It was one of the most notorious spy cases in US history. On 27th November 1954, former US diplomat Alger Hiss was released after spending four years in jail for allegedly lying about being a Soviet agent. Alger Hiss had been seen as a potential secretary of state, but was unable to shake off allegations that he'd passed official documents to Moscow. His conviction was the prelude to a Communist witch-hunt in America that became known as the McCarthy era. Louise Hidalgo has been talking to...

East Germany's most famous singer-songwriter was exiled to the West in November 1976, causing an international outcry. Wolf Biermann was stripped of his GDR citizenship while on tour in West Germany. Wolf Biermann speaks to Lucy Burns about his political songs and his fame on both sides of the Berlin Wall. Picture: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

The buddy movie about a cowboy doll and a toy astronaut used computer-generated images to tell a story that appealed to audiences around the world. Animator Doug Sweetland has been speaking to Ashley Byrne about his work on the Pixar film. Photo: Woody (R) and Buzz Lightyear (L) in a Japanese cinema. (Credit:Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images)

The president of South Vietnam was overthrown and murdered in a coup in November 1963 - with the support of the American government. Lucy Burns speaks to Ngo Dinh Diem's niece Elisabeth Nguyen Thi Thu Hong, and American official Rufus Phillips. Picture: Keystone/Getty Images

Charles Manson's followers murdered nine people on his orders. But how to prove his guilt when he wasn't on the scene at the time of the killings? Vincent Bugliosi was the young prosecutor who succeeded in bringing him to trial. Mr Bugliosi spoke to Chloe Hadjimatheou for Witness - the former prosecutor died in 2015. Photo: Charles Manson in 2009. Credit: Getty Images.

In 1979 Islamic militants seized control of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the holiest site in Islam. Hundreds were killed as Saudi security forces battled for two weeks to retake the shrine. The militants were ultra-conservative Sunni Muslims who believed that the Mahdi, the prophesied Redeemer, had emerged and was a member of their group. The BBC's Eli Melki spoke to eyewitnesses who were inside the Grand Mosque during the siege. Photo: Fighting at the Grand Mosque in Mecca after militants...

Manfred Marx was the man who discovered the diamonds which transformed Botswana's economy. As a young geologist in 1967 his find in the Kalahari desert completely changed the country's fortunes after independence. (Photo: Uncut diamonds. Credit: Getty Images)

Thousands of people went missing during Lebanon's long and brutal civil war. But in 1982 a group of women started an organisation to try to track down their family members. Nidale Abou Mrad has been speaking to Wadad Halawani whose husband was taken from their home by two gunmen and never came back. Photo: West Beirut under shellfire in 1982.(Credit:Domnique Faget/AFP/Getty Images)

A British national institution closed in October 1964. The Windmill Theatre had been one of the few places where it was possible to see naked women on stage, due to a loophole in the censorship laws. Lucy Burns speaks to former Windmill Girl Jill Millard Shapiro about her memories of performing at the theatre. Picture:

Curry first became popular in the UK in the 1950s with the arrival of immigrants from South Asia. They introduced spicy food to the British diet. Nina Robinson has been speaking to Nurjuman Khan, an early pioneer of the Indian restaurant business in the English Midlands. His story also forms part of the 'Knights of the Raj' exhibition in Birmingham by Soul City Arts. Photo: A youthful Nurjuman Khan (Credit: Nurjuman Khan)

A dead sperm whale washed up on a beach in Florence, Oregon in November 1970. It was so big that the authorities decided to blow it up - with disastrous consequences. Years later, a local news report about the story resurfaced in the early days of the internet, and became one of the most famous viral videos ever. Lucy Burns speaks to Paul Linnman, the reporter behind the story. Picture: a sperm whale washed ashore in Skegness, England in January 2016 (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Remarkable recordings from the BBC archive of two people who felt the cost of war first-hand. Their experiences were tragically common, but for many years, were rarely recorded or voiced in public You'll hear from a German soldier, Stefan Westmann, who tried to come to terms with the act of killing. And the story of Katie Morter, a British civilian from Manchester, and the man she loved, Percy. Photo: Katie Morter (BBC)

The Russian street dog was the first living creature to orbit the Earth. She was sent into space in November 1957. She died after orbiting the Earth four times. Professor Victor Yazdovsky was nine years old when his father brought Laika back from the laboratory to play with him. He has been speaking to Olga Smirnova for Witness. Photo: Laika the dog. Credit: Keystone/Hulton/Getty Images.

