Podcast Episodes

Mexico's first female presidential hopeful

In 1982, human rights campaigner Rosario Ibarra became the first woman and first political outsider to stand for president in Mexico.

Her presidential bid was a direct challenge to the country’s long-…

Published on 2 years, 9 months ago

Octavia E. Butler: Visionary black sci-fi writer

In 1995, Octavia E Butler became the first author to receive a MacArthur “genius” award for science fiction writing.

From a young age she dreamed of writing books, but faced many challenges, includin…

Published on 2 years, 9 months ago

Zoran Djindjic: The murder of Serbia's prime minister

Zoran Djindjic, the prime minister of Serbia, was assassinated on 12 March 2003. He was murdered by an associate of former president, Slobodan Milosevic.

Gordana Matkovic served in Djindjic's cabinet.…

Published on 2 years, 9 months ago

The museum at the end of the world

In 1992, the late zoologist Nigel Bonner opened one of the world's most remote museums, the South Georgia Whaling Museum, on South Georgia, a British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic.

Despite…

Published on 2 years, 9 months ago

Grenada's underwater sculpture park

In 2004 Jason deCaires Taylor started building the world's first underwater gallery.

He wanted to attract divers away from fragile coral reefs, so he submerged life-sized, human cement models in the C…

Published on 2 years, 9 months ago

Pink Triangles: Gay men in Nazi concentration camps

In 2009, Rudolf Brazda, one of the last known survivors of the Pink Triangles, returned to the former site of Buchenwald concentration camp where he’d been imprisoned during World War Two, for being …

Published on 2 years, 9 months ago

Wounded Knee siege

Fifty years ago, indigenous American activists staged a historic protest against the US authorities.

A siege began which lasted for two months and resulted in the violent deaths of two tribal members …

Published on 2 years, 9 months ago

When the Queen 'jumped out of a helicopter'

How did an estimated 900 million people come to witness Her Majesty the Queen apparently parachuting from a helicopter with James Bond?

Frank Cottrell-Boyce who wrote the scene for the opening ceremon…

Published on 2 years, 10 months ago

Families interned in WW2 China

Despite facing malnutrition, starvation and disease, Christopher John Huckstep's father set up a school in the Japanese internment camp where his family was sent in 1943.

Herbert Huckstep ensured the …

Published on 2 years, 10 months ago

The invention of Semtex

In 1958, Stanislav Brebera invented Semtex.

It was a malleable, odourless and stable plastic explosive which became the choice weapon for those seeking to spread terror.

In 2018, Maria Jestafjeva spok…

Published on 2 years, 10 months ago