The Cuban Five
Five Cuban spies were arrested in Miami by the FBI in September 1998. After a controversial trial, they were given lengthy jail sentences. The last of the five was released in December 2014 as part of a prisoner swap for an American intelligence officer. Mike Lanchin has been speaking to one of the Cubans, Rene Gonzalez, who was released in 2011. (Photo: Portraits of the Cuban Five. Credit: Nelson Almeida/AFP/Getty Images)
18 Sep 20189min
The Fifteen Guinea Special
The train which marked the end of the steam age on Britain's main-line rail network. The Fifteen Guinea Special was a passenger service which ran from Liverpool to Carlisle on August 11th 1968 to commemorate the withdrawal of steam locomotives from the country's main railways. Steam locomotives had worked on British railways since the early 19th century. Thousands lined the route to see the last locomotives in action. Alex Last speaks to rail enthusiast Mark Smith who was on board the special train. Photo: The locomotive, Oliver Cromwell, was one of four locomotives used on the Fifteen Guinea Special, 11 August 1968 (Mark Smith)
17 Sep 201810min
The Truth About Crop Circles
In 1991 a mystery was solved when two English men claimed responsibility for the creation of crop circles. The huge patterns had been appearing on farmland across England for years and had scientists puzzled, with explanations ranging from whirlwinds to UFOs. Despite this admission of guilt, many people still refused to accept this simple explanation. So what is the truth about crop circles? Claire Bowes has been speaking to John Lundberg who knew Doug Bower one of the men who came forward in 1991.Photo: (BBC) 1999 A crop circle made for the BBC TV programme Countryfile.
14 Sep 20189min
How I Survived a Fire on a Plane
Ricardo Trajano was the only passenger to survive a fire on a plane in 1973. His flight from Brazil was forced to make an emergency landing outside Paris, and 123 people died. But, as he's been telling Thomas Pappon, he stayed alive by ignoring all the official safety advice.Photo: Ricardo Trajano as a young man. Copyright: Ricardo Trajano.
13 Sep 20188min
The Killing of Steve Biko
On September 12th 1977 the anti-Apartheid activist and leader of the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa died from injuries sustained while in police custody. The South African police claimed that Steve Biko had gone on hunger strike and had starved himself to death. Farhana Haider has been speaking to Peter Jones, a fellow anti-Apartheid activist, who was arrested alongside Biko a few weeks before his brutal death.Photo: Steve Biko Inquest, November 1977 (Credit: Alamy)
12 Sep 20189min
Appeasement
In September 1938 Britain's Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew back and forth to Germany to negotiate with Adolf Hitler. He hoped to guarantee "peace for our time". He agreed that Germany could take over the Sudetenland in western Czechoslovakia, as part of a policy known as appeasement.Photo: The Prime Minister meets the press on his return from his first trip to Germany on September 16th 1938. Copyright: BBC.
11 Sep 20189min
The Ship that Dumped America's Waste
In 1988 a ship named 'Khian Sea' dumped 4,000 tons of incinerated ash close to the beach in the town of Gonaives, in northern Haiti. The ash had originally come from the city of Philadelphia, and had been aboard the Khian Sea for more than a year, while it searched for a country that would accept it. Mike Lanchin has been speaking to Kenny Bruno, a Greenpeace campaigner who tracked the ship as it sailed across the oceans with its cargo of waste. He recalls the battle to get the ash sent back to the US.Photo: Campaigner Kenny Bruno photographed in front of the ash pile in Gonaives, Haiti (1988, Greenpeace)
10 Sep 20189min
WWI: The Hundred Days Offensive
First-hand accounts of the Allied offensive which finally brought the war to an end. The offensive took place on the Western Front in the summer and autumn of 1918. After years of trench warfare, Allied forces managed to break through and force the German army into full retreat. In November 1918, Germany was forced to sign an armistice to end the war. But the human cost of those final battles was immense. The Allies and the German army suffered more than one million casualties each, Using BBC archive recordings of veterans, Alex Last tells the story of the final 100 Days Offensive. Photo: A British tank rolls through devastated Bapaume, which was shelled during the Hundred Days Offensive in 1918. (Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
7 Sep 201810min
