Fighting for the pill in Japan

Why it took until 1999 for Japanese women to be allowed to take the contraceptive pill.

• 53 mins

Britain's World War Two crime wave

How criminals thrived in London during the Blitz, 3D printers and the 1980 Miami riots.

• 53 mins

The Gwangju massacre

South Korea's Gwangju uprising; changing the way we eat; plus protecting Congo's forests

• 53 mins

The Zanzibar revolution

How a bloody revolution changed East Africa, the start of the WHO and remembering Christo

• 53 mins

Black American History Special

Key moments in African American history - civil rights, basketball and the 3 strikes law.

• 53 mins

Sex trafficking and peacekeepers

A UN sex trafficking scandal in Bosnia, the Five Stages of Grief, and Beethoven in China.

• 53 mins

Dealing with economic crisis

How countries from around the world dealt with economic turmoil in the 20th century.

• 53 mins

Quarantined in a TB sanatorium

Quarantined in a TB sanatorium; looted Nazi art works and the Rolling Stones in the dock

• 53 mins

The 1960s report that warned the USA was racist

A government report into the riots of 1967 warned that white racism was dividing America

• 53 mins

South Korea's 1980s prison camps

The horrors of a so-called Social Purification project and the birth of Club Med

• 53 mins

The Million Man March

Black Americans march on Washington, and the first Afghan women's refuge.

• 53 mins

Adrift for 76 Days

Surviving the Atlantic in a liferaft, Spain's 1960s tourism boom, the death of Himmler

• 53 mins

The Second World War in Japan

It’s 75 years since the US dropped atomic bombs on Japan, leading to the end of WW2.

• 53 mins

Beirut's hotel war

Lebanon's civil war comes to Beirut's luxury hotel district, plus the first ventilators

• 53 mins

The siege at Ruby Ridge

The standoff that galvanised the US far-right; plus, growing up with Saddam Hussein.

• 53 mins

Margaret Ekpo - Nigeria's feminist pioneer

The woman who fought for Nigerian independence plus the former policeman turned protestor

• 53 mins

Inventing James Bond

Ian Fleming and the genesis of James Bond and the birth of the Sony Walkman

• 53 mins

Prohibition in India

How the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh banned alcohol in 1995 plus the birth of Reddit

• 53 mins

Stories of resistance and protest from around the world

Different protest stories from China, Belarus, Kenya, USA and Argentina

• 53 mins

Blackwater killed my son

How US private security guards killed 14 Iraqi civilians; plus Florida's election chaos

• 53 mins

The Mafia and Italian politics

The trial which linked a senior Italian politician to the Mafia plus the birth of Google.

• 53 mins

British black history special

The voyage of the Empire Windrush, the battle of Lewisham and the creation of Desmond's

• 53 mins

CNN and the 24-hour news revolution

The launch of CNN, the end of Lebanon's civil war and making a film in Saddam's Iraq.

• 53 mins

Why Portugal decriminalised all drugs

Why Portugal took a radical approach to drugs in 2001, plus theatre's Joan Littlewood

• 53 mins

US presidential history special

Inside JFK's election victory, plus Shirley Chisholm, Watergate, and the religious right

• 53 mins

The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin

The murder of the Israeli leader; Germany's "Occupation Babies"; nude theatre in London

• 53 mins

The Guerrilla Girls

Fighting sexism and racism in the 1980s art world, plus Pluto is downgraded

• 53 mins

The world's first woman premier

Sri Lanka's woman PM plus the first Arab leader to visit Israel and the women's sex book.

• 53 mins

Disability History special

The fight for disability rights in the UK, India, plus Helen Keller and the Invacar

• 53 mins

The fall of Addis Ababa

How rebels toppled Colonel Mengistu of Ethiopia; France's headscarf ban; WW2's V1 bombs

• 53 mins