Witness

In 1930 the arrest of a man who became known as 'The Frontier Gandhi' ended with the deaths of 100s of people after British soldiers opened fire in Peshawar, modern day Pakistan. A British colonial officer gave his account of this violent episode in the story of Indian independence to the BBC in the 1970s

In April 1974 a coup carried out by left-leaning army officers led the way to democracy in Portugal.

In April 1980, Robert Mugabe became the first prime minister of Zimbabwe, ending years of white minority rule.

Senator Joseph McCarthy made it his mission to purge Communists from American public life - but in April 1954 he was the subject of his own congressional hearing.

A member of the armed resistance talks about fighting the seven-year dictatorship that began in April 1967.

How Cuban exiles supported by the US tried unsuccessfully to overthrow Fidel Castro.

Dina Newman recalls suppression of religious freedoms under communism

In April 1989 a ban was lifted on the Polish trade union Solidarity, eight years after it was imposed by the communist authorities.

In April 2004, an explosion at a train station in North Korea killed around 170 people and destroyed thousands of homes. Hear from a Western aid worker called in to help.

Today we take you to post-war America and a ground-breaking civil rights case that helped outlaw school segregation in California. We hear from Sylvia Mendez whose father took her local school to court when she was rejected for being Mexican

In April 1955 doctors in America announced they had developed an effective vaccine against polio.

In April 1979 the brutal Ugandan ruler, Idi Amin, was ousted by invading Tanzanian forces

On April 9th 1989 Soviet troops brutally broke up a mass protest on the streets of the capital, Tbilisi.

On April 9th 1939 the great American contralto sang outdoors in Washington DC. She was barred from the city's main concert hall for being black.

The Prime Minister of Rwanda's daughter describes the day the killing began.