The IRA hunger strikes
In 1981 the British government was faced with prisoners dying on hunger strike in a jail in Northern Ireland. The Irish republican activists were demanding to be treated as political prisoners not cri...
4 Touko 20219min
How Amsterdam became the cannabis smoking capital of Europe
How Amsterdam became the home of cannabis coffee shops .The Mellow Yellow Café set a pattern in 1973 of attracting customers, which hundreds of others would follow. Although selling and smoking the dr...
3 Touko 20219min
The killing of Osama Bin Laden
The US tracked down the al-Qaeda leader to a city in northern Pakistan in May 2011. Special operations troops were sent to capture or kill Bin Laden in a top secret raid in the dead of night. The Amer...
30 Huhti 20219min
The battle of Tora Bora
When the Taliban were ousted from power in Afghanistan in 2001, the hunt for Osama bin Laden began in earnest. One American in particular led the search. He was CIA commander, Gary Berntsen, who had b...
29 Huhti 202112min
The Nairobi US Embassy bombing
In August 1998, more than 200 people were killed in co-ordinated bomb attacks on two US embassies in East Africa. They were among the first major attacks linked to Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda net...
28 Huhti 202110min
Meeting Osama bin Laden
When the Palestinian journalist Abdel Bari Atwan agreed to go and interview Osama bin Laden in 1996 he was apprehensive. By the time he reached the Al-Qaeda leader's mountain hideout - he was shaken a...
27 Huhti 20219min
The siege of Mecca
In 1979 Islamist militants seized control of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the holiest site in Islam. Hundreds were killed as Saudi security forces battled for two weeks to retake the shrine. The militan...
26 Huhti 20219min
The first space shuttle mission
On 12th April 1981, the space shuttle Columbia made history becoming the first ever reusable space craft to fly into orbit. It marked the start of a 30-year shuttle programme which revolutionised the ...
23 Huhti 202110min
