Witness

The Malian photographer, Malick Sidibé, is one of Africa’s most celebrated artists. His most famous photographs show black and white scenes of young people partying in the capital Bamako in the joyful, confident era after Mali’s independence from France in 1960. In the 1990s, a chance encounter with a French curator brought Sidibé’s work international acclaim. The wider world had been used to seeing a narrow range of images from Africa, so when Sidibé’s work went on show in Western galleries, audiences were stunned by the exuberant world they revealed. In 2022, Manthia Diawara, the Malian filmmaker and professor at New York University, who knew Malick when he was a roving nightlife photographer spoke, to Viv Jones. (Photo: Danser le Twist, 1963 by Malick Sidibé. Credit: Galerie MAGNIN-A, Paris)

It's 65 years since aspiring photographer Art Kane persuaded 58 of the biggest names in jazz, including Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk to line up for a photo outside a townhouse in Harlem. The resulting photo officially called Harlem 58 became known as 'A Great Day in Harlem' and appeared in Esquire magazine's Golden Age of Jazz edition. But making it wasn't easy. Jonathan Kane, Art Kane's son, tells Vicky Farncombe the obstacles his late father had to overcome to create the iconic image. (Photo: Harlem 58. Credit: Art Kane)

Vogue's war correspondent Lee Miller found herself in Adolf Hitler's Munich apartment when the news broke that he was dead. Earlier that day, she and fellow photographer David Scherman had witnessed the harrowing scenes at the liberated Dachau concentration camp. Lee Miller's son and biographer, Antony Penrose, explains to Josephine McDermott the significance of the photograph taken in the final days of World War II in Europe. (Photo: Lee Miller in Hitler's bathtub. Credit: David E. Scherman © Courtesy Lee Miller Archives)

On 11 June 1955, more than 80 people were killed and 100 injured at the Le Mans 24-hour race. A car driven by Pierre Levegh crashed into the crowd of around 300,000 causing the deaths. John Fitch was an American racing driver on the Mercedes team at the centre of the tragedy. After the crash, racing was banned in several countries. John Fitch spoke to Claire Bowes in 2010. (Photo: Crash at Le Mans. Credit: Fox Photos/Getty Images)

On 25 January 1933 the last legal communist march was held in Berlin. Just a few days later Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. Soon the Communist Party was banned and the Nazi grip on power was complete. Eric Hobsbawm was a schoolboy communist at the time. He spoke to Andrew Whitehead in 2012. (Photo: Communist rally 1932. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

In 1975, British forensic artist Richard Neave used a pile of modelling clay, two prosthetic eyes and a woman’s wig to reconstruct the face of an Egyptian mummy. It was to be the start of a 40-year career recreating the faces of the dead using the pioneering ‘Manchester technique’ that he invented. And as his reputation spread worldwide, the police came calling. They needed Richard’s skills to help catch a killer, as he told Jane Wilkinson. (Photo: Richard Neave in 2012. Credit: Bethany Clarke/Getty Images)

In the early 1960s, the Canadian government launched an experimental programme to take academically promising Inuit children from their homes to be educated in Canada’s cities. The aim was to produce administrators who could spearhead development in the north of the country, but the project came at a great cost for the children and their families. Adamie Kalingo, born and raised in Nunavik, Northern Quebec, speaks to Maria Margaronis about being taken away at the age of 12 in 1964, his years living with a white family in Ottawa, and his eventual return. (Photo: Adamie Kalingo in 1963. Credit: Maureen Bus)

As a child, Bachendri Pal never dreamt of conquering mountains but a chance meeting with a climber changed all that. She applied for a mountaineering course and was chosen to be part of India’s first mixed-gender team to climb Mount Everest. On the journey, she faced icy winds, freezing temperatures and an avalanche that destroyed the camp. But finally, on 23 May 1984, Bachendri became the first Indian woman to reach the summit of Everest. It was an achievement that changed her life, as she told Jane Wilkinson. (Photo: Bachendri Pal, pictured on right, on Everest 1984. Credit: Sonam Paljor)

Michael Groom is one of the survivors of a tragic climbing expedition to Mount Everest in Nepal. In 2010, Jonny Hogg spoke to Michael Groom about the moments that went badly wrong when a storm struck the world's highest mountain on 10 May 1996. (Photo: Michael Groom on Everest in 1993. Credit: Guy Cotter)

In 1999 the body of the legendary British mountaineer, George Mallory, was found on Mount Everest. Mallory disappeared on the mountain in 1924 together with his fellow climber Andrew Irvine. In 2016, Farhana Haider spoke to Jochen Hemmleb, one of the original members of the team that discovered George Mallory's remains. (Photo: George Mallory in 1909. Credit: AFP via Getty Images)

