Stories from around the world on women's reproductive rights. Women fighting both sides of the abortion debate as well as the first Muslim country to legalise abortion. Also, the development of the Pill and why Japan took so long to make it legal for women.

(Image: Speakers from Tunisia Women's Union at an event. Credit: Saida El Gueyed)

In 1961 the first openly gay person ran for public office in the United States. He was a drag queen called Jose Sarria, well-known for his performances at the bohemian 'Black Cat' bar in San Francisco. He was determined to stop gay people being second-class citizens. His friend and fellow drag performer Mike-Michelle spoke to Josephine McDermott about his memories of the campaign.

In 1928 the smear test was invented by Dr George Papanicoloau, a Greek immigrant who had made a new life in the United States. He discovered a way of detecting changes in cells from a woman’s cervix, which meant cancer could be prevented from developing. His work has stopped millions of women worldwide getting cancer. Dr Papanicolaou’s great niece Olga Stamatiou speaks to Laura Jones.

It’s 10 years since scientists in Geneva said they believed they had found the Higgs Boson - known as the 'God particle'. In July 2012 after more than 40 years of searching, teams taking part in experiments at the Large Hadron Collider confirmed the existence of the particle which gives everything mass. Dr André David from CERN speaks to Laura Jones.

In 1968 and early 1969 university students across Japan fought pitched battles with riot police after they barricaded themselves into their lecture halls and went on strike. They were protesting about the poor quality of their education and the inequalities of Japanese society in a period of rapid economic change. Emily Finch talks to Kazuki Kumamoto who was a young student who joined the protests. This is a Whistledown production for BBC World Service.

The south-east region of Nigeria declared itself to be the independent state of Biafra. In response, Nigerian forces invaded the state on the 6th July 1967, beginning the Nigerian Civil War. More than a million people died before the fighting stopped. We bring you one child’s story of getting caught up in the frontline. In 2021 Paul Waters spoke to Patricia Ngozi Ebigwe, now better known as TV and music star Patti Boulaye, who was 13 years old when she had to try to escape the conflict.

(Photo: Jose Sarria in drag. Credit: The Jose Sarria Foundation)

Stories from Hong Kong, 25 years on since the handover from British to Chinese rule. We hear from the last governor of Hong Kong, a pro democracy campaigner and about life in Kowloon Walled City.

(Photo: Chris Patten at the handover ceremony of Hong Kong from Britain to China. Credit: Getty Images)

In June 2012, Egypt held its first ever free democratic Presidential election. Mohamed Morsi, representing the Muslim Brotherhood, emerged victorious. Ben Henderson spoke to Rabab El-Mahdi, Chief Strategist to one of Morsi’s rival candidates. She described what it was like to be involved in the first election of its kind, how Morsi tried to recruit her, and the personal impact of political campaigning in such a polarised country.

In June 1982 a young Chinese-American engineer was murdered with a baseball bat by two white men in the US city of Detroit. The lenient sentences the perpetrators received sparked an Asian-American activist movement with protests across the US. At the time, America was going through an economic depression and many blamed Japan, which was perceived to be flooding the US with its cars. For Asian-Americans, it was a time of fear. Farhana Haider spoke to Helen Zia, one of the activists who led the fight for justice. This programme was first broadcast in 2017.

In 2003, Dr Nayana Patel, who ran her own fertility clinic in the state of Gujarat in India, carried out her first surrogacy procedure. It involved a surrogate mother and her own daughter. Dr Patel's clinic would go on to become one of the biggest in India attracting Western couples. It was legalised in 2002 but due to growing criticism, the government banned couples from the West from paying Indian surrogates to bear their children in 2015, arguing that the industry was exploiting poor women. Reena Stanton-Sharma spoke to Dr Nayana Patel.

In 1985, the first robot-assisted medical surgery took place in Vancouver, Canada. It’s now become a standard feature of operating theatres worldwide. The original gadget was named Arthrobot. A member of the original project team, Geof Auchinleck, told his story to Kurt Brookes. A Made in Manchester production.

The UK’s first official gay Pride march took place 50 years ago – on 1st July 1972. Alex Collins talked to Ted Brown, who took part in the London march.

In 2009, Rob Hamill testified in the trial of Comrade Duc, who ran the notorious Tuol Sleng prison during the Cambodian genocide. Josephine McDermott spoke to him.

It is 50 years since Kim Phuc's village in Vietnam was bombed with napalm. The photograph of her, running burned from the attack, became one of the iconic images of the Vietnam War. Kim Phuc talks to Christopher Wain, the man who helped save her.

In 2001 a violent, sectarian dispute took place outside Holy Cross Primary School in Belfast. Loyalist protesters tried to block the school run for Catholic pupils and their parents for months. Rachel Naylor spoke to one of the parents, Elaine Burns.

This year is the 100th anniversary of Ulysses by James Joyce, one of the most influential novels of the 20th Century. Ulysses is the story of one day in the life of a young Irishman in Dublin; that day, June 16th, is now known as Bloomsday. To mark Bloomsday, Simon Watts brought together the memories of some of Joyce’s friends. The programme was first broadcast in 2012.

In 1985, a unique High School opened in New York to provide a safe environment for LGBT students needing specialised education. The publicly-funded Harvey Milk High School was founded by former social worker, Steve Askinazy. Alex Collins talked to Steve Askinazy.

(Photo: Kang Kek lew (Comrade Duc) as Director of Tuol Sleng Prison, c.1976-8. Credit: Getty images)

Max Pearson introduces first-hand accounts of the 2006 suicide bombing attack on Sri Lanka's president, the 75th anniversary of Anne Frank's diary and the 1968 assassination in the US of Bobby Kennedy. Plus, the birth of a crime fighting women's rights group in India and the moment the President of Gabon was shown the treasures of the rainforest.

Max Pearson introduces first-hand accounts of the 2013 chemical weapons attack in Syria and the opening of a refugee camp for Syrians fleeing the civil war. Plus, how lynching was finally outlawed in America, the opening of the Sydney Opera House and the Queen's coronation.

PHOTO: A UN inspector at work in Ghouta, Syria in August 2013 (Reuters)

Max Pearson introduces the memories of people who knew Picasso, Frida Kahlo and Georgia O'Keeffe; plus, how a collector in the Soviet Union managed to open a museum for Russian artists banned by Stalin, and how a festival in Senegal in the 1960s inspired artists across a newly-independent Africa.

PHOTO: Pablo Picasso in 1955 (Getty Images)

Max Pearson introduces first-hand accounts of the rule of Ferdinand Marcos Senior in the 1970s and 80s; plus, Shanghai during World War Two, and the opening of the first McDonald's in the Soviet Union. The History Hour also hears how the murder of a young West Indian called Kelso Cochrane changed race relations in Britain in the late 1950s.

PHOTO: Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos in Manila in 1977 (Getty Images)

With speculation mounting that President Putin might mount an attack on Moldova, Max Pearson hears a first-hand account of the war in the 1990s between the Moldovans and Russian-backed separatists in the disputed region of Transnistria. There's also a chilling story from the Cold War about how a Soviet air defence official prevented a potential catastrophe by realising that a computer warning about a US nuclear attack was a false alarm.

In the second-half of the History Hour, an Egyptian poet remembers how 48 hours of unrest in 1977 forced the government to scrap a huge increase in the cost of bread, and an Icelandic geophysicist recalls how the 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano caused disruption all over Europe.

PHOTO: Russian-speaking Transnistrian fighters during the war (Getty Images)