By BBC World Service
The story of our times told by the people who were there.
How a jazz concert organised by a 17-year old turned into a bestselling album. And how it almost didn't happen. Vera Brandes describes the difficulties surrounding the legendary performance by the American pianist. Photo credit: Jacques Munch/AFP/Getty Images
In late October 1984 the body of a Polish priest was found in a town outside Warsaw. He was Father Jerzy Popieluszko and he had become the spiritual leader for the banned trade union Solidarity. It was later revealed...
In October 1974 one of the greatest boxing matches of all time took place in Zaire. Muhammad Ali and George Foreman fought for the World Heavyweight title. The President of Zaire, Mobutu Sese Seko had paid them millions of dollars...
In the autumn of 1965 a purge of communist sympathisers began in Indonesia. Hundreds of thousands of people were caught up in the terror - many of them were killed. Others like Carmel Budiardjo and Putu Oka, were jailed for...
When the Korean War ended, a few US POWs chose to stay with their captors and live under communism. David Hawkins was one of them. He tells his remarkable story to Witness.
It is almost 40 years since the publication of a groundbreaking book about relationships. It was written by a British academic and illustrated with images of real people. It went on to sell millions of copies around the world. Image...
It is 55 years since the Mau Mau leader Dedan Kimathi was arrested in Kenya. He had been fighting against white rule in the British colony. Photo: Mau Mau suspects in a prison camp. Getty images
It is 45 years since tragedy struck a Welsh mining village. Tons of coal-waste collapsed onto houses and Aberfan's primary school. One hundred and forty-four people were killed in total - most of them children. (Photo: Jim Gray/Getty Images)
In October 1966 a Soviet double agent escaped from a British jail. He was helped, not by the KGB, but by other former prisoners. Michael Randle was an anti-nuclear protestor who took part in the escape. (Photo: Michael Randle...
In October 1970 James Cross, a British diplomat, was taken hostage. The kidnappers were from the FLQ - the Front de Liberation du Quebec. Soon after, a provincial minister from Quebec was also kidnapped - he was found days...
On 18 October 1989, the East German communist leader, was forced from power. He had been slow to react to the changes within the Soviet bloc. Three weeks after he left office, the Berlin Wall came down. (Photo: Honecker meets...
On 17 October 1961, French police turned against Algerian demonstrators in Paris. Some were shot, others drowned in the Seine. For years the killings were not acknowledged. We hear from one man whose sister died that day. (Photo: Demonstrators, arrested...
In 1985 the soft drink company changed its age old formula. The public backlash against the new taste surprised everyone. Eventually, the bosses gave in and brought back the old Coca Cola. (Image Credit: Reuters)
Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the US in 1916. It was open for 10 days, giving women advice about contraception. For this she was arrested for breaking obscenity laws and was sent to prison for 30...
On 12 October 2000, an American destroyer was attacked by al-Qaeda suicide bombers in the Yemeni port of Aden. Kirk Lippold was the commanding officer on board that day. The attack left 17 sailors dead.
In October 1975 the film stars Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor got married - for the second time. To avoid the media they held the ceremony on a remote game reserve in Botswana. We hear from the man who married...
It's ten years since the first airstrikes on Afghanistan. The start of what the US and its allies called Operation Enduring Freedom. Two Afghans who were in Kabul that night share their memories.
On October 6, 1981 the President of Egypt was shot dead. He was killed by Egyptian officers taking part in a military parade. He was replaced by his Vice-President, Hosni Mubarak. Photo: September 6, 1978 Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat Credit:...
The invention of the atomic bomb was known as The Manhattan Project, with research and design led by Robert Oppenheimer. Young American scientist Bill Wilcox was part of the team which helped make the bomb, he told Louise Hidalgo about...
On 4 October 1936, fascists clashed with Jews, socialists and anarchists in London. It is often hailed as the day that fascism was defeated in Britain. Bill Fishman was a Jewish teenager from London's East End when he got caught...
Just before the 1968 Olympics, the Mexican government cracked down hard against student demonstrators. Some were killed, others arrested - David Huerta was one of the young protestors, hear his story. Photo: Mexican soldiers arresting students after the shooting...
In September 1991 the first heavy metal rock concert was held at a Moscow airfield. The bands Metallica and ACDC had been persuaded to take part. It almost turned into a riot - as organiser Boris Zosimov remembers. Photo: Boris...
On 29 September 1941, the organised massacre of Ukrainian Jews began. In the capital Kiev, most of them were taken to a place called Babi Yar, and shot. Raissa Maistrenko escaped the shooting as a three-year-old girl. ...
In September 1969 left-wing activists kidnapped Charles Burke Elbrick in Rio de Janeiro. They demanded the release of 15 of their comrades in exchange for his life. One of the kidnappers was Fernando Gabeira, then a young journalist. Photo:...
