The Invention of Instant Noodles

Nigeria's military ruler, General Sani Abacha, died suddenly of an apparent heart attack on 8 June 1998. In 2015 Alex Last spoke to the general's personal doctor, Professor Sadiq Suleiman Wali. Photo: General Abacha in 1997. Credit: AFP/Getty Images

7 Juni 20189min

In June 1968, Belgrade University was occupied by students protesting against Yugoslavia's system of 'market socialism'. The occupation lasted seven days and was supported by students in other parts of the country. Dina Newman speaks to Sonja Licht who was one of the organisers. (Photo: Sonja Licht with her fellow protester and later her husband, Milan Nikolic, at the site of the protests. Credit: Nikolic family archive)

6 Juni 20188min

In June 1982, the Israeli ambassador to the UK, Shlomo Argov, was shot and critically injured by a Palestinian gunman outside the Dorchester Hotel in London. The attack was the trigger for the start of the devastating war in Lebanon just days later. Simon Watts talks to Shlomo Argov's son, Gideon Argov.(Photo: Shlomo Argov. Credit: Shutterstock)

5 Juni 20188min

In 1996 a young TV producer in Boston came up with the idea of a running programme to help people exercise regularly. Couch to 5K running groups now exist all over the world and it has even been endorsed by Britain's National Health Service, the NHS. Elizabeth Davies hears from Josh Clark, who invented the programme.Photo credit: Science Photo Library

4 Juni 20189min

In May 2007 a nomadic reindeer herdsman discovered the perfectly preserved body of a 42,000-year-old baby mammoth in Siberia. The creature, which was later named Lyuba, was 130 cm tall and weighed around 50 kilos. Anya Dorodeyko has been speaking to herdsman Yuri Khudi about his amazing find. Photo: Lyuba on display in Hong Kong in 2012. (credit: aaron tam/AFP/Getty Images)

1 Juni 20189min

In May 1942, the American Isaac Asimov published the first instalment of the Foundation series, which would go on to become one of the most popular works of science fiction ever written. Foundation asks big and hugely imaginative questions about the predictability of human behaviour in a space-age future. Simon Watts introduces excerpts from BBC archive interviews with Isaac Asimov and an early BBC dramatization of the Foundation series.PHOTO: Isaac Asimov in the 1970s (BBC)

31 Maj 20189min

In 1948 the British government carried out an ambitious shake-up of post war society, establishing the foundations of a welfare state. A cornerstone of this new vision was the creation of the National Health Service, the NHS, providing free universal health care for everyone in the UK. Mike Lanchin has been hearing the memories of Olive Belfield, a former nurse and health visitor, and of Dr John Marks, one of the first doctors to qualify to work in the new NHS.Photo: Aneurin Bevan, Minister of Health, meeting a patient at Papworth Village Hospital, after the establishment of the National Health Service in 1948 (Edward G Malindine/Getty Images)

30 Maj 20189min

Executives of Chemie-Grunenthal, the German company that made the drug Thalidomide, went on trial charged with criminal negligence in May 1968. Thalidomide had caused serious, often fatal, birth defects in thousands of babies after their mothers took the drug during pregnancy thinking it was safe. It was one of the biggest pharmaceutical scandals of post-war Europe, and the trial would last more than two years. In 2016 Louise Hidalgo spoke to the wife of the prosecutor in the case, who herself had a child disabled by Thalidomide.This programme is a rebroadcast.Photograph: A Thalidomide child undergoes rehabilitation, 1963 (Credit: Keystone/Getty Images)

29 Maj 20189min