Pop Charts Britannia: 60 Years of the Top 10 will trace the history of the chart and feature contributions from past Radio 1 DJs and pop legends.

BBC: to mark 60 years of the British singles chart

The team's work offers such a sharp picture of the past that it is possible to trace the histories even of individual communities, such as one in Essex whose inhabitants built, used and then abandoned an enclosure within the span of a single generation.

ECONOMIST: The Neolithic

Mr Morgan said he also wanted to trace three men seen walking past the Fisherman's pub at 22:30 GMT on 15 December.

BBC: E-fit of suspect

"We've had considerable success in the past using closed-circuit television footage in order to trace the movements of the people involved, " he said.

CNN: Investigators pick through London carnage

Yet within it there are traces of the past that surface from time to time, yet one past trace that I'm sure those of us who live in the British Isles have all seen are the coastal defences rapidly constructed during World War II.

BBC: The Last Stand

This is down to the ease with which even a beginner can trace past generations, thanks to registers of births, marriages and deaths from 1837, census results from 1871 and parish records among the resources available online.

BBC: NEWS | UK | Magazine | 'My ancestors got hitched in this church'

While Dilip Kumar and Raj Kapoor are legends of the past, some current Bollywood stars can still trace their origins to Peshawar, nearly 66 years after partition.

BBC: Asia