A Cold War love affair
The East German authorities built the Berlin Wall in 1961 to keep their people in. Thousands had been streaming westwards. But a few people went the other way. Frauke Naumann was one of them. She grew...
21 Jan 20228min
The first bicycle-sharing scheme
In the mid-1960s a Dutch engineer called Luud Schimmelpennink came up with a scheme to share bikes, and cut pollution. He collected about ten old bicycles, painted them white and left them at differen...
20 Jan 20229min
Martin Luther King Jr. Day
This week Americans have been observing the Martin Luther King Jr Day national holiday, which marks the birthday of the late civil rights leader. The campaign to have Dr King formally recognized in th...
20 Jan 202214min
The rise of Boko Haram
How a small Nigerian Islamist group launched one of the deadliest insurgencies in Africa. In 2002, a new radical sect emerged in Maiduguri in north eastern Nigeria led by a charismatic preacher, Moham...
17 Jan 202214min
The first silicone breast implants
30-year-old Texan Timmie Jean Lindsey was the first woman in the world to have silicone breast implants. In 1962, she was offered the operation free of charge by two pioneering surgeons. It's gone on ...
14 Jan 20229min
Costa Concordia
Costa Concordia hit submerged rocks off the Italian island of Giglio in January 2012, leaving a fifty-metre-long gash in the hull. More than four thousand passengers and crew were on board. Ian and Ja...
13 Jan 20228min
Malick Sidibé: Mali's superstar photographer
The Malian photographer, Malick Sidibé, is one of Africa’s most celebrated artists. His most famous photographs show black and white scenes of young people partying in the capital Bamako in the joyful...
12 Jan 20228min
Kazakhstan's nuclear legacy
After its independence, Kazakhstan had to deal with the legacy of being one of the centres of the Soviet Union's huge nuclear arsenal and nuclear weapons industry. There were particular concerns about...
11 Jan 20229min
