Destinations

With Happy Birthday, Stevie Wonder successfully campaigned to honour Martin Luther King Jr with a national holiday, in a career of socially conscious songwriting.

It's 200 years since the word "hello" was first used in print - though its roots date back to the 15th Century. How has the language of greetings evolved - and what does it tell us?

In a deadly cold period known as the Little Ice Age, clever Elizabethan designs kept a magnificent stately home unusually warm – with lessons for how we can heat our own homes better.

Her murder mysteries have captivated audiences for more than a century, but, 50 years after her death, she remains an enigma. A BBC profile from 1955 reveals some of her secrets.

An acclaimed new film dramatises the pioneering voyage of the world-famous Portuguese navigator – a trailblazer who has been accused of "incontinent bloodlust".

The CIA officer, who has died, aged 84, sold secrets to the Soviet Union, leading to the deaths of at least 10 Western agents. In 1994, the BBC spoke to one of the spies Aldrich Ames betrayed.

When an oil embargo rocked the US, the president's radical solution was to make citizens start their working days an hour earlier – even in the darkness of midwinter.