activist Severn Cullis-Suzuki, who was just 12 years old when she implored world leaders to take action, at the 1992 UN Earth Summit in Rio De Janeiro. Plus, how a pioneering American scientist provided compelling evidence of man-made global warming back in the 1950s, and measuring melting glaciers at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Photo: Severn Cullis-Suzuki (2nd left) and her friends at the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992. Courtesy of Severn Cullis-Suzuki.

The anti-nuclear weapons protest began in 1981 and lasted nineteen years. Also the first transgender priest in the Church of England, WW2 Polish refugees in Africa, plus why lesbian mothers caused such a stir in the 1970s and was the untimely death of Mozambique's President Samora Machel an assassination?Photo: Women from the Greenham Common peace camp blocking Yellow Gate into RAF Greenham Common , 1st April 1983 . (Photo by Staff/Reading Post/MirrorpixGetty Images)

Under legislation known as the Hudood Ordinances introduced in 1979, a nearly blind teenaged rape survivor was jailed herself for having sex outside marriage. In 1983 Safia Bibi was sentenced to three years imprisonment, 15 lashes and a fine. The verdict and the draconian punishment galvanised the women's rights movement in Pakistan. Also in the programme the terrible price paid by an abortion doctor in 1990s America, the rise of a fascist movement in 1960s Britain plus the Saudi author who shook up Arabic fiction in the early 2000s and from 1987 how a baby stuck down a well in Texas gripped the world’s attention.

As part of our British black history coverage we look back at the racism faced by London's first black policeman from his own colleagues. We also hear about the death in police custody of black ex-soldier Christopher Alder. Plus, the intriguing story of a Somali sailor based in the UK in the early 20th century; the heartbreak faced by the children of black American soldiers and white British mothers during World War Two; and the story of Clyde Best, Britain's pioneering black footballer. Presenter Max Pearson also hears from Dr Martin Glynn of Birmingham City University's Black Studies course. Photo: London's first black policeman PC Norwell Roberts beginning his training with colleagues at Hendon Police College, London, 5 April 1967. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

In 1971 photographer Claudia Andujar began documenting the lives of a remote indigenous tribe in the Brazilian Amazon jungle. Her photographs helped the campaign for recognition of the Yanomami's rights over their own land. Chris Feliciano Arnold, writer and reporter specializing in the Amazon, describes the new threats facing the many indigenous communities in the region. Plus, remembering Petra Kelly - one of the influential founders of the German Green party, tracing the birth of the Taliban, and a survivor of of the Tanker Wars in the 1980s describes the moment his ship was attacked.Photo:Antônio Korihana thëri, a young man under the effect of the hallucinogenic powder yãkoana, Catrimani, 1972-1976. © Claudia Andujar

Eyewitnesses remember the Westgate mall attack in Kenya, the 1990s 'miracle water' craze in Mexico, and the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko. Plus the amazing story of how a journalist revealed the secret romance between Aristotle Onassis and Jackie Kennedy, and we look back at the changing nature of James Bond. Photo: A police officer at the site of the terrorist attack, Westgate Mall, on September 21, 2013 in Nairobi, Kenya.. (Photo by Jeff Angote/Nation Media/Gallo Images/Getty Images)

In 2010 the Haitian capital and surrounding areas were hit by a catastrophic earthquake. Much of Port Au Prince was flattened and more than a hundred thousand people were killed. Amid the destruction and death people's first instinct was to pull together and help one another. A survivor describes what happened after his family home collapsed around him. Plus, a prisoner who took part in the dramatic Attica prison uprising of 1971, the professor who used DNA to unravel a 200-year-old royal mystery from France, and one of the first settlers of Copenhagen's famous hippy commune, Christiania.Photo: Men gather to try to reach those still buried in the rubble beneath the Haitian Department of Justice building in January 2010.(Photo by Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

In a special edition on the terrorist attacks on America, we hear from the White House official who broke the news to the President and a Muslim first-responder who worked at Ground Zero. Plus, personal memories of the US intelligence failures in the run-up to 9/11 and the bombing of Afghanistan which followed. We also get a dramatic first-hand account of the death of Ahmed Shah Massoud, the leader of the Afghan resistance against the Taleban, who was killed by an al-Qaeda suicide bomber on the eve of the attacks on New York and Washington. And former BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus joins us to analyse the war on terror and the gains made - or not made - in the twenty years since a day which changed the world. Photo: Smoke pours from the World Trade Centre after it was hit by two passenger planes on September 11, 2001 in New York City. (Credit: Robert Giroux/Getty Images)

When South Vietnam fell in 1975, most could not escape. In the last days, the US airlifted its remaining personnel and some high ranking Vietnamese officials - but millions were left behind to await their fate. Hear the account of one South Vietnamese veteran who remained in Saigon as North Vietnamese forces took the city. Also on the programme: the 1990s electric car that was taken out of production, we go up close with North Korea's Kim Il Sung, the Gdansk shipyard strike in Poland, and the Sicilian businessman who tried to defy the Mafia.Photo: A South Vietnamese soldier helps his wounded friend during fighting with communist forces in Saigon, 28th April 1975 (Bettmann/Getty Images)

Fang Lang was one of six Chinese men who survived the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. The six faced racism and a hostile immigration system when they reached America. Unlike other survivors, their stories remained untold for decades. We hear from Fang Lang's son Tom and Arthur Jones whose documentary called The Six tells the story of those six Chinese survivors. Also John Maynard Keynes, the economist who transformed the world, changing attitudes in Mexico towards disabled women plus Nigeria’s war against indiscipline in the 1980s and the contested legacy of one of the most revered Arab poets of the twentieth century.Photo: Tom’s father, Fang Lang. Credit: LP Films.

