Witness: Archive 2013

In December 1980 three US Roman Catholic nuns and a layworker were abducted and murdered in El Salvador. Their work speaking out on behalf of the poor had made them targets for the country's fiercely anti-communist military. A close friend and colleague, Sister Patricia Murray, was one of the last people to see them alive.

In November 1970, Portugal launched a surprise raid on the independent West African nation of Guinea, which had been supporting liberation fighters opposed to Portuguese rule in neighbouring Guinea Bissau.Hundreds of Portuguese colonial troops and Guinean exiles took part in the attack. They hoped to overthrow Guinea's leader, Sekou Toure.Photo: Rebels fighting Portuguese rule in Guinea Bissau, Credit: AFP/GettyImages

In November 1943, Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill all met together for the first time to discuss the progress of World War Two. The meeting was held in Tehran over four days.(Photo: Joseph Stalin (left), Franklin Roosevelt (centre), Winston Churchill (right). Credit: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

In 1973, the campaign group Stop de Kindermoord or Stop the Child Murder launched in the Netherlands. It would change the face of the nation's infrastructure. Witness speaks to the group's chair, Maartje van Putten.Image: Dutch National Archive.

In November 1936, a US socialite and her Chinese-American guide captured a giant panda cub in the forests of China. Ruth Harkness took the cub to the USA and kept it in her New York flat, before selling it to a Chicago zoo.Photo: Quentin Young, the panda cub and Ruth Harkness. Courtesy of Jolly Young.

In 1993 the first webcam went online. 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 explain how they developed the precursor to Skype.

On 23rd November 1963, the first episode of one of the world's best loved TV sci-fi programmes was shown. But the BBC's debut of Doctor Who was tragically overshadowed by the assassination of US President John F Kennedy.Lucy Burns speaks to Carole Ann Ford, who played the Timelord's grand-daughter, Susan. Presented and produced by Lucy Burns. First broadcast on BBC World Service November 2013.

In 1974, bombs exploded at two busy pubs in the English city of Birmingham, killing 21 people. The IRA were blamed. Witness speaks to Les Robinson, who survived the attack.(Photo: Debris and damage from the bomb in the basement pub. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

In November 1995, Nigeria's military government provoked international outrage when it executed the writer, Ken Saro-Wiwa, and eight other activists from Ogoniland in the oil rich Niger Delta. (Photo: Ken Saro Wiwa at a rally in Ogoniland. Credit: Greenpeace)

Before he shot President John F Kennedy, Oswald spent two and a half mysterious years living in Minsk. We hear from two people who got to know him during his time there.(Photo: Lee Harvey Oswald after his arrest in Dallas, Nov 22 1963. Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

In November 1978 an American cult leader, Jim Jones, ordered more than 900 people to kill themselves. He had brought his followers to live in a remote settlement in Guyana in South America - they called it Jonestown. Hear from one of his disciples who escaped the killing that day. This programme was first broadcast in 2009.Photo: The aftermath of the Jonestown Massacre. Associated Press.

Red Cross doctors tried to treat both royalist and republican casualties in Yemen in the 1960s. Witness Pascal Grellety-Bosviel first journeyed to the frontline, to reach injured fighters, in November 1964. He later went on to help found the charity Medecins sans Frontieres. Photo: Royalist fighters in the mountains. Keystone Features/Getty Images

In 1984 doctors in California tried a revolutionary operation on a two-week-old baby girl. She had been born with a fatal heart condition - but there was no infant human donor available. Hear from the lead surgeon, and an intensive care nurse involved in the fight to save Baby Fae's life. Photo: Baby Fae listening to her mother's voice in the isolation unit. Courtesy of Loma Linda Hospital

In November 1982, the boxer Deuk-Koo Kim died of brain damage after a world title fight against the American Ray Mancini. Kim fell into a coma after being repeatedly knocked down in the 14th round. His death led to a series of reforms in boxing. Ray Mancini shares his memories of the fight and its aftermath.(Photo: Deuk-Koo Kim at home in Seoul before his departure for Las Vegas to fight Ray Mancini. Credit: Dong-a Ilbo/AFP/Getty Images)

In November 1933, one of the first in a series of dust-storms hit the central United States. In the following years, hundreds of thousands of farmers would migrate to California. Witness tells their story using archive recordings from the Charles L. Todd and Robert Sonkin collection at the Library of Congress.(Photo: Dust storm engulfing houses. Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

On November 11th 1918 at 11am, the guns of World War One finally fell silent.Listen to voices from the archives remembering that moment.Photo: Marshall Foch and other military leaders outside the railway carriage where the WW1 Armistice was signed on Nov 11th 1918. (Three Lions/Getty Images)

On 10 November 1979 a train carrying hundreds of tonnes of dangerous chemicals crashed in Canada. It led to one of the biggest peacetime evacuations in North America.(Photo: Aerial view of the crash scene. Credit: Courtesy of Mississauga Library System)

In November 1953 the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas died in New York aged just thirty-nine. Witness presents interviews from the BBC archives.Picture copyright BBC - Dylan Thomas, making a broadcast on the BBC in November 1948.

In November 1975, King Hassan the Second ordered hundreds of thousands of Moroccans to march into disputed territory in the desert. He wanted to claim the colony of Spanish Sahara for Morocco. The Green March led to a diplomatic victory for the King, but sparked a guerrilla war and decades of instability in the region. Witness speaks to a Moroccan who was on the march.

In 1963 southern Africa's first multi-racial school opened in Swaziland.It was a direct challenge to neighbouring South Africa's apartheid regime.We hear from two people who were there when the school first opened its doors.Photo: Headmaster Michael Stern and his first pupils in 1963 (courtesy of Waterford Kamhlaba)