Witness History BBC World Service

Mauritian musician Kaya, who pioneered a new genre called seggae, fusing reggae and sega, died in police custody on 21 February 1999.

His death sparked three days of rioting. People believed Kaya had been beaten to death.

Veronique Topize, Kaya's widow demanded an independent autopsy and President Cassam Uteem travelled into the heart of the disorder to appeal directly to the rioters to put down their weapons and go home.

Veronique Topize and Cassam Uteem shared their memories with Reena Stanton-Sharma.

(Photo: Painting of Kaya (left). Credit: BBC)

The city of Bengaluru in southern India, previously called Bangalore, is renowned for its huge technology companies and buzzy start-up culture.

But, 50 years ago it was a technological backwater.

Entrepreneurs like Narayana Murthy, the founder of Infosys, which is one of India’s biggest tech companies, were right at the heart of the city’s remarkable transformation into India’s Silicon Valley. He tells his story to Ben Henderson.

(Photo: Narayana Murthy and Infosys colleagues in 2004. Credit: INDRANIL MUKHERJEE/AFP via Getty Images)

In 1978, with energy prices rocketing due to the oil crisis, a group of volunteers in Denmark took matters into their own hands and built a wind turbine to power the town's school.

They called it Tvindkraft and its design revolutionised the wind industry.

Rachel Naylor speaks to Britta Jensen, a teacher from the school, who worked on the turbine.

(Photo: Tvindkraft. Credit: Tvindkraft)

In 1998, Keiko became the first ever killer whale to be released back into the wild after a life of captivity.

Keiko shot to fame as the star of the 1993 Hollywood blockbuster, Free Willy.

A multimillion dollar campaign to free Keiko began following the success of the movie and he was flown back to his native country, Iceland.

Dave Phillips was in charge of making it all happen. He has been sharing his memories with Matt Pintus.

(Photo: Keiko in Iceland. Credit: Getty Images)

In 1988, Mehran Karimi Nasseri, from Iran, flew into Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris intending to transfer onto a flight to London.

But he wasn’t allowed to board, as he didn’t have a passport.

Caught in diplomatic limbo, he ended up staying at the airport for 18 years.

Rachel Naylor speaks to his biographer, Andrew Donkin, who spent nearly three weeks with him at his ‘home’, in the departures lounge of Terminal 1.

(Photo: Mehran Karimi Nasseri on his red bench at the airport in 2004. Credit: Eric Fougere via Getty Images)

In 1995, Bollywood film Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge was released to critical acclaim.

It premiered at the Maratha Mandir cinema in Mumbai. It's been screened there every day since then for the past 27 years, stopping only briefly because of the Covid pandemic, and has become the longest-running film in Indian cinema history.

Actress Kajol starred opposite Shah Rukh Khan; following its release, they became superstars overnight. Kajol, who played Simran in the film, spoke to Reena Stanton-Sharma about her memories of shooting the iconic movie.

(Photo: Kajol (r) in Hindi film Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. Credit: Indranil Mukherjee/AFP via Getty Images)