On 7 November 1917, Bolshevik revolutionaries overthrew the provisional government set up in Russia after the fall of the Tsar earlier that year, and created the world's first communist state - a state that would become the Soviet Union. Louise Hidalgo has been listening back to eye-witness accounts of that tumultuous time. (Photo: Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin addressing crowds in the capital Petrograd during the Russian Revolution of 1917. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Days before Kabul fell to anti-Taliban forces in November 2001, Osama bin Laden met Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir in a secret location before going into hiding. It would be 10 years before he was discovered and killed in Pakistan. Hamid Mir tells Rebecca Kesby about their last conversation and how they were both nearly killed in an airstrike. (PHOTO: Osama bin Laden (left) with Pakistani Journalist Hamid Mir (right) at an undisclosed location. Credit Getty Images)

In 1967 the zoologist and broadcaster, Desmond Morris, wrote about humans in the same way that animals were described. The Naked Ape provoked criticism from religious thinkers and feminists alike, but it was an instant bestseller. His idea that we're not so different from our animal cousins was revolutionary at the time. Farhana Haider speaks to Desmond Morris about his provocative book. Photo: Desmond Morris author of the Naked Ape. Credit: BBC

In 1997 the US Supreme Court ruled against censoring sex on the internet. It overturned a law, signed the previous year which had been designed to protect children from sexual content on the internet. Claire Bowes has been speaking to an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who fought the case for freedom of speech. Photo: A computer. Credit: Anilakkus/iStock

In the Lebanese city of Tripoli there is an exceptional architectural site which has never been used. The great modernist architect Oscar Niemeyer designed all the buildings for an international fair which was about to open when civil war broke out in the 1970s. Architect Wassim Naghi has been speaking to Nidale Abou Mrad about the fair. Photo: The Tripoli international fair from above. Credit: BBC.

When German monk Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of All Saint's Church in Wittenberg on 31 October 1517, he started a religious revolution. The document was about the church's practice of selling indulgences - but Luther's protest would grow into the Protestant Reformation. Witness hears primary sources from the time, and speaks to historian Lyndal Roper. (Photo: A portrait of Martin Luther by Lucas Cranach the Elder on display at the German Historical Museum in Berlin,...

In October 1975 the prominent Brazilian journalist Vladimir Herzog was killed by the secret police. His murder became a symbol of the brutality of the military regime. Mike Lanchin speaks to his son, Ivo, who was just nine years old at the time. Photo: Vladimir Herzog with Ivo as a baby (courtesy of the Herzog family).

In October 1929 Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir began their fifty-year love affair after meeting in Paris. Louise Hidalgo speaks to the writer and leading French feminist, Claudine Monteil, who knew Sartre and de Beauvoir, about their legendary status and their famously open relationship. Photo: Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre sitting in a cafe in Paris, 1970. (STF/AFP/Getty Images)

An eyewitness to the assassination of the campaigning Nigerian journalist Dele Giwa. He was murdered in Lagos in 1986 while the country was under military rule.In October 1986, Dele Giwa was the founder of the investigative magazine Newswatch. In 2014, Alex Last spoke to his friend and colleague, Kayode Soyinka, who was with him when he died. Photo: Dele Giwa

Soon after Hitler ordered the invasion of Hungary in March 1944, the Nazis began rounding up hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews. Most were immediately sent to their deaths in the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau. David Gur was a member of the Jewish Hungarian underground, who helped produce tens of thousands of forged identification documents. These allowed Jews to hide their true identities and escape deportation to the death camps. Now 91 years old, David has been telling Mike...

On October 25th 1961 a new satirical magazine called Private Eye was published for the first time in London. It was part of a new era of comedy, poking fun at the powerful and politicians, and helping Britain to laugh at itself after the austerity of the post-war years. Louise Hidalgo has been talking to one of Private Eye's founders, Richard Ingrams. Picture: the Private Eye office in 1963. From left to right, editor Richard Ingrams, Christopher Booker and actor, cartoonist and...

Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu made abortion illegal in October 1966 - but many women still tried to end their pregnancies, by sometimes desperate means. Sorina Voiculescu was one of the millions of Romanian women who had an illegal abortion under the ban. (Photo shows: A pregnant woman. Photo credit: PA)