Wangari Maathai: The first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize
In 2004, the Kenyan ecologist Wangari Maathai became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.Wangari Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977, a grass-roots organisation empowering...
21 Okt 202510min
The British oil tanker sunk in Indonesia
In 1958, the British oil tanker, SS San Flaviano, was sunk in the harbour of Balikpapan, Indonesia, while a rebellion was underway against President Ahmed Sukarno. It’s reported the bomb was dropped b...
20 Okt 202510min
My aunt created The Moomins
The first Moomins story about a family of nature-loving white round trolls was published in 1945 during World War Two. The Moomins and the Great Flood was created by writer and artist Tove Jansson as ...
17 Okt 202510min
Helen Fielding: The creator of Bridget Jones
In 1995, a single 30-something woman with big knickers and blue soup first appeared in a weekly column, published by British newspaper The Independent.Initially written anonymously by journalist Helen...
16 Okt 202511min
The trial of Soviet writers Daniel and Sinyavsky
In 1965, two writers were accused of publishing anti-Soviet material abroad.The arrest of Yuli Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky was seen as symbolic of the new era in the Soviet Union. The liberal leader N...
15 Okt 20259min
Jorge Luis Borges: 'Father' of Latin American fiction
In 1961, the Argentine poet and short story writer Jorge Luis Borges won the Formentor Prize for literature.Borges’ stories were characterised by mind-bending plots often featuring labyrinths, dreams ...
14 Okt 202510min
Wallander and the rise of Nordic Noir
Published in 1991, Faceless Killers was the first of Henning Mankell’s crime novels featuring police inspector Kurt Wallander. The series changed the world of crime writing, introducing gritty social ...
13 Okt 202510min
How BRICS got its name
In 2001, a few months after 9/11, economist Jim O’Neill was working at Goldman Sachs when he wrote a report about which countries might become big players in the world economy. That’s when he came up ...
10 Okt 20259min
