Columbus Lighthouse

A memorial for the ashes of Christopher Columbus opened in the Dominican Republic in 1992

• 9 mins

Whistler: Creating one of the world’s biggest ski resorts

In 2003, Whistler Blackcomb won its bid to host the Winter Olympics

• 9 mins

Russia annexes Crimea

In 2014, Russia took over the Crimean peninsula

• 9 mins

Crimea's Soviet holiday camp

The hugely popular Soviet holiday camp, Artek

• 9 mins

The lost Czech scrolls

The Torah scrolls stolen by the Nazis, rescued by an London Jewish community.

• 9 mins

The discovery of the Lord of Sipan in Peru

In 1987, the looting of an ancient pyramid led to an extraordinary golden discovery

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The Whisky War: Denmark v Canada

Beginning in 1984, a dispute over an island was marked by geniality, and bottles of booze

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Uruguay v the tobacco giant

In 2010, Uruguay was taken to court by a tobacco company for its trailblazing smoking ban

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French child evacuees of World War Two

In World War Two, tens of thousands of children left Paris to escape the threat of bombs

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The Carnation Revolution in Portugal

In 1974, a 41-year regime was overthrown in a day

• 9 mins

Rehabilitating Kony's child soldiers in Uganda

In 2002, a nun was sent to northern Uganda to help those suffering from a bloody conflict

• 9 mins

MH370: The plane that vanished

Ghyslain Wattrelos' wife and two children were on MH370, the plane that disappeared.

• 9 mins

11M: The day Madrid was bombed

Nearly 200 died when Spanish commuter trains were bombed in 2004

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Finding the longest set of footprints left by the first vertebrate

In 1992 a student found a set of fossilised footprints from the earliest vertebrate

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Paraguay adopts its second language

How Guarani was officially recognised in Paraguay’s new constitution

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Winifred Atwell: The honky-tonk star who was Sir Elton John’s hero

The forgotten story of Winifred Atwell, the pianist from Trinidad who broke sales records

• 9 mins

The last eruption of Mount Vesuvius

Vesuvius is famous for burying Pompeii but it last erupted in 1944, during World War II.

• 9 mins

Pinyin: The man who helped China to read and write

In 1958, Zhou Youguang introduced a new writing system in China

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Surviving re-education in China’s Cultural Revolution

Thousands of people were sent to re-education camps during China’s cultural revolution

• 9 mins

The 'comfort women' of World War Two

Hundreds of thousands of Asian women were forced into sex slavery in the 1930s and 1940s

• 9 mins

Discovering the Terracotta Army

In 1974, Chinese farmers stumbled upon an astonishing archaeological site

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Wham! in China

How Wham! became the first Western pop act to perform in communist China

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Britain's Mirpuri migration

In 1967, the Mangla Dam was built in Mirpur spurring a huge global migration

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The Heimlich Manoeuvre

How the life-saving method to stop choking was developed

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Britain's first beach for nudists

In 1980, a seaside town opened a beach where people could strip off as they pleased

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The founding of Nato

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed to block the Soviet Union's expansion

• 9 mins

Surviving the Rwandan genocide

April 1994 was the start of the Rwandan genocide. One hundred days of atrocities followed

• 9 mins

Fifty years of Abba

In 1974, Swedish act Abba won the Eurovision song contest

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The man who invented the seat belt

In 1958, Swedish engineer Nils Bohlin invented the three-point safety belt for cars

• 9 mins

Sweden's pioneering paternity leave

Fifty years ago Sweden introduced gender neutral parental leave

• 9 mins