In 1997, left-wing rebels held 71 people hostage for over four months in Peru.

One of the diplomats taken captive was the Bolivian ambassador to Peru.

Photo: Peruvian soldiers bring the siege to an end. AP Wire

In the USSR, the authorities routinely declared political dissidents as suffering from schizophrenia and confined them in mental institutions.

Witness speaks to Victor Davidov, a dissident who survived the experience, and to the international campaigner who helped win his release.

PHOTO: Victor Davidov in the 1970s (private collection)

It is 100 years since the great ocean liner sank on its maiden voyage.

Over 1,500 people died after the ship hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic.

Hear stories from survivors of the disaster.

Photo: Topical Press Agency/Getty Images

In 1981 a Pulitzer Prize was awarded to a young journalist who had made-up her story.

Janet Cooke worked for the Washington Post, and she had fabricated a tale of an eight year old heroin addict.

The scandal ended her journalistic career and tarnished the Post's reputation.

Photo: ABC News.

It is 25 years since the great Italian author died.

He had fallen down the stairwell of his apartment block.

Many believe he killed himself.

But he left behind one of the most compelling accounts of surviving Auschwitz - If This Is A Man - as well as poetry and fiction.

Photo: AFP/Getty Images

In April 1959, Fidel Castro visited the USA to try to win over critics of the Cuban revolution.

During a two-week stay, he addressed newspaper editors, Ivy League universities and large crowds.

Fidel Castro even met the then US vice-president, Richard Nixon.

Witness speaks to Ed Shaw, an art curator who heard Castro speak and lined up to shake his hand.

Picture: Fidel Castro addressing US newspaper editors in Washington. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

In April 1961, Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi official in charge of concentration camps, was put on trial in Israel.

The trial helped reveal the full details of the holocaust.

Witness speaks to one of the prosecutors, Gabriel Bach.

The programme was first broadcast in 2010.

PHOTO: Eichmann in the dock. (AFP/Getty Images)

In 1998, the political parties in Northern Ireland reached a peace agreement that ended decades of war.

But the Good Friday Agreement, as it became known, was only reached after days of frantic last-minute negotiations.

Witness hears from Paul Murpy, the junior minister for Northern Ireland at the time.

PHOTO: Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern (L) and British Prime Minister Tony Blair (R) pose with the mediator of the agreement, Senator George Mitchell. (AFP/Getty Images)

As Bosnia descended into civil war in 1992, thousands of people held a peace protest in Sarajevo.

The demonstrators occupied parliament and called for help from the international community.

It was a last, futile attempt to stop the Bosnian capital falling under siege.

Within days, the protests had failed. Sarajevo would be surrounded for four years and thousands would die.

Witness speaks to Zlatko Hurtic, one of the leaders of the demonstrations.

PHOTO: Street-fighting in Sarajevo at the time of the peace protest. (AFP/Getty Images)

In 1982, thousands of women - and men and children - took to the streets for the first Birth Rights rally - to demand the right to give birth naturally.

Pregnant women wanted to move around freely during labour and be in any position to give birth, rather than using the positions convenient for and encouraged by doctors and midwives at the time.

Witness speaks to Janet Balaskas, the young mother and antenatal teacher who led the protests.

PHOTO: Baby George (AFP/Getty Images)