Podcast Episodes

How bloodshed in Selma led to the US Voting Rights Act 1965

In March 1965, hundreds of peaceful civil rights protesters in Selma were brutally beaten by Alabama state troops.

They had been marching to demonstrate against the denial of voting rights to Black Am…

Published on 9 months, 2 weeks ago

The Great Toyota War

In 1987, a decades-long war in Chad reached a dramatic turning point in what would come to be known as the Great Toyota War.

Named after the rugged pick-up trucks that transformed modern desert warfa…

Published on 9 months, 2 weeks ago

The US invasion of Panama

In December 1989, more than 20,000 US soldiers descended on the tiny Central American country of Panama.

The Americans sought to remove the country’s leader, General Manuel Noriega, who sought refug…

Published on 9 months, 2 weeks ago

The invention of the shopping trolley

In 1937, American supermarket owner Sylvan Goldman came up with a way to get his customers to spend more.

He introduced his 'folding basket carriers' in his Humpty Dumpty chain in Oklahoma, hiring mod…

Published on 9 months, 2 weeks ago

The Calais 'Jungle' migrant camp

In 2015, Europe was in the grip of a migrant crisis, as more than one million people fled regions including the Middle East. Many set their sights on a new life in the UK. But, in order to get there,…

Published on 9 months, 3 weeks ago

Africa’s stolen Metis children

In 1953, in what was then the Belgian Congo, four-year-old Marie-José Loshi was forcibly removed from her family’s village and taken more than 600km away to live in a Catholic institute.

The cause o…

Published on 9 months, 3 weeks ago

Surviving Chile's tsunami

In 2010, an 8.8 magnitude earthquake struck the coast of Chile.

It shook the central and southern parts of the country for more than three minutes, causing widespread damage which destroyed buildings…

Published on 9 months, 3 weeks ago

Denmark’s Inuit children experiment

In 1951, a group of 22 Inuit children from Greenland were sent to live with foster parents in Denmark. It was part of a social experiment aimed at improving the lot of the Inuit people. But, for the …

Published on 9 months, 4 weeks ago

The Nellie massacre

The Nellie massacre on 18 February 1983 was the worst bloodshed in the country since Indian independence in 1947. It is estimated that 3,000 people died that day.

Bedabrata Lahkar was a journalist w…

Published on 9 months, 4 weeks ago

Discovering the structure of haemoglobin

What was it in September of 1959 that caused an Austrian scientist to rush out from his lab and buy children's modelling clay?

Austrian born Dr Max Perutz had made one of the greatest scientific disco…

Published on 10 months ago