How a botched press briefing opened the Berlin Wall in 1989
The Berlin Wall fell on 9 November 1989. The BBC and National Geographic trace how a botched press briefing turned months of protest into an open border.
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What happens underground when a well is fracked
Fracking pumps water, sand and chemicals into tight rock until it splits, then lets the sand prop the cracks open so oil and gas can flow back up the well.
The NPT let five countries keep the bomb, on a promise
The 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty recognised five nuclear-weapon states and asked everyone else to go without. The deal rested on a promise to disarm.
One yellow fever jab now covers a traveller for life
Many countries in Africa and South America want proof of yellow fever vaccination at the border. Since 2016 the certificate has stayed valid for life.
Six countries pooled coal and steel, and built the EU's machinery
The European Coal and Steel Community put French and German heavy industry under one authority in 1952. Its commission, court and assembly became the EU's.
The world's longest-running whale hunt still feeds the Faroes
The Faroese defend the grind as food, shared free and taken from a large population. Critics point to mercury, missing foetuses and a hunt with no quota.
Eritrean fighters took Asmara in 1991. The vote came two years on
Eritrea's 30-year war with Ethiopia ended when rebel fighters marched into Asmara on 24 May 1991. A UN-supervised referendum in 1993 made independence formal.
A second fluid lets geothermal plants run on cooler water
A binary-cycle geothermal plant hands hot water's heat to a fluid with a low boiling point. Its vapour spins the turbine, so cooler reservoirs make power.
Ecuador widened the Galápagos reserve to guard a shark highway
Ecuador added 60,000 sq km to the Galápagos Marine Reserve to protect a migration route to Costa Rica's Cocos Island, and to push back fishing at the edge.
How a fish thought extinct turned up on a trawler
In 1938 a South African museum curator found a coelacanth on a fishing trawler. Textbooks said the fish had died out with the dinosaurs.
The largest mangrove forest on Earth is shrinking in Bangladesh
The Sundarbans shields millions of people in Bangladesh from cyclones and storm surges. Rising seas are swallowing parts of it, and salt adds strain.
A Hawaiian blowhole shows how waves can drive an air turbine
An oscillating water column uses rising and falling waves to pump air through a turbine. A University of Hawaii design copies a blowhole on Oahu.
A lawyer wrote the rules budget airlines still fly by
Herb Kelleher's Southwest Airlines flew one plane type, skipped seat numbers and turned jets round fast. Ryanair and easyJet copied the model.
The Catholic Index banned books for four centuries
From 1559 to 1966 the Catholic Church's Index of Forbidden Books barred Luther, vernacular Bibles, the Talmud and, in 1827, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.
A vote on autonomy, and East Timor's road to independence
East Timor's 1999 UN ballot asked about autonomy within Indonesia, yet everyone read it as an independence vote. Violence followed, then a UN mission.
Europe launches its rockets from South America for the speed
France picked Kourou in French Guiana in 1964 from 14 sites. Near the equator, rockets gain 460 metres a second from Earth's spin, and the sea is downrange.
Eleven countries saved the Pacific trade deal the US abandoned
When the US quit the TPP in 2017, the other 11 signatories kept most of the text, parked 22 US-backed clauses and signed the CPTPP in Santiago in 2018.
Tom Stafford spoke Russian in orbit as the space race wound down
On July 17, 1975, an American Apollo and a Soviet Soyuz docked in orbit. Years of thawing relations, language lessons and a shared hatch made it happen.
Russia's late yes made the Ross Sea the world's largest reserve
The Ross Sea off Antarctica became the world's largest marine protected area in 2016, after years in which China and then Russia held out against a deal.
Pluto failed one of three tests, and lost its planet status
On August 24, 2006, astronomers in Prague voted on a definition of a planet. Pluto passed two of its three tests and became a dwarf planet.
Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace may have helped spread the bomb
Eisenhower's 1953 Atoms for Peace speech called for an international atomic agency, set up in 1957. His reactor-sharing programme also gave Iran its start.
How Cornish came back after nearly dying out
Cornish had shrunk to a handful of speakers by the 1700s. A 1904 handbook began its revival, and it now has official UK backing under a European charter.
Brillo Box: the Warhol that made Arthur Danto end art's story
In 1964 Arthur Danto saw Warhol's Brillo boxes and could not tell them from the real thing. He concluded that art's story, though not art, had ended.
Barbados swapped the Queen for its own president in 2021
On November 30, 2021, 55 years after independence, Barbados swore in Sandra Mason as president and removed Elizabeth II as head of state.