
Banksy’s first street art mural
World-renowned street artist Banksy started spray-painting the walls of his home city of Bristol in the 1990s. It is widely believed that his first large mural was a piece called Mild, Mild West painted on a wall next to a record shop. Jim Paine owned the shop and has been telling Bethan Head how he played a pivotal role in getting Banksy to do the artwork in the first place.(Graffiti street art, entitled Mild, Mild West, by British street artist Banksy, is pictured on the side of a building in Bristol, south west England, on May 8, 2019.. Credit: Geoff Caddick/Getty Images)
29 Mar 20228min

The 'Snow Revolution' against Vladimir Putin
Starting in late 2011, tens of thousands of protestors took to the streets to try to stop what they saw as a power grab by Russian leader Vladimir Putin. The demonstrators wanted to stop what they considered a fraudulent parliamentary election and a surprise announcement that Putin would run for president for a third time. The movement was not successful, but analysts say it worried the Russian leader so much that he launched a crackdown on dissent that has lasted to this day. Rachel Naylor talks to Russian rock journalist, Artemy Troitsky, who composed a song that became an anthem of what was sometimes called the "Snow Revolution".(Photo: An anti-Putin rally in Moscow in December 2011. Credit: Getty Images)
28 Mar 20229min

Soviet holidays in Crimea
Artek, on the shores of the Black Sea in Crimea, was the Soviet Union's most popular holiday camp. Thousands of children visited every year. Maria Kim Espeland went there in the 1980s. She spoke to Lucy Burns in 2014.Photo: Group of children attending Artek. (Credit: Irina Vlasova)
25 Mar 20229min

Ukraine's Babi Yar massacre
During World War Two, Ukraine was occupied by Nazi Germany and on 29th September 1941, the organised massacre of Ukrainian Jews began. In the capital Kyiv, most of the victims were taken to a ravine on the outskirts of the city called Babi Yar, and shot. In 2011, David Stern spoke to Raissa Maistrenko, who escaped the shooting as a three-year-old girl, and to Rabbi Alexander Dukhovny, whose mother survived the Holocaust outside the city.PHOTO: The memorial at the Babi Yar site near Kyiv (Getty Images)
24 Mar 20229min

The Budapest Memorandum
Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, Ukraine inherited the Soviet-era atomic weapons on its soil and became - for a few years - the world's third biggest nuclear power. After months of tense diplomacy, the newly independent Ukraine agreed to give up the weapons in return for what were termed "assurances" about its future security and territorial integrity. These "assurances" were agreed by Russia, the USA and Britain in the Budapest Memorandum, signed in December 1994. They are now controversial given the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014 and then the rest of Ukraine in 2022. Louise Hidalgo talks to Steven Pifer, a senior American diplomat involved in the talks.PHOTO: Pro-Ukrainian demonstrators in London in 2022 (Getty Images)
22 Mar 20229min

The Chernobyl nuclear disaster
In April 1986 a reactor exploded at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine, in the USSR, causing the worst nuclear accident ever. Sergii Mirnyi was in charge of a monitoring unit which measured radiation levels in the 30 km exclusion zone around the plant.(Photo: The Chernobyl plant shortly after the explosion in 1986. Credit: Getty Images)
21 Mar 20229min

The Shard
The Shard - one of the dominant features of the London skyline - opened to the public in February 2013. Designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, the skyscraper divided public opinion: it features tall, fractured slivers of glass rising in a pyramid-like shape to a jagged spire. The Shard is also home to London's highest viewing gallery. Reena Stanton-Sharma talks to engineer, Roma Agrawal, who helped build the Shard.PHOTO: The Shard towering over South London (Getty Images)
18 Mar 20228min

Zaha Hadid's Cincinnati Arts Center
When the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati opened to the public in 2003 it wowed both the public and critics. With its undulating curves and galleries that interlock, it was the first major project that the renowned architect had completed, and also the first American museum to be designed by a woman. The New York Times hailed the Contemporary Arts Center as the most important building to be completed in the US since the Cold War. Farhana Haider has been listening to archive interviews with the late Zaha Hadid and speaking to Jay Chatterjee, Dean Emeritus at the college of Design Architecture, Art and Planning at the University of Cincinnati. He was on the panel that chose her ground-breaking design.Photo Credit Courtesy of the Contemporary Arts Center
17 Mar 202211min





















