In the summer of 1997 Captain Charles Moore was on his way home from a yacht race when he came upon a huge patch of floating rubbish in the Pacific Ocean. In 2013 he spoke to Lucy Burns about the discovery of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and how it opened up a new chapter in research into ocean waste.

Photo: Fishing nets and assorted garbage collected from the North Pacific Gyre (Credit: Environmental Images/Univers/REX/Shutterstock)

In 2000 the US led a major effort to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. President Bill Clinton brought the two sides together at the leafy presidential retreat in Maryland. The Israeli leader, Ehud Barak and the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, failed to reach any agreement and the summit ended in failure. Farhana Haider has been speaking to the senior American diplomatic interpreter and policy adviser, Gamal Helal who attended the Camp David summit.

White House photo released 16 July 2000 US President Bill Clinton (C) Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak (L) and Palestinian Chairman Yassar Arafat and Gamal Helal at a working dinner at Camp David, Maryland during the Middle East Peace Summit. Credit: SHARON FARMER/AFP/Getty Images

In July 1999, the spiritual movement Falun Gong was banned in China. Thousands of people were arrested. The Chinese government says Falun Gong is an "evil cult", but followers of the movement say they have been the victims of state persecution.

Witness speaks to Falun Gong practitioner Chao Yu and journalist Ian Johnson.

(Photo: Falun Gong practitioners stage a sit-in protest outside the Convention and Exhibition Centre in Hong Kong, 2002. Credit: Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images)

In 1977 a state hospital near Paris began quietly changing the way women gave birth. Obstetrician, Dr Michel Odent, believed that childbirth had become too medicalised and he wanted a more natural approach. He introduced a pool to ease the pain of labour. Eventually some babies were even born in the pool. Claire Bowes speaks to Dr Odent about the innovation that has become a revolution using the power of water.

(Photo: Getty Images)

During World War Two, Croatian fascists tortured and killed tens of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Roma people in several concentration camps. The most notorious was Jasenovac. Dina Newman speaks to Milinko Cekic, a Serb survivor of Jasenovac.

Photo: Milinko Cekic speaking to the BBC in 2017. Credit: BBC.

On July 26 1952 Argentina's controversial First Lady, Eva Peron, died in Buenos Aires. During her short life she had become an icon for women and the poor in the South American nation. In 2012 Krupa Padhy spoke to two very different Argentine women who remember meeting her.

Photo: President Juan Peron and his wife, Eva Peron, at a demonstration in Buenos Aires, August 1951. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

In the 1970s, deep sea divers were at the sharp end of the North Sea oil boom. Alex Last has been speaking to the former diver David Beckett, who wrote The Loonliness of a Deep Sea Diver, about his dangerous life working under the waves.

The battle for China between Communists and Nationalists left Mao the victor in 1949. Defeated Nationalist leader, Chiang Kai Shek, fled with his troops to the island of Taiwan, but he vowed to return. Hau Pei Tsun is a former chief aide to Chiang Kai Shek. Now 99 years old, he speaks to Rebecca Kesby about his memories of the controversial leader, and their fight for the soul of China.

Photo: General Chiang Kai Shek, cerca 1943 (Keystone/Getty Images)

In July 1967, homosexuality was legalised in England and Wales for the first time. Before that gay men lived in fear of arrest, beatings and blackmail. Some even underwent so-called aversion therapy at psychiatric hospitals in an attempt to 'cure' themselves. Louise Hidalgo has been talking to Liverpool comedian and radio presenter, Peter Price, who still bears the psychological scars of what he was put through when he was 18.

Picture: Comedian Peter Price (copyright: private collection)

In the 1960s, millions of Soviet families were able for the first time to move to a flat of their own. This was due to a mass construction programme of standardized housing. Dina Newman speaks to a resident of one of the first five storey apartment blocks, and to Clem Cecil, a campaigner for preserving architecture.

Photo: a five-storey building dating from the 1960s in western Moscow on June 11, 2017. Credit: AFP/Getty Images