Birmingham in Alabama was one of the most segregated cities in the USA in 1963. In May that year thousands of black schoolchildren responded to a call from Martin Luther King to protest against segregation at the height of racial tensions. It became known as the Children's Crusade.

Gwendolyn Webb was 14 years old at the time and took part. Listen to her story.

(Photo: Firefighters turn their hoses on civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama. Credit: AP Photo/Bill Hudson)

In October 1943, at the height of the Second World War, most of the Jews in Denmark evaded Nazi plans to send them to death camps. They were warned about a planned roundup by a German diplomat. Hear the story of Bent Melchior who was 14 years old when his family made the journey to safety in neutral Sweden.

(Photo: Bent, aged 15 and living in Sweden)

The outspoken Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead outside her Moscow flat in October 2006. She had been a fierce critic of Russia's leader, Vladimir Putin, and a campaigner for human rights. Her son, Ilya Politkovsky, was the first family member at the scene of the crime.

(Photo: Anna Politkovskaya. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

When Chief Albert Luthuli won the Nobel Peace Prize he was living under a banning order in rural South Africa. His daughter Albertina talks to Witness. Also listen to archive recordings of his acceptance speech.

He won the prize for advocating peaceful opposition to the Apartheid regime in South Africa.

Picture: Albert Luthuli receives the Nobel Peace Prize in 1960, Credit: Keystone/Hulton Archive

Following her own struggles with drink and prescription drugs, former American First Lady Betty Ford opened a drug and alcohol treatment centre on 4 October 1982. The Betty Ford Center is now one of the most famous rehabilitation centres in the world. Lucy Burns spoke to Joseph Cruse, one of the doctors who helped her recover.

Photo: Betty Ford, courtesy of Gerald R Ford Memorial Library (public domain).

In October 1986, an Israeli nuclear technician, Mordechai Vanunu, revealed his country's secret nuclear weapons programme. Vanunu told his story to Britain's Sunday Times newspaper. He was later kidnapped by Israeli agents, taken back to Israel and put on trial for espionage.

Photo: Mordechai Vanunu in detention, Israel, 1986 (AP)

In 1974 American Vogue put a black model on its cover for the first time. We hear how Beverly Johnson made it to the front of the world's most famous fashion magazine.

In 1975, Lee Elder braved death threats to become the first African-American golfer to play at the prestigious US Masters in Augusta.

It was one of the last colour barriers in US sport and made him a hero to many black sportsmen - including Tiger Woods.

Lee Elder recalls the tournament for Witness.

PHOTO: Lee Elder playing golf later in life (Getty Images)

In 2001, Australia refused entry to more than 400 refugees aboard a Norwegian freight ship, the Tampa. The people on board were mainly Afghans fleeing the Taliban, who had set sail in a fishing boat from Indonesia. The refugees became the centre of an international row over who should give them shelter.

(Photo: The Indonesian fishing boat carrying more than 400 refugees comes alongside the Norwegian Cargo ship Tampa which took them aboard. Credit: AP)

In April 1966, Ethiopia's emperor Haile Selassie made a spectacular arrival in Jamaica. It was his first and only visit to the birthplace of the Rastafarian movement which revered him. A quarter of a million people greeted him at the airport.

Photo: Haile Selassie in Addis Ababa, 1966. Getty Images