Destinations

On 29 September 1947, the "biggest murder trial in history" began. Seventy years on, the chief prosecutor, Ben Ferencz, told the BBC how he fought to bring 22 killers to justice.

A survivor of the shipwreck that inspired the novel Moby Dick had a theory about how a sperm whale could destroy a vessel many times its size – 200 years later, he's been proved right.

The C&O Canal was a thriving 19th-Century waterway, and a strategic asset during the Civil War. Today, its historic lockhouses offer overnight guests a unique way to relive US history.

In the 1950s and 60s, scientists realised that the noises made by whales form a song. Now we know these songs even show hallmarks of human language.

The glitzy pianist, who famously hid his sexuality, was dismissed as a "vulgar joke" in his lifetime. But a new play gets to the truth of who he was, in private as well as in public.

As Moby Dick turns 175, some of the last American scrimshanders grapple with the legacy of maintaining one of the US's oldest art forms.

In 1893, Lizzie Borden was acquitted of killing her father and stepmother. It became one of the US's most infamous unsolved mysteries – and the subject of a new Netflix drama.

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.

Barbara Cartland was outsold only by Shakespeare and Agatha Christie. So why has the UK's master of romantic fiction disappeared from memory?

Long-standing Irish place names hark back to a world alive with cranes, wolves and eagles. Now these old names are piquing the interest of nature-lovers and ecologists.

Allan Ginsberg's graphic verse had a seismic effect on American society. When two people were put on trial for selling it, the judgement was a landmark moment in loosening censorship.

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.

For nearly 30 years, part of Sonoma was ruled by Tsarist Russia, and it played a pivotal – if little-known – role in shaping the US.