Witness

The German leader Adolf Hitler killed himself on April 30th 1945. He had taken shelter in a bunker beneath his government headquarters as the Red Army closed in on Berlin. Louise Hidalgo has gathered firsthand accounts of his death from the BBC's archives.

An exhibition about the role of the German army the Wehrmacht during the Second World War caused a scandal when it launched in Hamburg in March 1995. “War of Annihilation: Crimes of the Wehrmacht 1941-1944” was a key moment in Germany’s reassessment of its Nazi past – but it was highly controversial. Lucy Burns speaks to curator Hannes Heer.Picture: Jewish forced labourers serving the Wehrmacht in Mogilev, Belarus, taken from the exhibition “War of Annihilation: Crimes of the Wehrmacht 1941 – 1944”

When an atomic bomb was detonated over the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945, hundreds of thousands of people were killed and injured. Despite many survivors believing nothing would grow in the city for decades, 170 trees survived close to the epicentre and are still growing 75 years later. Green Legacy Hiroshima is a project which sends seedlings from those trees around the world, spreading a message of hope. Rachael Gillman has been speaking to Teruko Ueno who survived the bombing of Hiroshima, and her daughter Tomoko Watanabe who is a co-founder of the project.Photo: one of the trees which survived the atomic bomb. Credit BBC.

A boom in demand for sea cucumbers in Asia in the 1990s set off a confrontation between fishermen and conservationists in the waters off the Galapagos islands, where the protein-rich sea creature was found in abundance. The high price being paid for the sea cucumbers led to a gold rush on the South American archipelago, a chain of 21 islands home to many unique wild-life species. Mike Lanchin has been speaking to a Galapagos fisherman and a British conservationist, who found themselves on opposite sides of the dispute. (Photo credit: Getty Images)

The UN's first Middle East mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte, was assassinated in Jerusalem in 1948. A Swedish diplomat and member of the Swedish royal family, Count Bernadotte was killed by Jewish extremists four months after being appointed to try to bring peace to what was already proving to be one of the most intractable conflicts in the world. Louise Hidalgo has been talking to his son, Bertil Berndotte, about the count and his mission.Picture: Count Folke Bernadotte (centre foreground) in a jeep in Haifa on September 15th 1948. He was assassinated two days later in Jerusalem (Credit: AFP via Getty Images)

In 1957 a new strain of flu emerged in East Asia and quickly spread around the world, killing a million people. It was dubbed the "Asian flu" but it spread to Europe and North and South America. Gabriela Jones has been listening to archive news reports from the time and speaking to Sumi Krishna who was nine years old when she caught the virus in India in 1957.Photo: Americans worried about "Asian flu" wait their turns at Central Harlem District Health clinic in October 1957. Credit: Getty Images

Nancy Iskandar is a magician, snake dancer, former sex worker, committed Muslim and long-time campaigner for transgender women’s rights in Indonesia. Josephine Casserly talks to her about the fight for transgender women to be accepted into Indonesian society in the 1970s and 1980s. Photo: Nancy Iskandar. Credit: BBC

The great American playwright gave several interviews to the BBC over the years and some of them provide revealing insights into his personal life. He spoke about loneliness, mental illness and even touched on his own homosexuality at a time when very few people were open about those things in public. Vincent Dowd has been delving through the BBC archive.Photo: Tennessee Williams in London in 1965. Credit: Getty Images

In 1970 a modern portable ventilator system was designed for use in intensive care units. The Brompton Manley’s designer was Dr Ian English a gifted anaesthetist who worked at the Royal Brompton, a specialist London hospital that treated patients with heart and lung disorders. Farhana Haider has been speaking to Margaret Branthwaite, a doctor who worked with Dr English, about how innovative the new ventilator was.(Photo Dr Ian English Cardiothoracic Anaesthetist. Credit Family: Handout)

Abdul Sattar Edhi built one of the biggest welfare charities in the world. He started with a small pharmacy in Karachi dispensing free medication to the poor in the 1950s. His wife Bilquis Edhi shared his passion for charity and together they built more than 300 health clinics, trained thousands of nurses, took care of tens of thousands of orphans and set up a nationwide ambulance service. Bilquis Edhi tells Rebecca Kesby how she first met Edhi when she was training to be a nurse. (Photo: Abdul Sattar Edhi and his wife and work partner Bilquis Edhi. Credit Getty Images)

The last surviving person to be captured in Africa in the 19th century and brought to United States on a slave ship, has been identified as a woman called Matilda McCrear, who died in Alabama in 1940. Sean Coughlan has spoken to the historian Hannah Durkin who uncovered Matilda's extraordinary life story and to Matilda's grandson, Johnny Crear.Photo: Matilda McCrear in later years. Copyright: Johnny Crear.

On 20th April 2010, a deadly explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico left 11 people dead. As the rig sank, the riser pipe connecting the platform to the oil well ruptured and began spewing vast amounts of crude oil into the sea. The broken pipe lay near the sea bed, 5000ft down. The well's operators, BP, tried and failed to stem the flow of oil. Soon a huge oil slick had developed threatening the ecosystem in the Gulf. After 87 days the well was finally capped. But by then more than 130 million gallons of oil had entered the marine environment. It was one of the worst environmental disasters in US history. Alex Last spoke to Dr Lisa Dipinto a Chief Scientist from the Office of Response and Restoration at NOAA, who worked on the impact of the spill. Photo: The offshore oil rig Deepwater Horizon burning off the coast of Louisiana 21 April 2010 (U.S. Coast Guard/Reuters)

Michael Foale was on board the Mir space station when a resupply vessel crashed into it in June 1997. It was the worst collision in the history of space flight and it sent Mir spinning out of control. Michael was one of the three astronauts who had to try to repair the damage and get the space station back on course. In 2016 he told Alex Last about their ordeal.This programme is a rebroadcast.Photo: Mir Space Station. Credit: Getty Images.

In 1979 the world held its breath as the American space station Skylab, re-entered the Earth's atmosphere. NASA tried desperately to control Skylab's descent, but large fragments hit south-west Australia instead of falling into the sea. Simon Watts heard from two residents of Esperance, a remote coastal town which bore the brunt of the impact.(Image: Saturn V giant booster used for all the Apollo and Skylab NASA space missions between 1967 and 1972. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

In 1972 the American space agency NASA carried out its final Moon mission. One of the three astronauts on board was geologist Harrison Schmitt. In 2012 he spoke to Louise Hidalgo about those moonwalks, and the discoveries they made.Photo credit: Harrison Schmitt/Science Photo Library.

The touchscreen smartphone changed mobile technology for ever. It was unveiled on January 9th 2007 by the Apple boss Steve Jobs. Within a few years smartphones had changed the way billions of people lived their lives. Ashley Byrne has been speaking to Andy Grignon a senior developer on the project.(Photo: Steve Jobs at the iPhone launch in San Francisco in 2007. Credit: David Paul Morris/Getty Images)

Five 'aquanauts' became the first women to front a mission for America's space agency, Nasa, in 1970. But their mission was underwater rather than in space. They spent two weeks being continuously monitored on camera in an undersea habitat. When they emerged from the experiment they were given a ticker tape parade and invited to the White House. Laura FitzPatrick has been speaking to Alina Szmant one of the aquanauts.

In 1984, a 72-year-old grandmother became the first to try a new online shopping system, years before the arrival of the internet. Mrs Jane Snowball had been given new Videotex technology which allowed her to order her groceries using a tv and a remote control. The system was part of a community project to help the elderly and vulnerable in the English town of Gateshead. The technology was the brainchild of Michael Aldrich, head of the communications firm, Rediffusion (later ROCC). Alex Last spoke to John Phelan, who designed the system's online shopping application.Photo: Mrs Snowball shopping from home using her remote control and tv. (Gateshead Council)

The world's first webcam went online in 1993. Its camera was focused on a coffee pot so that computer scientists in Cambridge, in the UK, could see if there was any coffee available. Dr Quentin Stafford-Fraser, Martyn Johnson and Paul Jardetzky explained to Rebecca Kesby how they developed it.This programme is a rebroadcast(Photo: The Trojan Room coffee pot)

In 1975 a group of Californian computer enthusiasts began meeting to share ideas. Among those who took part were the founders of Apple. In those days though, many of them were students or even high school kids. Mike Lanchin spoke to two early members of the group.This programme is a rebroadcastPhoto: Former Homebrew member Len Shustek.