Use BBC.com or the new BBC App to listen to BBC podcasts, Radio 4 and the World Service outside the UK.

Find out how to listen to other BBC stations

Not so Long Ago

The critical issues and conflicting ideologies of the 40s, 50s, and 60s

World Service,16 episodes

Episodes

ListGrid

The Suez Crisis
Anglo-French forces fail to wrest the Suez Canal from Egypt's President Nasser's control
01 Jan 1985,28 mins
The Korean War
Allied forces led by America try to stop Kim Il-sung's communist take-over of South Korea
08 May 1985,27 mins
The Algerian War
As empires were retreating, why was France so determined to keep Algeria as its own?
02 Jul 1985,28 mins
The Cuban Missile Crisis
How close did the Cuban Missile Crisis take the world to a nuclear war?
09 Jul 1985,28 mins
The Bombing of Hiroshima
The human side effects of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by America in 1945
31 Jul 1985,27 mins
The Prague Spring
How the reforms of Czechoslovakia's Alexander Dubček were crushed by the Soviet Union
15 Aug 1985,28 mins
The Nigerian Civil War
The reasons behind the Nigeria civil war, also known as the Biafran civil war in 1967-70
09 Sep 1985,28 mins
The Vietnam War
How did the United States become involved in a revolutionary war in South East Asia?
11 Sep 1985,28 mins
The Abadan Crisis
Iran nationalised the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company 1951 and the West arranged a coup d'etat
26 Nov 1986,28 mins
The Greek Civil War
The Greek Civil War 1946-1949, as fascist and communist fought for control of the country
01 Jan 1987,28 mins
The United Nations
How the devastation of World War Two led to the creation of the United Nations
01 Jan 1987,28 mins
The Jordan and Egypt Defence Pact
The 1967 defence pact between Jordan and Egypt was a turning point in the Middle East
29 Jan 1987,28 mins
Austrian Independence
In 1955, Austria recovered it's independence. But how and when did it lose it?
16 Feb 1987,28 mins
South Africa leaves the Commonwealth
South Africa withdraws from the Commonwealth in 1961 in defence of apartheid
25 Feb 1987,28 mins
The 1973 Chilean Coup D'etat
President Pinochet's path to power and the torture and repression that kept him there
17 Mar 1987,28 mins
The Creation of Bangladesh
In 1971 Bangladesh emerges from East Pakistan after a bloody civil war
01 Jan 1995,28 mins