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
A Cold War love affair
The East German authorities built the Berlin Wall in 1961 to keep their people in. Thousands had been streaming westwards. But a few people went the other way. Frauke Naumann was one of them. She grew up in West Germany but fell love with her cousin who lived on the other side of the border. So, in 1986, at the age of 22 she left home to join him. Frauke tells Tim Mansel about the joys and the miseries of making a new life in a foreign country under the watchful eye of the secret police.PHOTO: The Brandenburg Gate in the 1980s with the Berlin Wall passing in front (BBC)
21 Jan 20228min
The first bicycle-sharing scheme
In the mid-1960s a Dutch engineer called Luud Schimmelpennink came up with a scheme to share bikes, and cut pollution. He collected about ten old bicycles, painted them white and left them at different points around Amsterdam. The first scheme didn't last, but it was hugely influential and became part of popular culture; Luud Schimmelpennink himself would go on to invent an early computerised sharing scheme for cars, and to consult on the bike-sharing schemes we see around the world today. In 2019, he spoke to Janet Ball.Photo: Activists with one of the original white bikes from the first scheme. Credit: Luud Schimmelpennink.
20 Jan 20229min
Martin Luther King Jr. Day
This week Americans have been observing the Martin Luther King Jr Day national holiday, which marks the birthday of the late civil rights leader. The campaign to have Dr King formally recognized in the US was led by his widow, Coretta Scott King. The holiday was finally signed into law in 1983. Farhana Haider has been speaking to Dr King’s youngest daughter, Dr Bernice King, about the long and fraught campaign, and the crucial role her mother played in supporting her father’s legacy. Photo: Coretta Scott King speaking at the White House. (Credit: White House)
20 Jan 202214min
The rise of Boko Haram
How a small Nigerian Islamist group launched one of the deadliest insurgencies in Africa. In 2002, a new radical sect emerged in Maiduguri in north eastern Nigeria led by a charismatic preacher, Mohammed Yusuf. He preached against anything he deemed un-Islamic or having a western influence. Locals gave the group a nickname, Boko Haram - meaning "western education is forbidden". In 2009, the group launched co-ordinated attacks on police across northern Nigeria. Maiduguri saw the fiercest fighting. It was the start of an insurgency that would devastate the region. We hear from Bilkisu Babangida who was the BBC Hausa service reporter in the city at the time.Photo: A suspected Boko Haram house in Maiduguri set ablaze by Nigerian security forces, 30th July 2009 (AFP/Getty Images)
17 Jan 202214min
The first silicone breast implants
30-year-old Texan Timmie Jean Lindsey was the first woman in the world to have silicone breast implants. In 1962, she was offered the operation free of charge by two pioneering surgeons. It's gone on to become one of the most popular cosmetic procedures in the world. In 2012, Timmie Jean Lindsey spoke to Claire Bowes.PHOTO: A silicone breast implant (Getty Images)
14 Jan 20229min
