Witness: Witness Archive 2017

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, Germany (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

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 Lanchin about his part in one of the largest rescue operations organised by Jews during the Holocaust. Photo: False Hungarian ID document (BBC)

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 broadcaster Willie Rushton. (Photo by John Pratt/Keystone Features/Getty Images)

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)

How British Jewish ex-servicemen and volunteers came together to form The 43 Group to fight a resurgent British fascist movement on the streets of post-war Britain. Fascist leaders, like Sir Oswald Mosley, had been released from detention at the end of the World War Two. Soon they were holding meetings in London and around the country, often espousing the same violently anti-Semitic rhetoric used before the war. In response the 43 Group was formed in the late 1940s to gain intelligence on the fascist movement, expose their activities and physically break up their meetings. Its activities became a model for future militant anti-fascist groups. Alex Last has been speaking to 43 Group veteran, Jules Konopinksi. (Photo: British Fascist Sir Oswald Mosley speaking at a rally, Hertford Road, Dalston, London, 1 May 1948. Credit: Getty Images)

When the socialist leader of Mozambique and many of his senior advisers were killed in a plane crash on the border with South Africa, many were suspicious. It was October 19th 1986 and the two countries were divided over Apartheid. The plane made a sudden direct turn straight into a range of mountains, and one of the air crash investigators at the scene, Dr Alan Diehl, told Rebecca Kesby there are reasons to suspect the plane was deliberately diverted off course. (PHOTO: The socialist leader of Mozambique Samora Machel delivers a speech. Credit: Getty Images.)

In October 2002 Chechen rebels seized a packed theatre in central Moscow and took hundreds of people hostage. They demanded the withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya. Olga Smirnova has been hearing the story of Svetlana Gubareva who was in the theatre that night with her fiancé and daughter. Photo: Images of some of the victims amid candles and floral tributes (Denis Sinyakov/Getty Images)

The two-time Booker prize-winning author drowned off the south-west coast of Ireland in 1979. Vincent Dowd has been speaking to people who knew him, and to Pauline Foley who was the last person to see him alive. Photo: The road in front of Farrell's home in West Cork, leading down to the sea where he drowned. Credit: BBC.

On October 16th 1962 the American president, John F Kennedy, received news that the Soviets were secretly deploying nuclear missiles on the island of Cuba. In the two weeks that followed, the Cuban Missile crisis took the world to the brink of nuclear war. Louise Hidalgo has been listening back through the BBC's archives to some of those at the centre of the crisis in Washington and Moscow. Picture: President Kennedy goes on national television to tell the American public about the Soviet nuclear missile deployment and announces a strategic blockade of Cuba, 22nd October 1962 (Credit: Keystone/Getty Images)

Ron Shipp was a close friend of OJ Simpson's but was also a police officer and decided to testify against him in a criminal trial for double homicide. In 1995 OJ Simpson was acquitted of killing his ex wife, Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman. Ron Shipp tells Rebecca Kesby why he wanted to testify. Photo: O.J. Simpson (C) confers with attorneys Johnnie Cochran (L) and Robert Shapiro (R) during Simpson's murder trial in Los Angeles, CA. (Credit: POOL/AFP/Getty Images)

Italy's great works of art were threatened by bombing and looting during World War Two. But a plan known as 'Operation Rescue' was devised to keep the paintings and sculptures safe. Some were hidden in remote spots, others were moved to the Vatican. Pasquale Rotondi was a leading figure in the operation, his daughter Giovanna Rotondi spoke to Alice Gioia about his wartime work. Photo: St George by Andrea Mantegna, circa 1460.(Credit DeAgostini/Getty Images)

In October 1940, the elected Catalan leader, Lluis Companys, was executed by a Spanish fascist firing squad in Barcelona. His death made Companys a hero to generations of Catalan nationalists, although his legacy is debated to this day. Simon Watts tells his story using accounts from the time. PHOTO: A Catalan nationalist marking the 50th anniversary of Companys' death in 2010 (Getty Images)

In October 1967 the Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara was captured and killed in Bolivia. He had gone there to try to organise a Cuban-style revolution. Mike Lanchin has spoken to Felix Rodriguez, the CIA operative who helped track him down, and was one of the last people to speak to him. (Photo: Felix Rodriguez (left) with the captured Che Guevara, shortly before his execution on 9 October 1967. Courtesy of Felix Rodriguez)

The murder of gay student Matthew Shepard in October 1998 shocked America. After a decade of campaigning, his mother, Judy Shepard, convinced lawmakers to change hate crime legislation, outlawing attacks based on gender, disability, gender identity, or sexual orientation. Claire Bowes has been speaking to Judy Shepard. Photo: Matthew, with his parents, Judy and Dennis, on holiday at Yellowstone National Park. (Courtesy of the Matthew Shepard Foundation)

There were riots when the first black student was enrolled at the University of Mississippi in the American south in October 1962. Mississippi's white segregationist governor only allowed James Meredith to be admitted after President John F Kennedy himself intervened. Louise Hidalgo has been talking to Norma Watkins, the daughter of the governor's lawyer, about that watershed moment and about growing up in one of America's most segregated states. Picture: James Meredith walks to class at Ole Miss university accompanied by US marshals, October 1st 1962 (Credit: Marion S Trikosko courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington)