First reports of Ebola

Georgia O'Keeffe was one of the world's most influential female artists - in 2014, her painting "Jimson Weed" sold for the highest price ever paid for a work by a woman. Famous for her vivid oil paintings of flowers, landscapes and animal skulls, she lived and worked in the wild dry canyons and deserts of New Mexico in the southern United States. Lucy Burns speaks to her former assistant Agapita Judy Lopez.PHOTO: Georgia O'Keeffe's "Cow skull" on display at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2014 (Getty Images)

27 Maj 20229min

in April 1966 thousands of artists and performers from all over Africa descended on the Senegalese capital, Dakar, for the first World Festival of Black Arts. Ibrahim el-Salahi and Elimo Njau are two leading African artists who took part in that first festival. The spoke to Ashley Byrne in 2016Photo: Poster from the first World Festival of Black Arts.

26 Maj 20229min

In 1966, a Russian painter and archaeologist, Igor Savitsky, created a museum in the remote desert of Uzbekistan, where he stored tens of thousands of works of art that he had saved from Stalin's censors. The Savitsky museum, in Nukus, is now recognised as one of the greatest collections of Russian avant-garde art in the world. In 2016, Louise Hidalgo spoke to the son and grandson of one of the artists, Alexander Volkov, whose work Savitsky saved. (Photo:the Karakalpak Museum of Art, home of the Savitsky art collection. Credit: Chip HIRES/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

25 Maj 20229min

The great Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo, died in 1954, at the age of 47. The art critic, Raquel Tibol, lived in Frida's house during the last year of the artist's life. In 2014 she spoke to Mike Lanchin about the pain and torment of Kahlo's final days.PHOTO: Frida Kahlo at her home in Mexico City in 1952 (Getty Images)

24 Maj 20229min

In the summer of 1951 a young art historian called John Richardson met one of the greatest painters of the modern era. Richardson was part of Picasso's circle in the South of France for the rest of the 1950s and then spent the rest of his life writing the definitive biography of the Spanish artist. John Richardson spoke to Laura Sheeter in 2011. He died in 2019.PHOTO: Pablo Picasso in Cannes in 1955 (Getty Images)

23 Maj 20229min

In May 1959, Kelso Cochrane, a carpenter who'd emigrated to Britain from Antigua, was knifed to death by a gang of white youths in West London. The unsolved murder came at a time of racial tension in the area and led to the first official inquiry into race relations in British history. For its part, the large Caribbean community in West London responded by creating the cultural festival that became the Notting Hill Carnival. Claire Bowes talks to Victoria Christian, a friend of Kelso Cochrane.PHOTO: The funeral of Kelso Cochrane in 1959 (Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

20 Maj 20228min

The former president of the Philippines Ferdinand Marcos Senior is thought to have plundered a huge amount of public money during military rule in the 1970s and '80s. He spent the fortune on foreign properties and the luxury lifestyle enjoyed by his wife, Imelda Marcos. American lawyer Robert Swift has spent decades trying to recover that money so it can paid out as compensation to the thousands of Filipinos who were imprisoned or tortured during martial law. He spoke to Matt Pintus.(Photo: Imelda Marcos and Ferdinand Marcos Senior in Manila in 1977. Credit: Getty Images)

20 Maj 20228min

In 1937, Japanese forces entered Shanghai - spelling the end of a period when the Chinese city had been a thriving commercial centre governed by international powers and known as the "Paris of the East". During the eight-year Japanese occupation, local people in Shanghai endured starvation and brutal treatment; while foreigners scrambled to escape as their lifestyle of servants and glamourous parties slowly disappeared. Josephine McDermott speaks to Liliane Willens, who lived through the invasion and occupation of Asia's most international city.PHOTO: Japanese troops in Shanghai in 1937 (Ullstein Bild via Getty Images)

19 Maj 20229min