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The artist who delighted post-Cold War Berlin by wrapping its greatest monument Read more
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How Christo wrapped the Reichstag
The artist who delighted post-Cold War Berlin by wrapping its greatest monument
The origin of the WHO
How the cold war helped shape the creation of the WHO and what role China played.
The portable defibrillator
How Northern Irish doctor Frank Pantridge revolutionised heart-attack treatment.
Brown v the Board of Education
A landmark case about racial segregation in the USA.
The 16th Street church bombing
Four young black girls were killed in a racist attack on a church in Alabama in 1963
Black basketball pioneers - Texas Western
How an all-black college team overturned racist assumptions about basketball in the USA
Rodney King and the LA riots
People rioted in Los Angeles after police who had assaulted a black man were acquitted
Three Strikes Law
One man's experience of the controversial US law that saw thousands locked up for life
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and the Five Stages of Grief
The remarkable Swiss psychiatrist who changed the way we think about dying.
Beethoven's role in China's Cultural Revolution
Chairman Mao banned all classical music in 1966, but some musicians defied the order.
Sex trafficking and peacekeepers
Whistle-blowers implicated UN peacekeepers in sex trafficking in Bosnia in the late 90s
The friendship train
The enger train service between India and Bangladesh was resumed after 43 years.
The ‘Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes’ anti-racist exercise
A teacher decided to separate pupils according to eye colour to teach them about racism.
The New Deal
How the USA used public spending projects to battle through the Great Depression
South Korea's economic miracle
How a poor, war-ravaged nation became a global economic powerhouse
Tanzania's socialist experiment
In the 1960s Tanzania tried out a new form of socialism called Ujamaa
The Chilean economy and its 'Chicago Boys'
Thinkers trained in free-market economics in Chicago shaped Chile after its military coup
Russia’s bitter taste of capitalism
Chaos and hardship hit Russia with the sudden market reforms of early 1992.
Jana Andolan – Nepal’s people power movement
A people’s movement brought an end to Nepal’s absolute monarchy in 1990.
The Rolling Stones drugs trial
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards went on trial for drugs offences in June 1967
Quarantined in a TB sanatorium
The life of a nine-year-old girl quarantined in a TB sanatorium for 4 years in the 1950s
The lost Nazi-era art trove
How a secret collection of art missing since Nazi rule was found in in 2012
How South Africa banned skin-lightening creams
In 1990, South Africa banned skin-lightening creams containing hydroquinone
The doctor who discovered how cholera spread
How Dr John Snow found out the cholera bug was spread through contaminated water in 1854.
The unlawful death of Christopher Alder
The black former soldier choked to death on the floor of a British police station in 1998
Montreal's 'Night of Terror'
When the city's police force went on strike there was looting and rioting in the streets.
The death of Frida Kahlo
In July 1954 the great Mexican artist died after years of illness. She was just 47.
The 1960s report that warned the USA was racist
A US government report into the riots of 1967 blamed white racism for creating ghettos
The fight for women's prayer rights in Israel
A Jewish feminist group's campaign to pray freely at the Western Wall in Jerusalem
How Club Med changed holidays
Holidaymakers arrived at the first Club Med resort in Majorca in summer 1950
Returning Ethiopia's looted history
The Stele of Axum, a 4th century Ethiopian treasure, was returned by Italy in 2005