February 2009 marks the 30th anniversary of Ayatollah Khomeini’s return to Tehran and the overthrowing of the Shah. Throughout the month, BBC World News will have news and documentary coverage assessing the impact of the revolution on modern day Iran and its relations with the rest of the world.

For paleontologist Professor Jenny Clack, who solved one of the greatest mysteries in the history of life on Earth, success was far from inevitable. She recounts how she had to overcome a series of setbacks before she found and described the fossil Acanthostega, a 365 million-year-old creature that offered dramatic new evidence of how fish made the transition onto land.

Having previously investigated the architecture of Hitler and Stalin's regimes, Jonathan Meades turns his attention to another notorious 20th-century European dictator, Mussolini.

Mark Radcliffe presents a look at the highs and lows of band life - the creative tension that produces great music and the pressures that come with success and fame, and pull most bands apart. Radcliffe lifts the lid on the main reasons why bands break up and the secrets of bands that manage to stay together.

A stellar cast of White House insiders speak on camera about the operation to find and kill Osama Bin Laden, including the first - and extraordinary - documentary interview with President Barack Obama on the subject.

Bitter Lake is a new, adventurous and epic film by Adam Curtis that explains why the big stories that politicians tell us have become so simplified that we can’t really see the world any longer.

Historian David Olusoga explores the enduring relationship between Britain and people whose origins lie in Africa.

In the second part of his four-part series, historian David Olusoga explores the business of slavery and remembers the black sailors who fought for Britain at Trafalgar.

In part three of this groundbreaking series, historian David Olusoga explores the Victorian moral crusade against slavery.

Historian David Olusoga concludes his series with the three African kings who stood up to empire, an irresistible crooner, race riots in Liverpool and the shaping of black British identity in the 20th century.

Documentary which tells the story of the thousands of Caribbean and African women who answered the call 70 years ago to come to the UK to save the then ailing health service. It's a tale of a struggle to overcome racism, their fight for career progression and their battle for national recognition.

An examination of the Black Power movement in the late 1960s in the UK, surveying both the individuals and the cultural forces that defined the era.

The so-called Golden Age of Piracy (1689-1718) is a storybook of rogues who robbed and murdered on the seas of the New World. One character has transcended history and sailed into legend…

The story of two powerful personalities at the heart of a political phenomenon. Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and their closest allies chart the rise and difficult legacy of New Labour.

Blues is usually described as the sound of racial suffering and feeling sad, but this documentary argues that the blues began as a form of black pop music. First appearing in the Southern states of the USA around 1900, blues created by the poorest people in the richest nation on earth took America by storm.

How blues conquered the world and the music moved from black to white audiences.

Collection of performances by British and American blues artists on BBC programmes such as The Beat Room, A Whole Scene Going, The Old Grey Whistle Test and The Late Show.

Documentary telling the story of what happened to blues music on its journey from the southern states of America to the heart of British pop and rock culture, providing an in-depth look at what this music really meant to a generation of kids desperate for an antidote to their experiences of living in post-war suburban Britain.

A deeply personal portrait of a football icon who died tragically young, with rare archive footage and contributions from his family, friends and fans.

Series which tells the story of how people came to understand the natural order of the plant world, and how the quest to discover how plants grow uncovered the secret to life on the planet.

What makes plants grow is a simple enough question. The answer turns out to be one of the most complicated and fascinating stories in science and took over 300 years to unravel.

For 10,000 years or more, humans created new plant varieties for food by trial and error and a touch of serendipity. Then 150 years ago, a new era began. Pioneer botanists unlocked the patterns found in different types of plants and opened the door to a new branch of science - plant genetics. They discovered what controlled the random colours of snapdragon petals and the strange colours found in wild maize.

The air we breathe, and all the food we eat, is created from water, sunlight, carbon dioxide and a few minerals. That\'s it, nothing else. It sounds simple, but this process is one of the most fascinating and complicated in all of science. Without it there could be no life on earth. It\'s that important.

Award-winning director Patrick Forbes goes beyond the headlines to film the bitter battle to govern Britain after 2016's referendum vote. Filmed over one extraordinary year, it's a story of low politics, high ambition and bitter personal animosities - at stake the biggest decision the UK has taken for decades.

This episode focuses on films examining the changing shape of the British Empire. At a time when many of its former colonies were achieving independence, Look at Life sent its film crews as far afield as Aden, Malaysia and Ascension Island to record the efforts made by Britain to manage the transition from imperial rule to the leadership of an emerging Commonwealth.

The unlikely story of how, between 1929 and 1945, a group of tweed-wearing radicals and pin-striped bureaucrats created the most influential movement in the history of British film. They were the British Documentary Movement and they gave Britons a taste for watching films about real life.

Four British astronomers celebrate 50 years of work and friendship by going on a road trip to revisit some of the world's greatest observatories.

Star Men celebrates the history of stargazing - the inventions and discoveries that have enabled us to learn so much about the universe, but more importantly to understand how much more we have yet to discover.

Lucy Worsley explores how British history is a concoction of fibs and stories manipulated by whoever was in power at the time.

Lucy debunks the foundation myth of one of our favourite royal dynasties, the Tudors.