He was one of the most innovative musicians in the USA in the 1960s. Listen to one woman's story of working for Frank Zappa.
Almost 40 years ago Britain and Iceland came to blows over fishing rights in the North Atlantic. Hear from a British fisherman, and an Icelandic coastguard skipper about the battle for cod.
He was the President of Liberia and in September 1990 he died a very violent death. The BBC's West Africa correspondent at the time was Elizabeth Blunt, she was there when he was captured by rebels. Photo: VT Freeze Frame
In the mid 1960s young people in China were encouraged to criticise their elders. Thousands of members of the Communist establishment were arrested and jailed. For one teenage boy the world was turned on its head. Photo: Jean Vincent/AFP/Getty...
The Chilean politician was killed by a bomb in Washington DC, 35 years ago. He had gone there after being released from detention by General Pinochet's government. He was finally buried in his home country, 16 years later. Photo AFP
In November 1974 the Palestinian leader was allowed to speak at the UN. But there was a great deal of opposition to his visit and security was extremely strict. Hear from the man who helped write his speech and organise...
The Secretary General of the UN was killed in a plane crash 50 years ago. He was on his way to Congo, in an attempt to prevent war. Two people who knew him well remember the man. Photo: Associated Press
On 16 September 1992, Britain lost billions in foreign currency reserves in a single day. Norman Lamont was Chancellor of the Exchequer when the country had to crash out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. Image: VT Freeze Frame
On 15 September 2008, the US investment bank Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy. Two New Yorkers at the centre of the crisis talk about the events leading up to that day. Photo: AFP
The trials of senior Nazis began in the autumn of 1945. Howard Triest was a German Jew who acted as a translator during their questioning. Photo: Getty Images
In the 1960s, non-white immigrants were not welcome in Australia. Five-year-old Nancy Prasad became a focus for campaigners trying to reverse the policy. She tells the story of her deportation.
On 12 September 1980, the army took control in Turkey. It was not the first time they had done so. It was the third coup d'état in the history of the Republic of Turkey, the previous having been in...
Two days before 9/11, al-Qaeda killed an Afghan leader in a suicide bombing. Ahmed Shah Massood had been one of the main figures opposing the Taliban. Photo: VT Freeze Frame
The story of how a teenage girl in Azerbaijan became disenchanted with Moscow's propaganda. She sided with nationalists who campaigned for the break-up of the Soviet Union. Image: An Azerbaijan resident removes a picture of Lenin, Credit: Getty Images
In September 1666, a fire destroyed much of the city of London. The diarist, Samuel Pepys, and a schoolboy called William Taswell both watched in horror as the fire consumed houses and even St Paul's Cathedral. Witness briccngs together their...
It is 45 years since the South African Prime Minister was killed in Parliament. His attacker was a parliamentary messenger. Photo: Dimitri Tsafendas, the man who killed Hendrik Verwoerd. (Getty Images)
At the height of the Cold War, an announcement was made that the UK would host American nuclear missiles. One of the anti-war marches that followed ended at the airbase at Greenham Common in Berkshire and a permanent camp of...
The scoop of the century on the eve of World War II. How a young British reporter witnessed the German military build-up just days before the invasion of Poland in 1939. We hear Clare Hollingworth's own account of...
The Summer of Love, 1967, and the commune in Colorado known as Drop City, where rumours of free love, drugs and a lot of music attracted not only hippies from all over the United States, but plenty of tourist buses...
How villagers in a remote region of Cameroon awoke one morning to find hundreds of their friends and neighbours had mysteriously died in the night. We hear from the scientists who were sent in to find out what had...
At the height of the Spanish Civil War, thousands of Basque children were evacuated to safety in Britain. In 1937, Herminio Martinez was sent away by his parents at the age of seven. It was 23 years before he saw...
It was a pivotal moment in American popular culture. Three days of music and much more on a muddy farm in upstate New York - the Woodstock festival of 1969. A self-confessed "Woodstock survivor" tells us how it changed...
The story of how students at the officially designated "white" University of Cape Town campaigned in support of an academic who had fallen foul of apartheid's racist laws. Picture courtesy UCT.
Dr Spock's Baby and Child Care, a book that revolutionised the way people thought about bringing up children in the years after World War II. The book sold half million copies within six months of publication in 1946. ...
The theft of the Mona Lisa from the museum of the Louvre in Paris in August 1911. The search for the famous painting would take two years and helped to cement its fame around the world. We hear...
The bomb that destroyed the UN headquarters in Baghdad in 2003, killing 22 people, among them the UN Special Representative Sergio Vieira de Mello. We hear from the UN mission's spokesman who was in the building when the blast...