Rod Stewart played to an audience of 4 million on Copacabana beach on New Year's Eve 1994
A young Dutch man won the first ever Big Brother reality TV show in December 1999
How allegations of sexual abuse at a well-known children's home shocked Portugal
The last major German attack on the Western Allies in World War II, Winter 1944
In 1964 a 'pirate' radio station began broadcasting from a ship off the coast of England
On Christmas Eve 1914, British and German soldiers exchanged gifts and sang carols
Julia Butterfly Hill lived in an ancient redwood tree for 738 days to protect it
In 2006 the Nepalese government and Maoists signed a peace accord ending 10 years of war
American bandleader Glenn Miller went missing over the English Channel in December, 1944
President Eisenhower broke relations with Cuba and closed the American Embassy in 1961
In December 1961, Goa became the last part of India to break free of colonial rule
Protests which led to the collapse of communism in Romania began on 16 December 1989
The premiere of one of the most successful films ever made on 15 December 1939
Aids patient Jeff Getty was given a bone marrow transplant from a baboon in December 1995
In December 1997, the first global treaty on greenhouse gas emissions was agreed in Kyoto
Drummer Jimmy Cobb recalls playing on Kind of Blue, the most successful jazz album ever
The frantic search for one of the hereditary 'breast cancer genes'
In 1661 the body of the British ruler Oliver Cromwell was dug up for ritual execution
During the Lebanese civil war the hotel district in Beirut became a battlefield.
Journalist Terry Anderson was freed after being held hostage in Beirut
On this day 100 years ago Lady Nancy Astor was elected to British parliament
How California students won the right to demonstrate on university property
Striking workers and students filled the streets calling for an end to British rule.
The famous landmark the old Ottoman bridge was destroyed in the Balkans War in 1993
The battle against billions of rabbits devastating the Australian countryside
In November 1974, West German band Kraftwerk released their seminal album Autobahn
What drove the Japanese writer and film-maker Yukio Mishima to kill himself?
In 1935 India's Doon School opened, producing prime ministers, authors and businessmen
The flamboyant gay author of The Naked Civil Servant died on 21 November, 1999
The story of the only surviving American prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crimes trials
In November 2006 Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death in a Baghdad courtroom
In 1994, a French magazine revealed that President Mitterrand had a secret daughter
The shocking killings that became a turning point in the Salvadorean civil war.
Manfred Marx discovery in the Kalahari transformed Botswana's economy after independence
The death of left-wing, Sri Lankan rebel, Rohana Wijeweera in government custody in 1989
This act by the white minority government in 1965, led to a decade of war
In the 1990s Saddam Hussein oversaw the destruction of southern Iraq's ancient marshes
A Soviet spy ring was uncovered operating from a London bungalow in 1961
Hear from two East Germans who were among the first to cross on 9 November, 1989
The criminal mystery as told by the son of the murdered nanny
Performance artist Chris Burden was filmed as a friend shot him in the arm.
In November 1899, Sigmund Freud published a book called The Interpretation of Dreams.
In 1960 a young Englishwoman made a discovery that changed our understanding of animals
Hear from an Afghan who worked alongside UK troops in Afghanistan.
In October 1973, an Arab oil embargo caused world oil prices to rocket
Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was shot by her bodyguards on 31 October, 1984
In Oct 1964 cat-burglars carried out one of the most audacious jewel robberies ever
In 1973, the Arabs launched an attack on Israel in a war both sides claimed they'd won
In October 1975 the journalist Vladimir Herzog was killed by the secret police in Brazil.
In 1999 the leader of Turkey's Kurdish rebel group was arrested
In 1984 Ethiopia suffered one of its worst ever famines - the pictures shocked the world
In October 1986, the acclaimed Nigerian journalist, Dele Giwa, was assassinated in Lagos
In 1996 the play 'The Vagina Monologues was first performed in New York.
In 1889 London's despised dockers went on strike. It went on to form the labour movement
Mass demonstrations in Leipzig triggered the collapse of communism in East Germany
In October 1964 the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was ousted in a Kremlin coup
In 1957 Lennon and McCartney performed together for the first time in The Quarrymen
The negotiations that promised 'One country two systems' when the territory changed hands
An international conference in 1985 changed the history of climate change
A prominent figure in the Cuban Revolution, Guevara was captured and killed in Bolivia
The conflict between white Afrikaner settlers and the British empire in South Africa
In October 1942 Norwegian commandos began a series of raids on a heavy water plant
Country music legend Willie Nelson holds the first benefit concert for American farmers.
