In History

It was one of the finest pieces of art ever bought by the Met. But it had come from an Italian grave robber. In 1975, the BBC investigated the global trade in stolen antiquities.

In 1978, Georgi Markov was killed with a poison-tipped umbrella. The following year, his widow and elder brother told the BBC how they were warned about the murder plot months before.

In August 1966, a US astronomy professor shared his astonishing findings with the BBC. He believed that the Neolithic stone circle was built to predict eclipses.

In 1911, a US professor claimed he found the secret mountain stronghold of the last Incan king. 53 years later, a new explorer proved him wrong – and the BBC followed in his footsteps.

Thirty years after the bombing of Nagasaki, a US physicist who helped to assemble the bomb revealed to the BBC why the blast couldn't be stopped.

In 1977, the BBC looked back at the summer of 1944, when Allied agents spirited away pieces of Hitler's "wonder weapon" – by hiding them in the apartment of a German officer.

Kim Philby's defection to the Soviet Union was made public on 30 July 1963. In 2016, the BBC broadcast previously unseen footage of a lecture he gave to the Stasi.