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The US Supreme Court's first woman justice

In 1981 Sandra Day O'Connor became the first woman judge at America's top court

• 9 mins

How a worm helped explain human development

The nematode worm c. elegans has enabled all sorts of discoveries about human biology

• 9 mins

Fighting for Castro at the Bay of Pigs

Hear from a Cuban who fought against the US-backed exiles that invaded Cuba in April 1961

• 9 mins

The vultures saved from extinction

South Asian vultures started dying in huge numbers in the 1990s but no one knew why.

• 9 mins

China's 'Kingdom of women'

An ancient matrilineal society which doesn't believe in marriage and where the women rule

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The Eichmann trial

In April 1961 the Nazi official who ran holocaust death camps was put on trial in Israel

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The return of Blue Lake

How an ancient Native American sacred lake was finally returned to the Taos Pueblo people

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The Raymond Davis Incident

How a shooting in the streets of Lahore brought US-Pakistani relations to the brink

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How the NRA became a US political lobbying giant

How the National Rifle Association turned into a US political lobbying colossus.

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The first space shuttle mission

How the space shuttle Columbia revolutionised manned space exploration

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The siege of Mecca

In 1979 Islamist militants took over the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the holiest site in Islam

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Meeting Osama bin Laden

One man's story of his journey to talk to the Al-Qaeda leader in 1996

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The Nairobi US Embassy bombing

A survivor's account of the al-Qaeda attacks in East Africa in 1998 which killed hundreds

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The battle of Tora Bora

How US special forces lost bin Laden in the mountains of Afghanistan in December 2001

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The killing of Osama Bin Laden

The man behind the 9/11 attacks was killed by US special forces on 2 May 2011

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How Amsterdam became the cannabis smoking capital of Europe

How Amsterdam became the home of cannabis coffee shops.

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The IRA hunger strikes

Republican prisoner Bobby Sands died in the Maze prison in Northern Ireland on May 5 1981

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Ursula Le Guin

The pioneer of feminist science fiction and creator of the Earthsea fantasy series

• 9 mins

The Great Wine Fraud

The story of wine fraudster Rudy Kurniawan, and the French winemaker who exposed him.

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Surviving Guantanamo

Mohamedou Ould Slahi was detained by the USA without charge for 15 years

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Why a British MP was filmed taking mescaline

In 1955 Christopher Mayhew MP took the hallucinogenic drug mescaline for a TV experiment

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Legalising contraception in Ireland

Contraception wasn't easily accessible in traditionally Roman Catholic Ireland until 1985

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The Jewish exodus from Iraq

How two thousand Jews fled persecution in the summer of 1971, helped by Iraqi Kurds

• 9 mins

The trial of South Africa’s 'Dr Death'

The trial of a South African doctor accused of multiple murders under Apartheid.

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China's Democracy Wall

How a brick wall in Beijing became a beacon for those calling for change

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When Ariel Sharon visited the Al-Aqsa compound

The Israeli politician visited the compound containing one of Islam's holiest sites

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Striking in South Korea in 1980

Strikes and protests against South Korea's military government came to a head in May 1980

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When Egypt said 'enough'

Years before the Arab Spring swept the Middle East Egyptians were protesting in Cairo

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Saving the world's wetlands

Iran hosted the first convention to save the world's wetlands in1971.

• 9 mins

Fighting forced marriage in war

Why a court in Sierra Leone ruled that forced marriage was a crime against humanity.

• 9 mins