Witness

In 1920, the Communist Red Army bombed the old city of Bukhara and took over the Central Asian kingdom. This was the end of an important centre of Islamic culture. Dina Newman speaks to the son of one of the Bukharan reformers who had made a pact with the Communists.Photo: The Last Emir of Bukhara, 1911 (credit: Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii; Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Prokudin-Gorskii Collection)

This week more than seventy thousand people are gathering in the middle of the desert in Nevada for Burning Man - part festival, part counter-culture phenomenon. This year it's the event's thirtieth anniversary - and we've been speaking to founder and Chief Philosophical Officer Larry Harvey about how they first got started.Picture: Dancers at the 1998 'Burning Man' festival create patterns with fireworks in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada just prior to burning a five-story, neon-lit effigy of a man on the last night of the week-long festival (MIKE NELSON/AFP/Getty Images)

In August 1973, a Latin music supergroup called Fania All Stars played a historic concert at New York's Yankee Stadium. It helped spread the sound of salsa music from New York to the world. Simon Watts talks to Larry Harlow, pianist and producer with the All Stars, and Puerto Rican salsa DJ, Ray Collazo.PHOTO: Fania All Stars singer Hector Lavoe (Getty Images)

In August 2008 a massive military convoy set off across the desert in Helmand carrying a gigantic turbine for a hydro electric power station. Eight years later that turbine is finally being installed - and should help bring electricity to Southern Afghanistan. Monica Whitlock has been speaking to Joe Fossey, then a Major in the British Royal Engineers, who helped get the convoy through.Photo: Major Joe Fossey in Helmand Province. Courtesy of Major Fossey.

In 1986 the British government launched the world's first ever public health campaign on Hiv Aids. It was highly controversial and faced considerable opposition from Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Mike Lanchin speaks to former Health Minister, Norman Fowler, whose insistence made the campaign a reality.Photo: Norman Fowler of a poster reading "Aids Don"t Die Of Ignorance," Nov. 1986 (Crown Copyright)

In August 1969, Arthur Mitchell founded the Dance Theatre of Harlem - the first classical ballet company to focus on black dancers. Virginia Johnson, now the organisation's director, was a founder member.(Photo: The Dance Theatre of Harlem, circa 1970. Virginia Johnson pictured back row, third from left. Credit: Marbeth)

In August 1973 Kristin Enmark and three colleagues were taken hostage during a bank siege in Stockholm, Sweden. Kristin came to trust one of the kidnappers more than the police, the condition later named the 'Stockholm Syndrome'. Dina Newman spoke to Kristin about her story. (Photo: The hostages photographed as the police opened the bank vault door. Kristin Enmark is in the middle. (Credit: AFP/ EGAN-Polisen)

In August 1982 the notorious London gangsters Ronnie and Reggie Kray were allowed out of prison for their mother's funeral. Though the Kray twins were serving life sentences for murder, their reign of terror and violent crime had seen them mix with London's social elite. Witness has been hearing from Maureen Flanagan, who was Mrs Kray's hairdresser and a close family friend.Photo: Ronnie and Reggie Kray, London 1964 (Photo by Terry Disney/Express/Getty Images)

In August 1916, the US Congress created the National Park Service to protect America's finest landscapes and encourage people to visit them. One of the inspirations for the Park Service was the work of the Scottish-born naturalist, John Muir, whose lyrical writings about the Yosemite Valley gained huge popularity. Simon Watts tells John Muir's story through readings from his work and contributions from Mary Colwell, author of "John Muir: The Scotsman who saves America's Wild Places".PHOTO: John Muir (Getty Images).NOTE: The wildlife audio in this programme is used courtesy of the National Park Service, the National Audubon Society and Kevin Colver.

