The home of Santa Claus
Rovaniemi, a small town in Lapland, is home to dozens of Christmas tourist attractions and is widely considered the unofficial home of Santa Claus. The town had to re-invent itself after being flatten...
24 Dec 20219min
Bahrain's 2011 protests
In 2011, thousands of protestors occupied Pearl Roundabout near the centre of Bahrain’s capital, Manama. Many of them were from the country's Shia religious majority. They were demanding political fre...
23 Dec 20218min
The right to drive in Saudi Arabia
In 2011, cybersecurity expert Manal Al-Sharif helped found the Women2Drive movement. It was designed to force the Saudi Arabian government to overturn its ban on women driving cars - one of the many r...
22 Dec 20219min
Rudolf Nureyev defects
In 1961 the great ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev stunned the world by defecting from the Soviet Union. Nureyev escaped his KGB minders at an airport in Paris - with the help of French dancer Pierre Laco...
21 Dec 202110min
Tanzania's first elected albino MP
How opposition politician Salum Barwany overcame discrimination and fear to become the first albino elected to office in Tanzania in 2010. Albinism is a genetic condition caused by a lack of the pigme...
20 Dec 202110min
Bangladesh wins independence
In December 1971, Bangladesh won independence from Pakistan after nine months of war.Dr Kamal Hossain, a leading political figure, was jailed during the conflict and only released shortly after the Be...
17 Dec 20219min
On the front line in Bangladesh
When Bangladesh fought for independence from Pakistan, thousands of Pakistani troops were sent to fight in what was then called East Pakistan. In 1971, Shujaat Latif was sent to the town of Jassore wh...
16 Dec 20219min
Rape as a weapon in Bangladesh
During the war of independence in Bangladesh in 1971, Pakistani troops and their local collaborators used systematic rape as deliberate tactic. It's estimated that hundreds of thousands of Bengali wom...
15 Dec 202110min
