Hundreds of foreign nationals were held hostage in Iraq in the run up to the First Gulf War. We hear the story of the Lockwood family, whose 5 year old son, Stuart, was paraded on TV next to Saddam Hussein.

Fifty years ago, the legendary film director, Stanley Kubrick, premiered his classic cold war satire Dr Strangelove. It was the start of his long relationship with the set designer, Sir Ken Adam. Sir Ken talks to Vincent Dowd about working with one of the most talented - and difficult - men in film.

Photo: Columbia Tristar/Getty Images.

In August 1998, 29 people died and more than 220 were injured in a massive car bombing in the centre of Omagh, Northern Ireland.

It was the worst single incident of violence in the decades of sectarian violence.

We hear from one man whose wife who was killed that day.

Photo: Omagh town centre after the bombing (AP)

In the summer of 1950, the East German government claimed that American planes were dropping potato beetles over their fields to try and sabotage their crops. But was this the truth.. or just a Cold War rumour? In collaboration with Germany's Memory of the Nation Association, Lucy Burns investigates for Witness.

Photo: Evening Standard/Getty Images

The early 20th Century was a golden age for physics with pioneers such as Max Born, Robert Oppenheimer and Werner Heisenberg working together at Gottingen University in Germany. But the rise of Hitler forced Born and many other Jewish scientists to flee into exile. Max Born's son, Gustav, tells Louise Hidalgo about his memories of the period and his father's friendship with Albert Einstein.

(Photo: A gathering of European scientists in 1927. Max Born is second from the right in the second row.)

In August 1998, a war began in DR Congo which would last for years and involve six African armies. We hear the story of a Congolese student who saw the conflict come to his small hometown.

(Photo: Rebel troops on main road to Uvira, 2002. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

In 1945, the allies dropped an atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Nagasaki. The explosion was bigger than the blast at Hiroshima three days earlier and killed 70,000 people. Louise Hidalgo introduces BBC archive recordings of survivors of Nagasaki.

(Photo: Mushroom cloud in the sky. Credit: US Air Force/Press Association)

In August 1988 huge protests demanding an end to military rule in Burma were met with violence.

Thousands of people were killed.

Photo: Burmese soldiers order crowds of protesters to disperse (Tommaso Villani/AFP/Getty Images)

In 1997, a research boat on the way home from a yacht race discovered that plastic waste was collecting in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Photo: Charles J Moore

In August 1975, Japanese Red Army militants took 53 people hostage when they stormed the AIA building in downtown Kuala Lumpur. We hear from two people caught up in the crisis.

(Photo: A Japanese Red Army militant with two hostages before boarding a bus to go to the airport, Kuala Lumpar, August 1975. Credit: AP)