The launch of CNN
In June 1980, US media mogul Ted Turner launched the first TV station dedicated to 24 hour news, Cable News Network or CNN. Some were sceptical that there would be enough news to stay on air, others ...
12 Okt 202010min
The Battle of Lewisham
In August 1977, the racist National Front organisation planned to stage a march into Lewisham in South London at a time of high racial tension in the area. The National Front activists were met by a h...
9 Okt 202010min
Desmond's - a sitcom that changed Britain
Desmond's was the most successful black sitcom in British TV history. It ran on Channel 4 for over five years, attracting millions of viewers. Trix Worrell, the man who wrote it, believes that Desmond...
8 Okt 20208min
Fighting racism on the dancefloor
New laws were used to stop nightclubs and discos from banning black and ethnic minority customers in 1978. The first club to be taken to court was a disco called Pollyanna's in the city of Birmingham....
7 Okt 20208min
Britain's first black woman headteacher
Yvonne Conolly was made headteacher of Ringcross Primary school in North London in 1969. She had moved to the UK from Jamaica just a few years earlier and quickly worked her way up the teaching profes...
6 Okt 20208min
The voyage of the Empire Windrush
Hundreds of pioneering migrants travelled from the Caribbean to the UK on board the SS Empire Windrush in 1948. The passage cost £28,10 shillings. Passenger Sam King described to Alan Johnston the con...
5 Okt 20208min
The house by the lake
A summer house built by a lake outside Berlin in the 1920s reflects much of Germany's 20th century history. Its first owners fled the Nazis. The Berlin Wall was built through its garden. Then after th...
2 Okt 20208min
Operation Breakthrough: Fighting to save three whales
Three Californian gray whales got caught in ice off Alaska in October 1988. Indigenous people, environmentalists, oil companies and even the Soviet Navy joined forces to try to free them. Rich Preston...
1 Okt 20208min