On August 18 1976 an American platoon was sent into the DMZ between North and South Korea, to trim a tree that was obscuring the view of a manned checkpoint. Two US soldiers were killed as tensions escalated in the no man's land. Rachael Gillman has been speaking to US army veteran Eugene Bickley about his experiences that day.Photo credit: Getty Images

In August 1986 the first Studio Ghibli film hit the cinema screens. It would go on to bring Japanese animation to a world audience. Hirokatsu Kihara was a young animator who joined the studio to work on 'Castle in the Sky' its first feature length film. He has been speaking to Ashley Byrne of Made in Manchester about the early days of the great animation studio.Photo: Oscar-winning animator Hayao Miyazaki, one of the founders of Studio Ghibli. Credit: Getty Images.

In 1963 a third of schools in the US had to change their rules on Bible reading after a Supreme Court decision. It all began when a teenager refused to read the Bible in class. 16 year old Ellery Schempp took his school to court accusing them of violating the first amendment by forcing him to read the Bible at the start of every school day. It challenged the principle of a separation of church and state enshrined in the US Constitution. Claire Bowes has been speaking to him for Witness.Photo: Ellery Schempp aged 16 courtesy of Ellery SchemppAudio of Supreme Court provided courtesy of Oyez, a free law project hosted at the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University.

In August 1936, the great poet and dramatist, Federico Garcia Lorca, was murdered by a fascist death squad at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. Simon Watts introduces archive recordings of friends of Lorca and speaks to the Hispanist, Ian Gibson. This programme was first broadcast in 2010.PHOTO: Federico Garcia Lorca around 1929 (Popperfoto/Getty Images)

At the end of WW2, hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens who had ended up outside the USSR, escaped forced repatriation by the Red Army. Dina Newman hears from one family, originally from Soviet Belorussia, who disguised their ethnic origin and fled to Australia. Photo: Tanya Iwanow with her daughter Tamara, in Sydney, Australia (family archive)

In 1998, al-Qaeda killed over 200 people in a co-ordinated attack on two US embassies in East Africa. It was one of the first major bombings carried out by the group. We hear from George Mimba who was working in the embassy in Kenya when the attack took place. Photo: Rescue workers at the scene of the Nairobi embassy bombing (AFP/Getty Images)

In August 1963, work started on the excavation of one of Israel's most important archaeological sites - Masada by the Dead Sea, site of a famous mass suicide two thousand years ago. David Stacey was one of the volunteers on the dig.PICTURE: An aerial photo taken on May 13, 2008 shows the ancient hilltop fortress of Masada in the Judean desert (MENAHEM KAHANA / AFP)

On August 7 1974, New Yorkers woke to the amazing sight of a figure walking on a cable strung between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre.High-wire artist Philippe Petit remembers one of his most daring feats, high above the streets of New York.(Photo: AP Photo/Alan Welner)

In August 1981 President Ronald Reagan fired more than 11,000 air traffic controllers. The strike, which was illegal under American law, lasted just two days, but it was to become a watershed moment in labour relations in the US. Witness speaks to John Dwyer, one of those sacked, and to Ken Moffett, who was involved in trying to settle the dispute.(AP Photo/Dave Pickoff)

The Middle East's oldest arts festival was first held n the ancient Roman ruins of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon in the summer of 1956. Some of the greatest names in music, theatre and dance performed there - Margot Fonteyn, Ella Fitzgerald, Herbert von Karajan, the Lebanese singer Fairuz. Witness talks to Mona Joreige whose aunt helped to organise the first Baalbek festival, and who was herself part of the organising committee for more than 20 years.(Photo: Syrian singer Mayada al-Hinnawi performing at the 2015 Baalbek International Festival. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

It is 65 years since the publication of JD Salinger's classic novel The Catcher in the Rye. But as the book's fame grew, Salinger himself became more and more reclusive, eventually ceasing publishing altogether. Witness hears the story of how, more than 30 years later, a professor of American literature, Roger Lathbury, almost convinced the great man to change his mind.(Photo: JD Salinger in 1951, five years before the publication of The Catcher in the Rye. Credit: Little, Brown & Co/AP)