Brazil's Landless Workers Movement
In 1980, poor rural workers set up camp on land owned by the rich at Encruzilhada Natalino in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Brazil's government sent in the army to evict them and violent clashes...
View ArticleThe Arctic’s doomsday seed vault
In January 2008, seeds began arriving at the world's first global seed vault, buried deep in a mountain on an Arctic island, 1,000km north of the Norwegian coast.The vault was built to ensure the...
View ArticleFirst internet cafe
The first commercial internet cafe opened in London on 1 September 1994. Eva Pascoe, from Poland, is one of the founders of Cyberia. She claims that Kylie Minogue was amongst the famous visitors and...
View ArticleQueen of the 'fro
In May 1986, 16-year-old Charlotte Mensah went to work in the UK’s first luxury Afro-Caribbean hair salon, Splinters.In London’s glamorous Mayfair, Splinters had earned a world-class reputation and...
View ArticleHow a young mother was saved from death by stoning
In March 2002, a young Nigerian Muslim woman was sentenced to death by stoning for adultery and conceiving a child out of wedlock. Amina Lawal’s case attracted huge international attention and...
View ArticleLucha Reyes: Peruvian music star
Lucha Reyes was one of Peru’s greatest singers. She was born into poverty in 1936 and fought terrible health problems and racism throughout her life. But it didn’t stop her becoming a star of Peruvian...
View ArticleHow Rosa Parks took a stand against racism
Rosa Parks was brought up in Alabama during the Jim Crow era, when state laws enforced segregation in practically all aspects of daily life.Public schools, water fountains, trains and buses all had to...
View ArticleThe Battle of Versailles: Catwalk clash of American and French fashion
In 1973, a fashion show was held in France which became known as the Battle of Versailles, a duel between designs from modern America and the capital of couture, Paris. Five American designers,...
View ArticleThe WW2 escape line that fooled the Nazis
In 1940 a daring rescue operation began to help Allied servicemen escape from Nazi-occupied France.French resistance fighter Roland Lepers was among those who guided stranded Allied soldiers and airmen...
View ArticlePatty Hearst: Rebel heiress
When wealthy newspaper heiress Patty Hearst was kidnapped by far-left militants in February 1974, America saw her as a victim.But two months later, she announced she had decided to join the group....
View ArticleThe Juliet letters
The Juliet Club is in Verona, Italy, a place known throughout the world as being the city of love. The club has been replying to mail addressed to Shakespeare’s tragic heroine, Juliet since the early...
View ArticleThe small Irish town known as ‘Little Brazil’
Gort in the west of Ireland is known by the nickname ‘Little Brazil’ because it’s home to so many Brazilians.They first came to Ireland in the late 1990s to work in the town’s meat factory.Lucimeire...
View ArticleSupermalt: The malt drink created after the Nigerian civil war
In 1972, a food supplement used by soldiers during the Nigerian civil war was turned into a popular malt drink by a brewery in the Danish town of Faxe.It was called Supermalt and it became so popular...
View ArticleThe Soviet scientist who made two-headed dogs
In the 1950s, Soviet scientist Dr Vladimir Demikhov shocks the world with his two-headed dog experiments.He grafts the head and paws of one dog onto the body of another. One of his creations lives for...
View ArticleIcelandic women's strike
In October 1975, 90% of women in Iceland took part in a nationwide protest over inequality.Factories and banks were forced to close and men were left holding the children as 25,000 women took to the...
View ArticleTrans murder in Honduras
In June 2009, transgender sex worker and activist Vicky Hernandez was murdered in the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula.The killers were never identified or punished, but in 2021 the Inter-American Human...
View ArticleColumbus Lighthouse
In 1992, Columbus Lighthouse opened in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. It was designed to house the ashes of explorer, Christopher Columbus. The huge memorial is built in the form...
View ArticleWhistler: Creating one of the world’s biggest ski resorts
In 2003, Whistler Blackcomb won its bid to host the Winter Olympic Games for the first time. It was sixth time lucky for the Canadian ski resort which had been opened to the public in 1966. The...
View ArticleRussia annexes Crimea
In 2014, Russia annexed the strategic Crimean peninsula from Ukraine, a move seen by Kyiv and many other countries as illegal.The crisis it caused was so acute the world seemed on the brink of a new...
View ArticleCrimea's Soviet holiday camp
Artek, on the shores of the Black Sea in Crimea, was a hugely popular Soviet holiday camp.Maria Kim Espeland was one of the thousands of children who visited every year.In 2014, she told Lucy Burns...
View ArticleThe lost Czech scrolls
On 7 February 1964, an unusual delivery was made to a synagogue in London.More than 1,500 Torah scrolls, lost since the end of World War Two, were arriving from Czechoslovakia.The sacred Jewish texts...
View ArticleThe discovery of the Lord of Sipan in Peru
In 1987, Peruvian archaeologist Walter Alva received a call from the police urging him to look at ancient artefacts confiscated from looters.The seized objects were so precious that Walter decided to...
View ArticleThe Whisky War: Denmark v Canada
In 1984, a diplomatic dispute broke out between Canada and Denmark over the ownership of a tiny island in the Arctic.The fight for Hans Island off the coast of Greenland became known as the Whisky War....
View ArticleUruguay v the tobacco giant
Uruguay was one of the first countries in the world to introduce anti-smoking laws.But in 2010, the tobacco giant Philip Morris took the country to court claiming the measures devalued its...
View ArticleFrench child evacuees of World War Two
In August and September 1939, tens of thousands of children began to be evacuated from Paris.The move, part of France's 'passive defence' tactic, aimed to protect children from the threat of German...
