Hello and welcome to the History Hour podcast from the BBC World Service with me Max Pearson, the past brought to life by those who were there.

This week, the gang rape in 2012 that was so horrific it prompted India to rethink its whole attitude towards women.

This was about issues relating to safety of women.

It was about police inaction.

It was about the rule of law.

Plus we remember 1992 when scandal and disaster meant that the British Royal Family experienced an Anus Horribulus.

1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure.

Also from America at the turn of the 20th century, the amazing story of the

20th century, the amazing story of the millionaire Madame C.J. Walker, born to slaves.

And there are oak trees, and then there's the Turner oak, which helped British scientists

make a dramatic discovery.

I walk past her and you know just pat her, stroke a leaf so she knows I'm there and thank

her really.

That's all coming up later in the podcast.

But first, just as Britain formally leaves the European Union, what better time to take a look

back at arguably the most significant moment in the evolution of the EU. For this we have to go back to 1957 to a time when

economics not politics was the driving force, a time when Europe was still

emerging from the throes of the Second World War, at a time when the sort of union

that exists today was little more than a distant dream. As Louise Hidalgo now tells us,

it was in Italy in 1957 that one of the founding treaties were signed by just six states, the Treaty of Rome.

On the 25th of March, 1957, the Treaty of Rome was signed. The six governments had agreed

that the parliaments had yet to ratify.

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