It's 100 years since the French writer, Marcel Proust, published the first volume of his modern masterpiece, Remembrance of Things Past.

In this edition of Witness, Proust's friend, Prince Antoine Bibescu, recalls his conversations with the author and Proust's maid, Celeste Albaret, remembers his final hours.

The recordings are from the BBC archive.

Witness also hears from Michael Wood, Professor of French at Princeton University.

PHOTO: Getty Images

Thirty years ago, Nigeria ordered up to 2 million illegal immigrants to leave the country within a few weeks.

The majority were Ghanaian.

In February 1992 a group of Venezuelan army officers tried to overthrow the government. After failing to capture President Carlos Andres Perez, and under threat from the airforce, they gave up. One of the coup leaders was Hugo Chavez.

Photo: Chavez after his release from jail,1994. Credit: Bertrand Parres/AFP/Getty Images

It is 70 years since German troops lost their battle to take the Soviet industrial city. They had spent a harsh Russian winter fighting from house to house on starvation rations. Eventually they were cut off from their supply lines and forced to surrender.

Photo: Red Army troops in Stalingrad, January 1943. Keystone/Getty Images.

In January 1948, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated just three months after India gained independence. His murder came amid the turmoil of Partition, but millions of Indians and Pakistanis united to pay tribute to a man known as 'Great Soul'.

Lady Pamela Hicks, the daughter of Britain's last viceroy to India and a mourner at the funeral, recalls the fateful day Mahatma Gandhi was laid to rest.

PHOTO: Keystone/Getty Images

In January 1698, the young Peter the Great began a three-month visit to London. During his stay, the young Tsar got drunk and pursued actresses, but also found time to study British technology closely.

Peter left London determined to turn Russia into a more western nation equipped with a Navy to rival England's.

The story of the tsar's visit is told through contemporary accounts and from Professor Anthony Cross, author of Peter the Great Through British Eyes.

Image: Peter the Great. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

In January 1887 work began on one of the world's best known landmarks - The Eiffel Tower. Many important Parisians were hugely opposed to it. Some 300 artists rallied in protest calling it "A dizzyingly, ridiculous tower dominating Paris."

Undeterred, Alexandre Gustave Eiffel pressed ahead with his vision and eventually his critics became increasingly silent.

Photo: BBC>

In 2002, a huge weapons store exploded in Lagos, Nigeria, raining down explosives on the packed city.

More than a thousand people died, thousands more fled their homes.

We speak to some of the survivors.

Photo: AFP

In early 1967, the American guitarist, Jimi Hendrix, took London by storm.

His flamboyant style and new ways of playing the electric guitar enthralled everyone from the Beatles to Eric Clapton.

His English girlfriend, Kathy Etchingham, recalls her relationship with a man who would become a musical legend.

PHOTO: Hulton Archive/Getty Images.

In January 1946 a young woman was given Hitler's will to translate into English. She had been sent to post-war Germany as part of the occupying forces. It was the culmination of her work for the British Army intelligence corps. Her name was Rena Stewart.

Photo: Rena, front row, second from the left, in Germany in 1946.