75 years of Unesco

Unesco - the United Nations Scientific, Cultural and Educational Organisation - was set up 75 years ago, in the aftermath of the Second World War.

It’s probably best known for its work protecting cultural monuments and areas of natural beauty around the world, but when it was founded, its aim was to use education as a means of sustaining peace after the horrors of the war.

In this episode of The History Hour: Unesco’s work on race and tolerance, its effort in the 1960s to save Egyptian treasures from the rising waters of the Aswan Dam, Le Corbusier’s attempt to build a model city in India, the fight to protect the Great Barrier Reef and the tragic story of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan.