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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 brief

period of stability for Somalia after the Islamic courts union took power.

For Somalia it's the most astonishing of sight, men not fighting, but building.

Public support for the Islamists is strong.

Also today from India, B.R. and Bedka, a champion of independence and rights for all Hindu casts.

We want untouchability to be abolished. You see? But we also want, you see, that we must be given equal opportunities you see so that we may rise to the

level of the other classes.

Plus we'll experience life in Peking University during the 1970s and hear how early pioneers of Wi-Fi struggled to get

the tech industries to see the point.

And he said, well, I just don't understand why I'd want to pick up my computer and take it somewhere else.

He just couldn't see it at all.

How wrong can you be?

That's coming up later in the podcast, but we begin by taking you back to Christmas Day in 1962 and the release of one of the most successful American films of all time.

To Kill a Mockingbird is based on the best-selling novel by Harper Lee and starred the actor Gregory Peck.

The novel is in what's known as the Southern Gothic tradition and deals with rape, race and the

loss of innocence in the deep south.

It's among the most widely read in American literature,

so there was a lot hanging on the movie version of To Kill a Bockingbird.

...