Sherpa Tenzing Norgay had tried to climb Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world, six times before his successful climb with Edmund Hillary in 1953. His son, Jamling Norgay, spoke to Louise Clarke about the spiritual importance of the mountain for his father, and how Tenzing Norgay saved Hillary’s life when he fell down a crevasse on the mountain. (Photo: Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary. Credit: BBC)

On 29 May 1953 Edmund Hillary, climbing with sherpa Tenzing Norgay, became the first people to reach the summit of Everest. The two men instantly became famous all over the world. Edmund Hillary’s son, Peter Hillary, tells Louise Clarke about his father's heroic climb. (Photo: Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary. Credit: BBC)

On 31 May 1970, the Huascarán avalanche, caused by the Ancash earthquake, destroyed the town of Yungay, in Peru. Only 400 people, out of a population of 18,000, survived. A clown, named Cucharita, saved approximately 300 children, who were at a circus performance, by leading them to higher ground. Rachel Naylor speaks to his son, Christian Peña. (Photo: Statue of Christ at the cemetery overlooking Yungay, after the avalanche. Credit: Science Photo Library)

On 25 May 1963, leaders of 32 newly-independent African nations came together for the first time in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. At stake was the dream of a united Africa. In 2013, Alex Last spoke to Dr Bereket Habte Selassie who took part in that first gathering. (Photo: Haile Selassie, centre, and Ghana's first President Kwame Nkrumah, left, during the formation of the Organisation of African Unity. Credit: STR/AFP via Getty Images)

On 31 May 2013, a huge tornado hit an area close to El Reno in the US state of Oklahoma. It was the widest tornado ever recorded and produced extreme winds of more than 400 kilometres an hour. Eight people were killed, including three storm chasers. One of the people tracking the storm was Emily Sutton, a meteorologist with KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City. She’s a member of the station’s storm chasing team and was caught in the tornado. She tells Rob Walker about the impact that day had on her and other storm chasers. (Photo: Cars damaged by the El Reno tornado. Credit: Joe Raedle via Getty Images)

In August 1992, a shocking photograph of a starving, emaciated man behind a barbed wire fence of a Bosnian concentration camp stunned the world. The picture, taken from an ITN report was of a Bosniak Muslim called Fikret Alić. Reporter Ed Vulliamy was there when the photograph was taken. In this programme Ed reunites with Fikret and hears how the picture, which was published around the world, eventually helped Fikret flee to safety. This programme contains descriptions of sexual violence. It was produced by Anna Miles. (Photo: Fikret Alic in a Bosnian refugee camp. Credit: ITN/Shutterstock)

In 1980, a group of 16 army sergeants, led by Dési Bouterse, seized power in the small South American country of Suriname, overthrowing the government in a swift and violent coup d’état. The coup came just five years after the country was granted independence from the Netherlands. The country’s first president, Johan Ferrier, was forced to leave Suriname after the coup. Rosemarijn Hoefte, professor of the history of Suriname at the University of Amsterdam, and Johan Ferrier's daughter, Cynthia, have been sharing their memories of that time with Matt Pintus. (Photo: Johan Ferrier. Credit: Alamy)

In Stockholm in 1941, Astrid Lindgren made up a story for her seven-year-old daughter, Karin, about a young girl who lived alone and had super-human strength. Karin named her Pippi Långstrump, or Pippi Longstocking in English. Four years later, Astrid submitted her story into a competition and it won. Her book, Pippi Långstrump, was published and became an overnight success. It’s now been translated into more than 70 languages, as well as being made into more than 40 TV series and films. Rachel Naylor speaks to Astrid’s daughter, Karin Nyman. (Photo: Astrid Lindgren. Credit: Getty Images)

In 2011 a 3,000 km long walking trail was opened in New Zealand. Geoff Chapple had spent years lobbying for the creation of Te Araroa. He’d written articles in newspapers and tested out routes in the country's rugged landscape. The process of exploring where it could go sometimes put him in danger as he tells Alex Collins. (Photo: Geoff wading in the Waipapa River in the far north of New Zealand while on the Te Araroa trail. Credit: Amos Chapple)

In the early hours of 17 May 1943 a bold World War II attack destroyed two dams in the Ruhr Valley in Germany's industrial heartland, causing 1,600 casualties and catastrophic flooding which hampered the German war effort. The dams were highly protected but 617 Squadron of the Royal Air Force had a new weapon – the bouncing bomb. Invented by Barnes Wallis, the weapon was designed to skip over the dams' defences and explode against the sides. The Dambusters mission was a huge propaganda success for Britain and later inspired a famous film. In 2013, Simon Watts spoke to George "Johnny" Johnson, the last survivor of the Dambusters squadron. (Photo: Squadron Leader George "Johnny" Johnson. Credit: Leon Neal via Getty Images)