View ArticleThe Carnation Revolution in Portugal
25 April is Freedom Day in Portugal. Five decades ago on that date, flowers filled the streets of the capital Lisbon as a dictatorship was overthrown.Europe’s longest-surviving authoritarian regime was...
View ArticleRehabilitating Kony's child soldiers in Uganda
In 2002, a Catholic nun arrived in Gulu, a town in northern Uganda, to help set up a sewing school for locals. For years, the town had been the target of brutal attacks by the Lord's Resistance Army,...
View ArticleMH370: The plane that vanished
On 8 March 2014, a plane carrying 239 passengers and crew disappeared.What happened to missing flight MH370 remains one of the world's biggest aviation mysteries.Ghyslain Wattrelos’ wife Laurence and...
View Article11M: The day Madrid was bombed
A regular morning turned into a day of nightmares for Spanish commuters on 11 March 2004.In the space of minutes, 10 bombs detonated on trains around Madrid, killing nearly 200 people and injuring more...
View ArticleFinding the longest set of footprints left by the first vertebrate
In 1992 off the coast of Ireland, a Swiss geology student accidentally discovered the longest set of footprints made by the first four-legged animals to walk on earth.They pointed to a new date for the...
View ArticleParaguay adopts its second language
In 1992, Guarani was designated an official language in Paraguay’s new constitution, alongside Spanish.It is the only indigenous language of South America to have achieved such recognition and ended...
View ArticleWinifred Atwell: The honky-tonk star who was Sir Elton John’s hero
Winifred Atwell was a classically-trained pianist from Trinidad who became one of the best-selling artists of the 1950s in the UK. She played pub tunes on her battered, out-of-tune piano which...
View ArticleThe last eruption of Mount Vesuvius
The Mount Vesuvius eruption that buried Pompeii in 79AD is well known, but far fewer people know about the last time the volcano erupted in 1944.It was World War Two, and families in southern Italy had...
View ArticlePinyin: The man who helped China to read and write
In 1958, a brand new writing system was introduced in China called Pinyin. It used the Roman alphabet to help simplify Chinese characters into words. The mastermind behind Pinyin was a professor called...
View ArticleSurviving re-education in China’s Cultural Revolution
In 1968, Jingyu Li and her parents were among hundreds of thousands of Chinese people sent to labour camps during Mao Zedong’s so-called cultural revolution.The aim was to re-educate those not thought...
View ArticleThe 'comfort women' of World War Two
Between 1932 and 1945, hundreds of thousands of women and girls across Asia were forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army.Referred to as "comfort women", they were taken from countries...
View ArticleDiscovering the Terracotta Army
It's 50 years since a chance find by Chinese farmers led to an astonishing archaeological discovery.Thousands of clay soldiers were uncovered in the province of Shaanxi after being buried for more than...
View ArticleWham! in China
In 1985, the British band Wham! became the first Western pop act to play in China.Around 12,000 fans packed into the Worker’s Gymnasium in Beijing to hear such hits as Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go and...
View ArticleBritain's Mirpuri migration
In 1967 a dam was built in Mirpur, Pakistan, that would spur a huge global migration. Water diverted by the dam forced around 100,000 people to leave their homes.Thousands migrated to the UK and today...
View ArticleThe Heimlich Manoeuvre
Since its adoption as a first aid method, the Heimlich Manoeuvre has saved untold numbers of lives around the world. Developed by American physician Dr Henry Heimlich as a way to save choking victims...
View ArticleBritain's first beach for nudists
In 1980, the seaside town of Brighton opened a very unusual attraction.It was the first British beach dedicated to nudists.The opening followed a passionate battle between two local politicians and...
View ArticleThe founding of Nato
Nato - the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation - was formed in 1949 by 12 countries, including the US, UK, Canada and France.Its aim was to block expansion by the then Soviet Union - a group of states...
View ArticleSurviving the Rwandan genocide
April 1994 was the start of the Rwandan genocide, 100 days of slaughter, rape and atrocities.As part of the Tutsi ethnic group, Antoinette Mutabazi’s family were a target for the killings.So her father...
View Article50 years of Abba
It's 50 years since Swedish pop group Abba won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest.The victory provided a platform for the band to become one of the most popular and successful musical groups of all...
View ArticleThe man who invented the seat belt
In 1958, the late Swedish engineer Nils Bohlin invented the three-point safety belt for cars. It's estimated to have saved more than one million lives around the world.In 2022, Nils's stepson Gunnar...
View ArticleSweden's pioneering paternity leave
Fifty years ago Sweden became the first country in the world to offer paid parental leave that was gender neutral.The state granted mothers and fathers 180 days that they could divide between them...
View ArticleThe Bluetooth story
In the 1990s, Bluetooth was invented in a lab in Lund, Sweden. The technology is used today to wirelessly connect accessories such as mice, keyboards, speakers and headphones to desktops, laptops and...
View ArticleSweden's Cinnamon Bun Day
Sweden’s most beloved pastry is the cinnamon bun and every year on 4 October, locals celebrate the sweet, spiced snacks.The country’s first official Cinnamon Bun Day (or Kanelbullens dag in Swedish)...
View ArticleBonus: The Black 14
A bonus episode from the Amazing Sport Stories podcast – The Black 14. Sport, racism and protests are about to change the lives of “the Black 14” American footballers. It’s 1969 in the United States....
View ArticleThe 2010 Kampala bombings
In July 2010, two bombs went off at a rugby club in Uganda's capital Kampala. It was where hundreds had gathered to watch the football World Cup final.The attack killed 74 people and injured 85...
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