Beethoven's role in China's Cultural Revolution
During the early years of Cultural Revolution in China, all European music was banned. Even enjoying traditional Chinese music and art was illegal. Anyone found with old instruments or recordings coul...
16 Jun 202013min
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and the Five Stages of Grief
Denial. Anger. Bargaining. Depression. Acceptance. When Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross published her bestselling book On Death and Dying in 1969, she described a series of emotional stages t...
15 Jun 202010min
Three Strikes Law
One man's experience of the controversial US law that saw thousands locked up for life. Under the law in California, a third conviction for a felony offence would lead to a life sentence. At times in ...
12 Jun 202014min
Rodney King and the LA riots
People took to the streets of Los Angeles in fury after police, who had assaulted a black driver called Rodney King, were acquitted in 1992. His assault had been captured on video and played repeatedl...
11 Jun 20208min
Black basketball pioneers - Texas Western
In 1966, an all-black team went head-to-head with an all-white team for the National College Basketball championship - one of the biggest prizes in American sport. To much surprise, the African-Americ...
10 Jun 20208min
The 16th Street church bombing
Four young black girls were killed in a racist attack on a church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. The 16th Street Baptist Church was a centre for civil rights activists in the city. One of the girls ...
9 Jun 20208min
Brown v the Board of Education
In 1954 the US Supreme Court ruled that the segregation of public schools on the basis of race was unconstitutional. The case was a turning point in the long battle for civil rights in America. In 201...
8 Jun 20208min
The portable defibrillator
In the 1960s, doctors in Northern Ireland launched the world’s first mobile coronary emergency service using a new invention – the portable defibrillator. The defibrillators – which initially worked o...
5 Jun 20209min