In October 1964, Japan launched the fastest train the world had ever seen
In 1989, Denmark became the first country to celebrate same-sex civil unions
On 30 September 1955 the Hollywood actor, James Dean, crashed his car and died
In September 1996 the Taliban took over the Afghan capital Kabul
In 2002 the 'Joola' ferry sank off Senegal with the loss of more than 1800 lives
Five Cuban spies were arrested in Miami by the FBI in September 1998
The American TV show Friends hits TV screens
On 23 September 1998, Clint Hallam received the world's first hand transplant
On 20 September 1979 the Central African dictator Jean Bedel-Bokassa left power
In 1970 the Jordanian military fought against the Palestinian Liberation Organisation.
South Africa sent 600 soldiers into Lesotho to quell political unrest in September 1998
How an earthquake in Mexico City in 1985 led to the creation of an elite rescue group
It is 60 years since William Golding's acclaimed novel was first published
In 1993, the Israeli prime minister and the PLO leader shook hands and made history
Three days after 9/11 Congresswoman Barbara Lee became the most hated woman in America
How a 1968 song by the folk band, The Corries, became Scotland’s unofficial anthem
The massacre of 184 Tamils by the Sri Lankan army in 1990 during the country's civil war
It is 30 years since a British scientist found out how to identify people by their DNA
Mao Zedong died on 9 September 1976. His widow Jiang Qing wanted power after his death.
Pakistan declared that members of the Ahmadiyya sect were not Muslims in September 1974
The crisis following the withdrawl of most circulating banknotes in Myanmar in 1987
Kitty Hart-Moxon's story of how she survived two years in the notorious Nazi death camp
How Boris Pasternak's great novel Dr Zhivago came to be published in the West .
A ground-breaking new boutique opened in Swinging London in September, 1964
Rare recordings of African veterans of WW1 in East Africa
In the summer of 1978 a British woman became the last known victim of smallpox.
Writer Ken Kesey and friends drove across America experimenting with LSD in summer 1964
In 1954 the president of Brazil chose to die rather than submit to the military
A US Air Force plane crashed into an English village, killing 61 people in August 1944
In 1975, Iran and America abandon the Iraqi Kurds in their fight against Saddam Hussein
British India was divided into two new countries - India and Pakistan - in August 1947
French and US forces freed Paris from German occupation in August 1944
Zimbabwean writer Dambudzo Marechera died of an AIDS-related illness on 18 August 1987
The terrorist 'Carlos the Jackal' was arrested in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, in 1994
The Scottish anarchist and the plot to kill General Franco
The cast and crew remember one of the most popular Hollywood musicals of all time
The Supremes had their first hit 'Baby Love' in August 1964, 50 years ago
How thousands of Polish citizens tried to flee the USSR after being freed in August 1941
In 1971 the British Army detained hundreds of suspects without trial in Northern Ireland.
On 8 August 1974 Richard Nixon became the first US president in history to resign.
In 1984, the 2000 year old remains of a man were found preserved in a peat bog in England
On 5 Aug 1944, hundreds of Japanese prisoners attempted the largest breakout of WW2.
On 4 Aug 1964 the bodies of three murdered civil rights workers were found in Mississippi
On 1 August 1944, resistance fighters in the Polish capital rose up against German forces
A fellow prisoner recalls how the American TV celebrity survived five months behind bars
In 1969 two young Australians bought a lion cub in Harrods and raised it in London
In July 1949, the British-built de Havilland Comet took off for the first time
Eyewitness accounts from the archives of the start of war in the summer of 1914
It's 30 years since the release of the film Purple Rain, starring musician Prince
In 1987, the first Palestinian uprising, or intifada, started in Gaza
In summer 1947 India declared independence after hundreds of years of British rule.
In 1997 a young Spanish politician was murdered by the Basque separatist group ETA
In 1994 a bomb exploded in Argentina killing 85 people at a Jewish centre
Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg attempted to kill Adolf Hitler on 20 July, 1944
In July 1974 Turkish troops invaded the island of Cyprus
In July 1979 left-wing rebels toppled the last member of the Somoza dynasty in Nicaragua.
In July 1969, Edward Kennedy was involved in a car accident in which a young woman died
On 13 July 1954, the celebrated Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, died at the age of 47
The great Latin American poet was born in a remote town in southern Chile in July 1904
Bosnian Serb troops murdered thousands of Bosnian Muslim men and boys in July 1995
On 9 July 1985 the Greenpeace campaign ship was bombed by French secret agents
It is 20 years since the death of North Korea's founding leader Kim Il Sung
When militants took over a mosque in Islamabad, troops were sent in to end the siege
Sunni tribal militia turned on Al Qaeda in Iraq and began working with US forces In 2006
Every year, thousands of Soviet children visited the holiday camp Artek by the Black Sea
In World War Two an optimistic musical about American rural life became a hit on Broadway
Two Iraqi, Abu Ghraib detainees recall their experiences inside the American-run prison
In 1994 Fred and Rosemary West were charged with a series of gruesome murders in England.
The heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire was killed in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914
In 1965 a pioneering computer dating scheme, Operation Match, launched in the USA.
The destruction of the village of Lidice in German-occupied Czechoslovakia in June 1942
In the summer of 1991 thousands of Albanians commandeered cargo ships to take them Italy
In June 1954 separatist Karen rebels in Burma hijacked a passenger plane.
In 1969 the Cuyahoga River in the US caught fire inspiring new laws for the enviroment
The passing of the Civil Rights Act through the United States Congress 50 years ago
Russian aristocrat Moura Budberg lived through turbulent times. But was she a Soviet spy?
In 1989 the body of Imre Nagy, Prime Minister during the Hungarian uprising, was reburied
In June 1994 police chased the American football star through Los Angeles
Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso on the 1960s movement that changed Brazilian music
How the Brazilian version of the VW Beetle won a special place in the nation's heart
In June 2002 investigative journalist, Tim Lopes, was brutally killed by a Rio drug gang
How Brazil opened a modernist capital city in its remote central plains in 1960
How troops crushed a rebellion by peasants in the arid backlands of north-east Brazil
Original BBC reports of the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France, 6 June 1944
It is 60 years since the great British mathematician died.
In June 1989 the Chinese authorities crushed a huge pro-democracy protest in Beijing.
In June 1971, an 18-month long occupation of Alcatraz by Native Americans came to an end.
In June 2001 the Crown Prince of Nepal killed his parents and other members of his family
In May 1991 rebels took control of Ethiopia's capital ending decades of war
In 1971 the first refuge for women escaping domestic violence opened in Britain.
For the first time America sends two monkeys into space and brings them back alive.
In May 1964 India's first prime minister and the man who led India to independence died.
In the 1990s teams of elite American students won millions by card counting in casinos
In April 1986 Pope John Paul II made a historic visit to a Rome synagogue
In May 1995 thousands of young Russian conscripts were battling separatists in Chechnya
The assassination of the former Indian Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi
South Korean military put down a popular uprising in the city of Gwangju in May 1980
Police killed students protesting against President Suharto, triggering days of riots
Steve Biko led the Black Consciousness Movement before he was killed in police custody
In 1957 Chairman Mao encouraged criticism of Communism, soon after he jailed thousands
How thousands of youths from rival gangs clashed at the resort of Brighton in 1964
In May 1939 more than 900 Jews fled Nazi Germany aboard a luxury cruise liner
In May 1974, the West German chancellor resigned after an aide was revealed as a spy
The Swedish group made it to international pop stardom with their song Waterloo in 1974
The shooting of a prominent Jewish businessman in post-revolution Iran on 9 May 1979
In May 1958 the great African-American singer performed at Carnegie Hall
Yuri Meshkov, who was once the president of Crimea, remembers his removal from office
In 1994, 'The Crow' was released, despite lead actor Brandon Lee dying during filming.
In May 1982 the Argentine cruiser the General Belgrano was sunk by British torpedoes
In 1934 Mao Zedong led tens of thousands of his followers on an epic march across China
In April 2004, photographs emerged showing American soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners
The fascist dictator Benito Mussolini is killed and his body strung up in a Milan square
In April 1996, a lone gunman killed 35 people in the Australian town of Port Arthur.
A British officer's description of the Qissa Khwani Bazaar massacre
How a coup by rebel army officers led the way to democracy in Portugal on 25 April, 1974
In April 1980, Robert Mugabe became the first prime minister of Zimbabwe
In April 1954, anti-communist US Senator McCarthy was investigated by the government
In April 1967, seven years of military dictatorship began in Greece.
Cuban exiles backed by the US government tried to overthrow Fidel Castro in April 1961
Memories of celebrating Easter in the USSR where religious freedoms were suppressed
The Polish trade union Solidarity was legalised once again in April 1989
The explosion at a station in North Korea that killed around 170 people in April 2004
How one family helped overturn racial segregation in schools in California.
American scientists announced they had an effective vaccine against polio in April 1955
In April 1979 the brutal Ugandan ruler, Idi Amin, was ousted by invading Tanzanian forces
Soviet troops crushed a mass demonstration in Georgia's capital Tbilisi on 9 April,1989
The great American contralto sings to a huge crowd in Washington DC on 9 April, 1939
The mass killing of minority ethnic Tutsis in Rwanda began on 7 April,1994
Gandhi's call to all Indians to rise up in non-violent resistance to British rule in 1942
Life in Paris for Duke and Duchess of Windsor, formerly Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson
In April 2004 the death of a 23-year-old student provoked a wave of protests in Argentina
In 1957 the BBC played an April Fool's joke on the British public.
On March 31 1995, rising Latino superstar Selena was shot dead by her fan club manager.
