The Climbers of Leningrad

A controversial Islamic movement brought a brief moment of peace to Mogadishu in 2006 after years of war. The Islamic Courts Union (ICU) came to power after defeating rapacious American-backed warlords. They had no unified ideology or leadership. Some were moderates, some were hardline Islamists. But they brought law and order to the capital unseen since civil war began in 1991. But their rule would only last for six months and from the ashes would emerge the radical militant group Al-Shabab.Photo: Somalia's Supreme Council of Islamic Courts (SCIC) militia display their flag in front of Hotel Ramadan, in Mogadishu, 15, July 2006 (STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images)

18 Dec 20179min

The Australian Prime Minister, Harold Holt, disappeared after going for a swim in the ocean on December 17th 1967 - never to be seen again. Susan Hulme has been speaking to Martin Simpson who was with the group that went to the beach with the Prime Minister that day.Photo: Harold Holt on the beach with three women the year before his disappearance. Credit: Evening Standard/Getty Images

15 Dec 20179min

In December 1967, the great American soul singer, Otis Redding, was killed in a plane crash as he stood on the brink of superstardom. Simon Watts introduces the memories of Otis’s guitarist, Steve Cropper, and trumpeter, Wayne Jackson, as recorded in the BBC archives.(Photo: Otis Redding in 1967)

14 Dec 20179min

Thousands died as a thick polluted fog engulfed London in 1952. People with respiratory and cardiovascular conditions were most at risk. The smog was a combination of pollution from millions of coal home fires and freezing fog. Unusual atmospheric conditions trapped the pall over the city for four days. The civil disaster changed Britain. Two years later, the government passed the Clean Air Act to reduce the use of smoky fuels such as coal. Alex Last speaks to Dr Brian Commins, who worked for the Medical Research Council's Air Pollution Unit set up at St. Bartholomew's hospital in London in the 1950s. Photo: A London bus conductor is forced to walk ahead of his vehicle with a flare to guide it through the smog, 9th December 1952. (Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

14 Dec 20179min

The African-American lab technician, Vivien Thomas, whose surgery helped save the lives of millions of babies but whose work went unrecognised for years. Claire Bowes has been listening to archive recordings of Vivien Thomas describing his long partnership with Dr Alfred Blalock, the man solely credited with inventing an operation in 1944 which helped manage a congenital heart defect called Tetralogy of Fallot. (Photo: Vivien Thomas, US Surgical Technician, 1940) (Audio: Courtesy of US National Library of Medicine)

13 Dec 20179min

In 2001, American hypnotist Larry Garrett was invited to Iraq to treat an "important businessman". When he arrived in Baghdad he was told his special patient's true identity: Uday Hussein, the volatile and violent eldest son of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Mike Lanchin speaks to Garrett about the time he spent with Uday, about their long conversations and how he coped with the challenges of treating one of the most feared men in Iraq.Photo: Larry Garrett in Baghdad, 2001 (courtesy of Larry Garrett)

11 Dec 20179min

The Russian Revolution of 1917 led not just to huge political and social change, but to a new artistic freedom. Russian avant-garde artists like Malevich, Kandinsky and Chagall flourished in the immediate aftermath of the revolution. One of their greatest supporters was art curator Nikolai Punin. Louise Hidalgo has been talking to Punin's granddaughter, Anna Kaminskaia, about how that freedom was gradually replaced with censorship and repression, and her grandfather ended his life in the Gulag.Picture: 1920 painting by Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev (1878-1927), Bolshevik (oil on canvas), Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia

8 Dec 201710min

In 1967 a biologist began listening to strange sounds recorded way out at sea, he realised it was whales and that they were singing. Claire Bowes has been talking to Dr Roger Payne about the discovery that helped change people's perception of whales and helped found the modern conservation movement at a time when whales were close to extinction. (Photo: Humpback Whale, courtesy of Christian Miller of Ocean Alliance)

7 Dec 201711min