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The woman who asked Britain to return the Parthenon marbles

Melina Mercouri asked Britain to return the Parthenon marbles removed by Lord Elgin.

• 9 mins

Britain's first female black headteacher

Yvonne Conolly was appointed head of Ringcross Primary school in North London in 1969

• 9 mins

The fall of Singapore

Life under Japanese occupation in Singapore during World War Two.

• 9 mins

Lenin and the deadly mushrooms

A spoof TV show persuaded some Russians that Lenin took too many hallucinogenic mushrooms

• 9 mins

China's breakthrough malaria cure

Chinese scientists used ancient traditional medicine to find a cure for malaria.

• 9 mins

Slaughterhouse-Five

In March 1969, American author Kurt Vonnegut published his cult anti-war novel.

• 9 mins

How Little America was built in Afghanistan

In the 1950s, US engineers were sent to Afghanistan to build a dam.

• 9 mins

The millionaire Nazi war criminal

How the Dutch art collector Pieter Menten was exposed as a war criminal in the 1970s

• 9 mins

The first democratic elections in the USSR

Soviet citizens voted in democratic elections for the first time in March 1989.

• 9 mins

The discovery of the Aztec Moon Goddess

How an accidental discovery in Mexico led to the uncovering of the Aztecs´ Great Temple.

• 9 mins

Autism and the MMR vaccine

How a British doctor misled the world by linking the MMR vaccine with autism.

• 9 mins

The rise of Viktor Orban

Viktor Orban, now the populist Hungarian Prime Minister led a democratic movement in 1988

• 9 mins

The first home pregnancy test

A female designer working for a pharmaceutical company came up with the idea in the 1960s

• 9 mins

Drama in the British parliament

Prime Minister Jim Callaghan's desperate attempts to survive a no-confidence vote in 1979

• 9 mins

Around the world in 20 days

The record-breaking balloon flight

• 9 mins

The secret Nazi past of Kurt Waldheim

How former UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim's secret Nazi past was exposed

• 9 mins

Mindfulness for the masses

Scientist Jon Kabat-Zinn pioneered a meditative approach to treat pain and depression.

• 9 mins

Patty Hearst the rebel heiress

In April 1974 the heiress announced she supported her kidnappers' beliefs

• 9 mins

EMDR: the eye-movement therapy

A therapy which seems to work for post-traumatic stress was developed in the late 1980s

• 9 mins

The warship lost for more than 300 years

The discovery of a 17th century Swedish warship, the Vasa, in near perfect condition

• 9 mins

Abolishing the army

Costa Rica dissolved its Armed Forces after a brief civil war in 1948

• 9 mins

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Maya Angelou's iconic memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, was published in 1969

• 9 mins

The man who made Marilyn Monroe dance

Choreographer Jack Cole had a huge influence on musical theatre and Hollywood films

• 9 mins

The Amritsar Massacre of 1919

In April 1919 British Indian troops opened fire on protestors in the city of Amritsar

• 9 mins

The man who invented wingsuits

The wingsuit is the ultimate in extreme sports clothing, for BASE jumpers and skydivers

• 9 mins

The rise of Hindu nationalism

The consolidation of the BJP as one of the major powers in Indian politics.

• 9 mins

Chinese restaurant syndrome

In the 1960's American diners began to worry that Chinese food was making them ill.

• 9 mins

Dennis Tito - the first space tourist

In April 2001 an American multi-millionaire paid Russia to send him into space

• 9 mins

The first play on Broadway written by a black woman

'A Raisin in the Sun' by Lorraine Hansberry had an almost exclusively black cast too.

• 9 mins

Auto-destructive art

Gustav Metzger and the birth of the radical new art form in the 1960s

• 9 mins