Almost 300 people died before the outbreak in Zaire in 1976 was eventually contained
In March 1999, US doctor Jack Kevorkian was convicted for performing euthanasia
In March 1989, Soviet citizens were given a chance to vote for non-communists candidates
How Poi E became the first Maori language song to reach number one in New Zealand
In 1947 a passenger plane vanished without trace, only to reappear 53 years later
Hundreds of doomsday cult members were found murdered in Uganda in March 2000
AZT was approved within two years, the fastest approval in US history at the time
Princess Anne escaped a kidnap attempt by a lone gunman in London in March 1974
In the 1960s foreign workers were invited to power the country's economic regeneration
An oil tanker hit the rocks off the the south-west coast of England in March 1967
Fighting intensified in the Lebanese capital Beirut in March 1989
In 1947, Chiang Kai-Shek's Chinese nationalist troops killed 20,000 civilians in Taiwan
The woman who created the most famous doll in the world - Barbie
The bombing of commuter trains in Spain's capital that killed 191 people and injured 1800
In 1914 a suffragette attacked a painting in London's National Gallery with a cleaver
In 1948 Ghana was rocked by riots following the killing of Ghanaian WW2 veterans
In 1986, two Soviet space probes intercepted Halley's Comet
In 1970 feminists stormed the stage at the Miss World pageant in London.
In March 1984, coal miners across the UK went on strike over planned pit closures
In spring 1959, an Indian guru toured the world teaching Transcendental Meditation.
Left-leaning army officers staged an unsuccessful coup in Venezuela in February 1992
In February 2004 the president of Haiti was forced out of power by a countrywide uprising
In the 1950s Soviet citizens were allowed to buy tape recorders for the first time.
In February 1984 an outrageous satirical puppet show hit British television screens
How nearly half a million Chechen and Ingush people were deported from the North Caucasus
In February 1952 thousands marched in Dhaka in defence of the Bengali language
In February 1991 protesters pulled down the giant statue of Albania's communist dictator.
Deng Xiaoping's translator, Victor Gao remembers the architect of China's transformation
In February 1941, a ship carrying nearly 30,000 cases of whisky was wrecked in Scotland.
The rise and fall of a New York graffiti artist
Sandinista 'Daniel Alegria' on the brutal fight with US-backed Contra rebels in Nicaragua
On 13 February 1974 the Russian dissident writer was sent into exile in the West
In 1979, the Islamic Revolution changed Iranian women's lives forever.
In 2004, the US began to realise Saddam Hussein may not have been stockpiling WMDs
In 1939 tension was growing in Europe, over Nazi Germany's expansionist plans
On 7 February 1964 the pop group the Beatles were met by hysterical crowds in the USA
In 1946 tens of thousands of British women went to Canada on the first 'war brides' ship
In February 1944, the first electronic computer began attacking coded Nazi messages
In February 2004, 23 Chinese immigrants drowned off the coast of north-west England
In 1992 a war erupted in the separatist Georgian territory of Abkhazia
The death of former NFL star Mike Webster led to questions about safety in 2002
In January 1961, the US closed down its embassy in Cuba and withdrew all diplomatic staff
In 2006, Russian activists broke the law to stage the first gay pride march in Moscow.
In January 1952 hundreds of buildings were deliberately set ablaze in downtown Cairo
In 1943, Rome's Jewish citizens were promised safety if they gave gold to the Nazis.
Rare archive recordings of people who lived through the unification of Nigeria in 1914
In January 1989, US serial killer Ted Bundy was executed by electric chair in Florida
In January 1944 the WW2 blockade of Leningrad finally ended after almost 900 days
The world's first nuclear-powered submarine was launched on 21st January 1954.
The WW2 attempt to understand how best to care for starving civilians in war-torn Europe
The allies launched a major offensive against the Germans in Italy in January 1944
In 2004, US forces began battling insurgents based in the Iraqi city of Fallujah
In 1966 a small group of Nigerian army officers launched the country's first ever coup
The guitarist's girlfriend on his electrifying performances and their life off-stage
In 1991, pro-independence Lithuanians took to the streets of Vilnius against Soviet tanks
The young nun who would become Mother Teresa arrived in Calcutta in 1929
In 1964 violence erupted in Panama, prompted by a dispute over the American flag.
Solomon Northup was born a free man in America but kidnapped into slavery in the South
In 1999, Bill Clinton was tried by the US Senate over his relationship with an intern
One of France's most famous writers was killed in a car crash on 4 January, 1960
On the 3rd of January 1946 Britain's most famous wartime traitor was hanged.
The Las Balsas expedition saw 12 men set off on three rafts across the Pacific Ocean
Armed indigenous rebels seized towns in Chiapas, Mexico, on New Year's Day in 1994