Witness: Witness Archive 2017

Thousands of scientists moved to deepest Siberia to dedicate their lives to research. The Soviet authorities began building the city in 1957. Academics were enticed there by the promise of housing and interesting work. Olga Smirnova spoke to Dr Victor Varand who made his life in Akademgorodok, or Academic City. Photo: Scientists at work in Academic City. Credit: Victor Varand.

Alexander Litvinenko was a former colonel in the Russian secret service, but fled to London seeking political asylum when he became critical of the Putin government in 2000. In November 2006 he was poisoned with the highly radioactive substance Polonium 210. Rebecca Kesby has been speaking to his wife, Marina, about his life and excruciating death. (PHOTO: Alexander Litvinenko in a London hospital a couple of days before his death in November 2006. Credit Getty Images.)

In November 2002, an oil tanker, the Prestige, sank off the coast of Galicia in north-west Spain, causing one of the worst environmental disasters in the country's history. In the following months, thousands of people from all over Spain travelled to Galicia to help clean up the spill. Simon Watts talks to Xavier Mulet, one of the volunteers. (Photo: Volunteers cleaning up after the Prestige. Credit: Xavier Mulet)

Colonel Domingo Monterrosa was one of El Salvador's most successful and ruthless military commanders in the fight against leftist rebels. But in October 1984 the rebels carried out an audacious plan to kill him. Mike Lanchin has spoken to one former rebel and a war correspondent about the man and the plot. (Photo: Colonel Domingo Monterrosa (R), speaking with one of his company commanders, 1983. Credit: Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)

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 Alger Hiss's son Tony Hiss about growing up in the shadow of the scandal, and his belief that his father was innocent. Picture: US state department official, Alger Hiss, denying he was a member of a Communist cell before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in Washington on 28th August 1948. (Credit: William Bond/Keystone/Getty Images)

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 seized control of the shrine, November 1979 (AFP/Getty Images)

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