My father survived the sinking of the Titanic
When the RMS Titanic sank in 1912, after hitting an iceberg in the North Atlantic, roughly 700 passengers survived by escaping in the ship's lifeboats. Among them were six Chinese sailors travelling i...
24 Aug 20218min
John Maynard Keynes
The economist John Maynard Keynes transformed 20th century economic policy. Considered one of the great minds of his age, his seminal work The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, sought ...
23 Aug 202113min
When The Queen met Ceaușescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was the first communist leader to be given a full state visit to the UK, but it was controversial from the outset. The Romanian president was a known dictator who ran a brutal regime...
20 Aug 202112min
Saddam Hussein's foreign hostages
In August 1990 following the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein’s invasion of neighbouring Kuwait hundreds of foreign nationals were held hostage by the Iraqi government. Among them were the Rahims, a Bri...
19 Aug 202112min
India's secret freedom radio
When Indian independence leaders, including Gandhi, were jailed in 1942, activists set up a secret radio station to carry the message of rebellion against British rule. Among the campaigners who worke...
18 Aug 20219min
US withdrawal: The fall of Saigon
The last remaining US forces pulled out of Vietnam on April 30th 1975 as communist North Vietnamese troops took control of the country. There was a desperate scramble to evacuate US personnel and some...
17 Aug 202114min
The man who coined the term genocide
Genocide has a long and grim history, but until the 1950s, the mass extermination of a people or a group was an atrocity without a name, a definition or an international law against it. One man did mo...
16 Aug 20218min
Inside an East German jail
Vera Lengsfeld was a prominent human rights activist in East Germany who was arrested and jailed for taking part in a peaceful protest. She was sent to Hohenschönhausen, the main political prison of t...
13 Aug 20218min
