Sarah Castagnetti

From frozen festivals to royal polar bears, from wartime recovery to medieval merchants this episode of our podcast explores extraordinary stories of the river.

The government tried to keep the details of the Bethnal Green Tube shelter disaster of 1943 private – but a court case brought the terrible story to light.

On one tragic night in March 1943 in Bethnal Green, East London, 173 people lost their lives taking shelter from German bombing as the air raid sirens sounded.

Our records tell the story of Emily Capper's desperate campaign to recover the bodies of the victims, including that of her son.

In December 1978, Vietnamese refugees seeking asylum aboard the Huey Fong were refused entry to Hong Kong. Records we hold document the 34-day standoff.