Witness: Archive 2011

In January 1911, an extraordinary gun-fight took place in the East End of London.Two Latvian revolutionaries fought off hundreds of British police and troops for hours until their hide-out caught fire. The Home Secretary - Sir Winston Churchill - attended the scene in person.The Siege of Sidney Street was one of the first big news events caught on film and would start a huge political row over immigration from Eastern Europe.

After Siad Barre was driven from power by clan militias in Somalia, the country fell into chaos. It has not known peace since then and hundreds of thousands of people have died in the fighting, or from starvation.Twenty years on, Somalia still has no central government.

Horst Woit was just 10 years old when he and his mother boarded a ship in the hope of escaping Russian forces towards the end of World War II. He recalls the night that ship - the Wilhelm Gustloff - went down with huge loss of life.

With the death of Sir Winston Churchill Britain went into mourning for its great wartime leader. He was given a state funeral in St Paul's Cathedral. Hundreds of thousands of people turned out to pay their respects.

Alongside Louis XVI as he was driven to his death, was an English catholic priest, Henry Edgeworth. He wrote down everything he saw and heard that day.

In 1987, Tunisia's long-serving president was toppled in a political coup, and replaced by his prime minister - by Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.(Photo: Former Tunisian Prime Minister Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali (4th R) smiles to the cheering crowd 07 November 1987 in Tunis after being sworn in as President of Tunisia.) (Credit: JOEL ROBINE/AFP/Getty Images)

In January 1966, two American military planes crashed over the remote Spanish village of Palomares. One of them was carrying four nuclear weapons.Captain Joe Ramirez was one of the first US servicemen on the scene. He took part in the desperate search for the missing bombs.(Photo: One of the four bombs recovered from the sea) (credit: Sandia National Laboratories)

The Norwegian polar explorer Borge Ousland spent more than two months skiing alone across the continent of Antarctica. He talks to Witness about the highs and lows of his journey.

Over 10,000 Jewish children were brought to Britain from Nazi Europe in the months leading up to World War II. They travelled on trains which became known as the kindertransports.Listen to one little boy's story. His name is Oliver Gebhardt.

Former England captain Jimmy Armfield takes us back to the moment in 1961 when the modern world of footballers' pay was born.

It is 10 years since the Wikipedia online encyclopedia was launched.Jimmy Wales, one of the founders of Wikipedia, talks to Witness about the origins of one of the most popular websites in the world.

It was during the 1960s in America that the idea of freezing people for the future, first became popular. Some of those frozen bodies are still suspended in labs in the US, in the hope that one day science will have progressed enough, to bring them back to life.

The laws of ancient Rome made it illegal for the governor of a province to lead his soldiers into Italy. The Rubicon marked the border that could not be crossed. Afterwards, there was no going back.

How, in 1995, investigators in the Philippines stumbled upon a terrorist plot that would reverberate in the world's memory for years to come.

Bill Clinton's press secretary at the time of the impeachment trial was Joe Lockhart. He talks to Witness about the politics behind the Lewinsky affair.

This weekend the people of Southern Sudan will vote in a referendum on independence. We take you back to the last time the South tried to break free of the rest of Sudan.We hear from two Sudanese women about the war which began in 1983 following the push for autonomy.

Alan Johnston hears one woman's account of how she and others defied the Taliban's efforts to prohibit education for girls in Afghanistan, by setting up secret schools and helping teachers to give lessons in their homes.

Witness travels backs to 1965 when then president of the United States, Lyndon B Johnson was giving his state of the union address. In it, he set out his Great Society ideals, which included providing healthcare for the elderly and the poor.

We hear from Dennis Egan, whose father was to become the first governor of the newly formed state. He remembers the hope, pride and emotion of that historic day.