The boy who discovered a new species of human ancestor
On 15 August 2008, nine-year-old Matt Berger tripped over a fossil that would lead to one of the most important discoveries in the history of human evolution.The young adventurer had been exploring th...
14 Aug 202310min
Jean-Michel Basquiat bursts onto the New York art scene
In the early 1980s, the young black graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat took the New York art world by storm. Soon, his paintings were selling for huge sums of money, but he would die before the deca...
11 Aug 202310min
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's diamonds scandal
In 1979, French journalist Claude Angeli and his colleagues discovered Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the French President, received gifts of diamonds worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from the grisly...
10 Aug 202310min
Sarajevo’s haven of peace
After the collapse of former Yugoslavia, Bosnian Serb forces laid siege to the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, in 1992. More than a quarter of a million people lived under almost constant bombardment and s...
9 Aug 20239min
The Great Train Robbery
On 8 August 1963, a gang of thieves held up a British Royal Mail train on its journey from Glasgow to London. They stole more than £2 million. It was the biggest ever raid on a British train.Most of t...
8 Aug 202310min
Brownie Wise: The creator of Tupperware parties
In the 1950s, self-made businesswoman Brownie Wise transformed the fortunes of Tupperware by inspiring thousands of housewives to sell it at parties.Her methods for motivating staff included selling t...
7 Aug 20239min
Dinosaur in court
In 2012 a dinosaur skeleton became the subject of both a restraining order and a court case.Mongolian palaeontologist, Dr Bolortsetseg Minjin helped stop the dinosaur falling into the hands of a priva...
4 Aug 202310min
Treehouse on the Berlin Wall
In the 1980s, a Turkish worker in Germany, Osman Kahlin, provoked controversy when he turned a patch of disputed land against the Berlin Wall into a makeshift farm. The land was owned by East Germany,...
3 Aug 20239min
