East German refugees in the Prague embassy

Thousands of East Germans sought refuge in the West German embassy in Prague in 1989.

• 9 mins

The Leipzig demonstrations

The Berlin Wall fell just a month after mass protests in the East German city of Leipzig

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The fall of the Berlin Wall

The border between communist East Germany and the West opened on November 9th 1989

• 9 mins

Margaret Thatcher's anti-Europe speech

The British Prime Minister started expressing doubts about the European Union in 1988

• 9 mins

The Paris hotel that hosted Holocaust survivors

The Hotel Lutetia became a reception centre for French Holocaust survivors after WW2

• 9 mins

The Algerians who fought with France

When Algeria won independence in 1962 thousands of local French allies faced persecution

• 9 mins

'Jane' - the underground abortion service

An underground feminist network performed illegal abortions in 1960s Chicago.

• 9 mins

Saving the Great Barrier Reef

The 1960s campaigners who fought the government to save the world's biggest coral reef.

• 9 mins

Iran hostage crisis: the humanitarian delegation

How Iranian students invited a group of Americans to Iran to meet the hostages

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A ground-breaking change to treating breast cancer

How a Canadian oncologist proved the effectiveness of breast-conserving surgery

• 9 mins

Britain's secret propaganda war

How sex, jazz and 'fake news' were used to undermine the Nazis in World War Two

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The Bhagalpur blindings

How Indian police tortured petty criminals, blinding them permanently

• 9 mins

The concert that rocked the Berlin Wall

The 1987 rock concert that led to the first shouts in East Berlin of 'the wall must go'

• 9 mins

Memories of Wilfred Owen

The British war poet's younger brother Harold Owen spoke to the BBC in the 1960s

• 9 mins

Cap Anamur: A rescue that led to jail

Why a captain was arrested after saving shipwrecked Africans in the Mediterranean in 2004

• 9 mins

The demolition of the Babri Masjid

How Hindu extremists demolished a mosque in India prompting months of communal violence

• 9 mins

The Love Canal disaster

How the Love Canal neigbourhood in the US came to symbolise the dangers of toxic waste

• 9 mins

The first Indian to win Miss World

Reita Faria was the first Indian to win the Miss World beauty competition in 1966

• 9 mins

The first Tasers

Why Los Angeles police began using a new weapon in the early 1980s.

• 9 mins

The 'Woman in Gold'

How one of Klimt's most famous paintings was returned to the family who'd owned it

• 9 mins

I saw the soldiers who killed El Salvador's priests

Lucia Cerna was the only witness to a murder that shocked El Salvador in November 1989

• 9 mins

The man who got Delhi on track

India's capital city built a Metro to tackle its traffic and air pollution problems

• 9 mins

Exploring Arabia's Empty Quarter

How Wilfred Thesiger travelled in one of the world's harshest environments in the 1940s.

• 9 mins

The man who gave his voice to Stephen Hawking

American scientist Dennis Klatt pioneered synthesised speech using his own voice.

• 9 mins

India's economic revolution

In the 1990s India began to open up its state-controlled economy

• 9 mins

From cakes to computers

How the Lyons catering company pioneered LEO, the first electronic office system

• 9 mins

Handing back Uluru

In 1985 Australia's famous natural landmark Uluru was returned to aboriginal ownership

• 9 mins

The first confirmed case of HIV in America

Robert R was a teenager who died of an undiagnosed illness in Missouri in 1969

• 9 mins

The killing of Pablo Escobar

The Colombian drug trafficker was shot dead by police on December 2nd 1993

• 9 mins

Shackleton

How a doomed Antarctic expedition in 1914 became a legendary story of survival

• 9 mins