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The race for the jet engine

Inspiration, rejection and war - a personal account of the invention of the jet engine

• 9 mins

Prisoner of the Cultural Revolution

Kim Gordon and his parents were locked up for two years in a hotel in China in the 1960s

• 9 mins

Jane Goodall and chimpanzees

How a young Englishwoman followed her dream to study chimpanzees in Africa

• 9 mins

When the Taliban took Kabul

Taliban fighters first took control of Afghanistan's capital city Kabul in 1996

• 9 mins

England's summer of riots

How six weeks of race riots gripped towns in northern England in 2001

• 9 mins

Domestic violence in Brazil

In 2006 Brazil passed the ground-breaking 'Maria da Penha law' to tackle domestic abuse

• 9 mins

The Battle of Gondar

In 1941, Italian colonial rule in Africa ended after a last stand by Mussolini's soldiers

• 9 mins

Surviving Norway's day of terror

Lisa Husby recalls running for her life from far-right extremist Anders Breivik

• 9 mins

When war came to Darfur

How a 13-year-old boy's life was changed by the war in Darfur in Sudan

• 9 mins

The paintings of Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh's great-great nephew recalls growing up among his paintings

• 9 mins

Japan's Bullet Train

Japanese railways launched the fastest train the world had ever seen in October 1964

• 9 mins

The birth of Karaoke

The man who invented the Karaoke machine speaks to Witness History

• 9 mins

The soldier who never surrendered

A Japanese soldier hid in the jungle in Guam for nearly 30 years after World War Two

• 9 mins

Fighting for the pill in Japan

Why did it take so long for the oral contraceptive pill to be legalised in Japan?

• 9 mins

The Tsunami and Fukushima

How an earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan and triggered a nuclear emergency in 2011

• 9 mins

Dorothy Butler Gilliam: American news pioneer

The first African American woman to be hired as a reporter by the Washington Post

• 9 mins

Chipko: India’s tree-hugging women

How a grassroots environmental movement won its fight against deforestation in India

• 9 mins

Escaping Nigeria’s Civil War

Patti Boulaye recalls frightening times as a 13-year-old girl in the Biafran War in 1967.

• 9 mins

Afghanistan's battle of the airwaves

When the Taliban fell in 2001 Afghans could listen to music and news again

• 9 mins

Gay activism in 1990s India

Pawan Dhall helped form the Counsel Club, one of India's first gay support groups

• 9 mins

The building of the Berlin Wall

In August 1961, East Germany began building the wall that symbolised Cold War Europe

• 9 mins

Escaping from East Berlin

East Germans used all sorts of methods to escape from communism across the Berlin Wall

• 9 mins

Exiled from East Germany: Wolf Biermann

East Germany's most famous singer-songwriter was exiled to the West in 1976

• 9 mins

East Germany's nudists

The communist regime restricted many things in the GDR but not the freedom to go naked

• 9 mins

Inside an East German jail

Vera Lengsfeld was imprisoned by the communist authorities in East Germany in 1988

• 9 mins

The man who coined the term genocide

The Holocaust survivor who coined the term genocide and spent his life trying to stop it

• 9 mins

US withdrawal: The fall of Saigon

The desperate scramble to evacuate US personnel and locals at the end of the Vietnam war

• 9 mins

India's secret freedom radio

When Gandhi was jailed in 1942 activists launched a secret radio station for independence

• 9 mins

Saddam Hussein's foreign hostages

A British Muslim family was among hundreds of foreign nationals held hostage in Iraq

• 9 mins

When The Queen met Ceaușescu

It was the first time a communist leader had been given a full state visit to the UK

• 9 mins