The desperate scramble to evacuate the US embassy at the end of the Vietnam war in 1975, also the 1940s Indian radio station calling for independence. We'll look at life as a 'human shield' in Iraq under Saddam, the man who invented the term 'genocide' and why, and the messy diplomatic embarrassment of Nicolae Ceaușescu's visit to The Queen in 1978.(Photo: A CIA employee helps Vietnamese evacuees onto an Air America helicopter from the top of 22 Gia Long Street, a half mile from the U.S. Embassy. April 1975. Getty Images.)

In August 1961, communist East Germany began building the Berlin Wall, which divided the city for nearly three decades and became a symbol of the Cold War. We hear the memories of Germans from both sides of the Wall and tales of daring escapes. Plus, what life was like in the East - from nudism and folk music to the grim reality of facing the notorious Stasi secret police.PHOTO: Soldiers at the Berlin Wall in the early 1960s (Getty Images)

The story of the famed 1970s Indian conservation movement. Plus we speak to Professor Vinita Damodaran about the history of Indian environmentalism. Also Patti Boulaye on escaping the Biafran war, we hear from Dorothy Butler Gilliam - an African American news pioneer, why Afghanistan's first private radio station helped change a generation, and memories of a taboo-breaking gay support group in 1990s India.(Photo by Bhawan Singh/The The India Today Group via Getty Images)

We hear about the start of the war in Darfur, through the eyes of a teenage boy whose life was changed when the Sudanese military allied to a local militia, the Janjaweed, laid waste to villages across the region, killing and raping as they went. We hear from a survivor of Norway's worst day of terror, when a far-right extremist, Anders Breivik, launched a bomb attack on government offices and attacked a summer camp. Plus a story from our archives from a British army officer during World War Two who witnessed the end of Italy's colonial rule in East Africa during a final battle in the Ethiopian town of Gondar. From Brazil, the women's rights activist whose story of abuse inflicted by her husband inspired the country's first legislation recognising different forms of domestic violence in 2006. Lastly, the story of how the family of the artist Vincent Van Gogh worked to get him recognised as a great painter after he died penniless in 1890. Photo: A young Darfurian refugee walks past a Sudan Liberation Army Land Rover filled with teenage rebel fighters on October 14 2004 in the violent North Darfur region of Sudan. (Photo by Benjamin Lowy/Getty Images)

Afghans remember life under the Taliban in 1990s Kabul, and we ask Kate Clark of the Afghanistan Analysts Network about the fall and rise of the Taliban. Plus, Jane Goodall on her ground-breaking study of chimpanzees, why race riots swept northern England in 2001, the remarkable story of a boy trapped in China's Cultural Revolution, and the invention of the jet engine. Photo: Taliban gunners outside Kabul in November 1996.(Credit: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images)

When the USSR collapsed it could no longer support North Korea, leading to hundreds of thousands of deaths due to starvation and malnutrition. We hear from one survivor and Prof Hazel Smith who explains some of the contributing factors behind the 'long, slow famine'. Also on the programme, the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior, why the UK sent all its gold to Canada during World War Two, battling for Roma rights and the mystery behind Cuba's blindness epidemic. All told by the people at the heart of the stories.Photo: North Korean boys at a kindergarten in Pyongyang pose for a World Food Programme Emergency Food Assistance photographer in 1997. Their thin arms and legs, knobby knees and distended abdomens show that they are seriously malnourished. (Credit: Susan North/AFP/Getty Images)

Is there anybody out there? Max Pearson hears about a UFO sighting in rural Zimbabwe in 1994 and talks to Gideon Lewis-Kraus of the New Yorker about whether the US Pentagon is taking UFOs more seriously. Plus, the birth of communist China, a wind power pioneer, trailblazing Chinese students and a radical Syrian playwright. Image: Composite of children's illustrations of UFO, Zimbabwe 1994.

In June 2015 an American anti-racist activist climbed a flagpole on the South Carolina state house grounds to take down the Confederate flag. The protest followed the killing of 9 black people at a historic Charleston church by a white supremacist who was pictured holding the flag. We discuss the history of this divisive symbol of America's racist past. Also how life in the Chinese countryside has been dramatically changed by 40 years of migration to the cities. Plus, from the 1980s, a British TV event that shifted attitudes towards victims of rape, East Germany’s iconic Trabant car and the man behind Mindfulness.Photo Bree Newsome taking down the Confederate flag at the State House in Columbia, SC, on Saturday 27th June 2015. Credit Adam Anderson / Reuters.