BBC World Service - Witness History

The BBC Russian service

For 65 years the BBC World Service has broadcast in Russian, this weekend it stops

Over 500 years ago in Renaissance Italy, a battle was underway between two great painters.

History as told by the people who were there

In September 1999 there was a nuclear accident at Tokaimura in Japan

The English author Christopher Isherwood lived in Berlin throughout the 1930s.

Angela Berners-Wilson on her experiences that day, and her long fight to become a priest

In March 1988 Iraqi forces attacked the Kurdish town of Halabja with chemical weapons

In March 1979, the US suffered its worst nuclear accident

It is almost 25 years since the US decided to take military action against Libya

On 11 March 2004, bomb attacks in Madrid left 191 people dead