Witness History

North Korea's communist leader Kim Il-sung died in July 1994. Dr Antonio Betancourt, of the Unification Church, was in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, during the outpouring of national grief.Photo: Dr Antonio Betancourt meeting Kim Il Sung just months before the leader's death. (Courtesy of Dr Antonio Betancourt.)

In 1991, amid escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula, Pyongyang and Seoul agreed to field a united Korean table tennis team at the World Championships in Japan. Previously bitter rivals, players from the North and South spent more than a month training together and eventually bonding. Their experience inspired a hit film in South Korea, where ping pong is a very popular sport. Simon Watts spoke to former South Korean women's champion, Hyun Jung-Hwa about being part of that unified team.PHOTO: The Korean women's team on the podium (Credit: Getty Images)

When the Korean War ended, a few American prisoners of war chose to go with their captors and try life under communism, instead of heading home to the USA. David Hawkins was one of them. He told his story to Chloe Hadjimatheou in 2012.Photo: American, and South Korean POWs who refused repatriation. An African-American prisoner is singing a Chinese folk song to entertain his companions at the Songgongni camp while they wait. 1954.(Credit: Sovfoto/UIG via Getty Images)

North Korean communist troops invaded South Korea on 25 June 1950. Initially they were very successful until UN forces (mainly American) helped drive them back. The war lasted until a ceasefire was declared in July 1953, millions of Koreans were killed in the fighting. Dr Yoon Goo Lee was living in a town in South Korea when the invasion started. In 2010 he told his story to Louise Hidalgo.Photo: Korean refugees fleeing to the south. Credit: Getty Images

At the end of World War Two with the surrender of Japan in August 1945, Korea was split along the 38th parallel. Soviet forces took control in the North of the peninsula, and the US military took control in the South. Shin Insup was a boy, living the northern city of Pyongyang at the time. In 2015 he spoke to Catherine Davis about what happened next.(Photo: Korea 38th parallel. Credit: Getty Images/AFP)

Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was executed just after midnight on June 1st 1962 in a prison in central Israel. Holocaust survivor Michael Goldmann-Gilead witnessed his execution and was one of two people tasked afterwards with scattering Eichmann's ashes at sea. He had been part of the police investigation collecting evidence against Eichmann before his trial, and had lost his parents and sister in the Holocaust. He has been telling Louise Hidalgo his story.Picture: Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann preparing his defence in his cell at the Teggart Fortress ahead of his trial in Jerusalem in April 1961 for crimes against humanity (Credit: Getty Images)