Isaac Asimov and Science Fiction
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 as...
31 Maj 20189min
Free Health Care For All
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 Nationa...
30 Maj 20189min
The Thalidomide Trial
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 defec...
29 Maj 20189min
The First Bicycle Sharing Scheme
In the mid 1960s a Dutch engineer called Luud Schimmelpennink came up with a scheme to share bikes, and cut pollution. He collected about ten old bicycles, painted them white and left them at differe...
28 Maj 20188min
The BBC at Caversham
For 75 years the BBC ran a monitoring service based in an English stately home. Its job was to listen to foreign broadcasts from all around the world. But in 2018 the BBC decided the building was no ...
25 Maj 20188min
Shoah the Film
Shoah, the epic nine-and-a-half hour documentary on the Holocaust by French film director Claude Lanzmann, was first screened in spring 1985. It took Lanzmann 11 years to make, and had taken him to 14...
24 Maj 20189min
Lesbian Protest on BBC News
On 23 May 1988 a group of lesbian activists invaded a BBC TV news studio as it went live on air. They were protesting against the introduction of new UK laws to limit LGBT rights. Booan Temple was o...
23 Maj 20188min
Pakistan's Theatre Revolution
In 1984 a group of young people formed the Ajoka theatre group. Created at a time of heightened tensions and censorship due to the state of emergency imposed by the then military dictatorship of Gene...
22 Maj 20189min
