The demise of the Soviet Union
In December 1991 the leaders of three Soviet Republics - Russia, Ukraine and Belarus - signed a treaty dissolving the USSR. They did so without asking the other republics, and against the wishes of the USSR's overall President Mikhail Gorbachev. By the end of the year, Gorbachev had resigned and the Soviet Union was no more. In 2016, Dina Newman spoke to the former President of Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, and former President of Belarus, Stanislav Shushkevich, who signed that historic document alongside Boris Yeltsin.PHOTO: The breakaway leaders signing the treaty the dissolved the Soviet Union (Getty Images)
7 Feb 20229min
The first Emirati female teacher
In the 1960s, it was extremely rare for women in what is now the United Arab Emirates to go to school. At the time the future country was a collection of Emirates under British protection. The Trucial states, as they were known, were run by Sheikhs. The Sheikdoms were acutely traditional societies. This is the story of a young woman who was among the first to graduate from high school. She went on to become the first teacher there. Nama bint Majid Al Qasimi, has been telling Farhana Haider about her trailblazing experience.Image: Nama bint Majid Al Qasimi with her students at Fatima Al Zahra School, Sharjah, 1970. Credit: Shaikha Nama bint Majid bin Saqr Al Qasimi
3 Feb 20229min
The day the world looked up
In June 2012 one of the solar system’s rarest of astronomical events took place, when it was possible to see the planet Venus fly past the face of the Sun. It appears when the orbits of Earth and Venus momentarily line up, but that happens only four times every 243 years. Astronomers in Australia, London and Hawaii tell Nick Holland what it was like watching the sight, one they will never get to see again because they won’t be alive when it next reappears in the year 2117.(Image: SDO satellite captures an ultra-high definition image of the transit of Venus. Credit Nasa/Getty Images)
2 Feb 20228min
The murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl
In February 2002 a videotape was released by extremists in Pakistan showing the murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter. Daniel Pearl had been investigating the 9/11 attacks. He was kidnapped in Karachi while on his way to interview a radical cleric. In 2015 Farhana Haider spoke to Asra Nomani, Daniel Pearl's friend and colleague.PHOTO: Daniel Pearl and Asra Nomani in 1995. (Credit: Asra Nomani)
1 Feb 20229min
The Good Friday Agreement
In 1998, the political parties in Northern Ireland reached a peace agreement that ended decades of war. But the Good Friday Agreement, as it became known, was only reached after days of frantic last-minute negotiations. In 2012, Louise Hidalgo spoke to Paul Murphy, the junior minister for Northern Ireland at the time.PHOTO:Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern (L) and British Prime Minister Tony Blair (R) pose with the mediator of the agreement, Senator George Mitchell. (AFP/Getty Images)
28 Jan 20229min
IRA gun-running in America
How an undercover FBI agent bust an IRA gun-running plot in New York in 1981. We hear from retired FBI agent, John WInslow, who posed as a gun dealer to infiltrate a network of Americans supplying weapons to the Northern Irish paramilitary group, the IRA. The United States was a key source of money and guns for the Irish republican cause.Photo:
27 Jan 202213min
Bloody Sunday
On 30 January 1972 British troops opened fire on a civil rights march in Northern Ireland. Thirteen people were killed that day, which became known as Bloody Sunday. Tony Doherty was nine years old at the time. In 2012 he spoke to Mike Lanchin about his father and the events that changed his life forever.Photo: A British soldier grabs hold of a protester by the hair. (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)
25 Jan 20229min
British troops in Northern Ireland
In August 1969 the British Army was first deployed in Northern Ireland. Their job was to keep the peace on the streets of Londonderry where sectarian violence had broken out. To begin with the soldiers were welcomed by residents, but attitudes soon changed and what became known as 'The Troubles' got underway. Louise Hidalgo reports.Picture: Armed British soldiers on the streets of Northern Ireland, 15th August 1969 (Credit: Press Association)
24 Jan 20229min
