Kobe earthquake
On 17 January 1995, an earthquake devastated the port city of Kobe, in west Japan.More than 6,000 people died and around 300,000 people were left homeless.It was one of the most powerful earthquakes i...
15 Jan 202510min
Confronting Betty Ford’s addiction
In 1978, former first lady of the United States, Betty Ford, announced that she had an addiction to alcohol and prescription medication, and would be seeking treatment.Wife of the 38th US president Ge...
14 Jan 202510min
Franklin D Roosevelt’s New Deal
In 1933, newly-elected US President Franklin D Roosevelt attempted to drag the United States out of the depression with the New Deal.One of the biggest public spending projects in history, the program...
13 Jan 202510min
The Bosphorus boat spotter tracking Russian military trucks
Yörük Işık is a ship spotter who logs all the boats that pass through the narrow Bosphorus Strait near his home in Istanbul, Turkey. In October 2015, he noticed something unusual - Russian military tr...
10 Jan 202510min
The mystery of Raoul Wallenberg
Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat, saved thousands of Hungarian Jews from the Nazis during World War Two.Once Soviet troops reached Budapest, Wallenberg reported to Soviet officials on 17 January 1...
9 Jan 20258min
The invention of the hotel key card
In the 1970s, Norwegian Tor Sornes invented the hotel key card. He wanted to improve security in hotels after he heard the news that one of his favourite singers, Connie Francis, was attacked in her h...
8 Jan 202510min
Charlie Hebdo attack
On 7 January 2015, 12 people were shot dead at the offices of a satirical magazine in Paris, the capital of France.The two gunmen had targeted Charlie Hebdo because it had published cartoons of the Pr...
7 Jan 20259min
Marie Kondo
In 2011, Japanese tidying expert Marie Kondo’s first book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up was published. Overnight she went from tidying other people’s homes to being known around the world for ...
6 Jan 202510min
