History: 87

In AD 895, King Aurvandill returns to the fictional island of Hrafnsey after his overseas conquests, reuniting with his wife, Queen Gudrún, and his heir, Prince Amleth. To prepare Amleth for his eventual ascension, father and son participate in a ceremony overseen by Aurvandill’s jester, Heimir. Heimir tells Amleth that his destiny is fixed and cannot be escaped from and Amleth vows to avenge his father if Aurvandill is ever slain, rather than live his life in shame. The next morning, Amleth’s bastard uncle Fjölnir stages a palace coup, personally beheads Aurvandill, sacks the hillfort, and carries away Gudrún. Amleth narrowly escapes Fjölnir’s assassins and flees by ...

Macbeth and Banquo, having led King Duncan’s army to victory over the traitorous Thane of Cawdor, are approached by three witches on the battlefield. The witches hail Macbeth will be made the Thane of Cawdor (he is already Thane of Glamis); they proclaim that he shall be King hereafter before stating that Banquo shall father a line of kings. King Duncan orders the Thane of Ross to execute Cawdor and reinvest the title upon Macbeth. Macbeth becomes alarmed after Duncan names his son Malcolm as the prince of Cumberland, seeing the appointment as an encumbrance in his path to the throne. Macbeth writes to Lady Macbeth, informing her of the prophecies.

In 1881, 18 months after his father’s death, Louis Wain, the only male and eldest of the Wain family, becomes the primary breadwinner. He supports five sisters and his mother working part-time as an illustrator for The Illustrated London News under editor Sir William Ingram. Ingram offers him a full time job, but Wain declines in order to try his hand at composing music and playwriting; which he hopes will support the family but neither venture is successful. Louis hires Emily Richardson to be the new governess for his sisters. The two become instantly attracted to each other, much to the dismay of the eldest sister, Caroline. Louis decides to ...

While the plot of The Last Duel is portrayed in three separate chapters, each telling the same story from the perspective of the three main characters, the following description summarizes all three presentations into a single thread. After serving in the Caroline War, French squires Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris swear allegiance to Count Pierre d’Alençon, who has been named Jean’s overlord by King Charles VI. Jacques later tells Jean that Pierre has tasked him with collecting war levies, agreeing to ask for leniency on Jean’s behalf when his brother-in-arms explains he lacks the funds. To restore his finances, Jean marries Marguerite de Thibouville on the ...

In the 1840s, fossil collector and paleontologist Mary Anning lives with her ailing mother Molly, who helps Mary run a small shop in Lyme Regis, Dorset. Mary spends the early mornings on the beach at low tide in search of fossils for the shop, with tiny ammonites being her most common find. When she returns, she helps her mother wash and polish a collection of eight animal figurines. One day, geologist Roderick Murchison visits Mary’s shop accompanied by his wife, Charlotte. He expresses his admiration for Mary’s work and offers to pay her for a guided trip to the shore where he can learn from Mary about fossil collecting. While initially antagonistic, Mary accepts his ...

The Magistrate manages an outpost on the desert frontiers of an unnamed Empire. His careful management has kept the peace for many years and there are only minor misunderstandings. All that changes with the arrival of Colonel Joll, who is acting as part of a mysterious plan set in motion by the centre of the empire. The Magistrate tries his best but Colonel Joll remains antagonistic. Colonel Joll insists on interrogating an innocent man and his nephew for sheep rustling. Colonel Joll is determined to follow his process for getting the truth, which requires brutal torture. The Magistrate doesnt understand Joll, or his methods, or his goals. Colonel Joll then forces the tortured nephew ...

Henry, Prince of Wales, “Hal,” is the emotionally distant eldest son of King Henry IV of England. Hal is uninterested in succeeding his father and spends his days drinking, whoring, and jesting with his companion John Falstaff in Eastcheap. His father summons Hal and informs him that Hal’s younger brother, Thomas, will inherit the throne. Thomas is sent to subdue Hotspur’s rebellion but is upstaged by the arrival of Hal, who challenges Hotspur to single combat. Although Hal kills Hotspur, ending the battle without further conflict, Thomas complains that Hal has stolen his glory. Shortly thereafter, Thomas is killed in battle after taking his campaign to ...

Les Misérables is a British television series based on the 1862 French historical novel of the same name by Victor Hugo. Adapted by Andrew Davies and directed by Tom Shankland, it stars Dominic West, David Oyelowo, and Lily Collins. The series was produced by the BBC with support from PBS member station WGBH Boston’s Masterpiece series. BBC Studios handles the distribution for the ...

In London in 1872, William Chester Minor, a retired United States Army surgeon, is found not guilty by reason of insanity for killing an innocent stranger, George Merrett, and is sent to Broadmoor. In Oxford, James Murray interviews for a position as editor of what will become the Oxford English Dictionary. An autodidact, he left school at 14 and has no degree. Some Oxford University Press oversight committee members are contemptuous, but Freddie Furnivall describes their current “abject defeat”, saying that the extraordinary Murray may be what they need. When Max Müller haughtily asks for qualifications, Murray reels off the long list ...

In the year 1304, outside the besieged Stirling Castle, John Comyn, Robert Bruce, and other Scottish nobility surrender to Edward I of England. King Edward promises to return lands to the nobility in exchange for their homage. After the formalities have ended, Bruce spars with Edward’s heir, the Prince of Wales, and the King weds Bruce to his goddaughter, Elizabeth de Burgh. Lord James Douglas arrives to ask for the restoration of his ancestral lands but is dismissed by Edward, on the basis of the previous Lord Douglas’ treason. The King and the Prince depart from Scotland, leaving its management to Comyn and Bruce, under the supervision of the Earl of Pembroke, Aymer de ...

In the year AD 30 when Judea was under the control of the Roman Empire, a woman named Mary from the small town of Magdala begins to follow Jesus of Nazareth. Her family and father try to interfere with her departing from her home, but she sends them away. She accepts baptism from Jesus and accepts his charge for her and the other apostles to baptize in the name of the Father. She appears to be fully as one with the other apostles in asserting the authority of the spirit of Jesus working through her on behalf of the followers of Jesus. This causes conflict with the other male disciples, including Saint Peter. Mary follows Jesus all the way to the ...

Luke the Greek evangelist enters Rome in secret with the persecution of Christians by Emperor Nero underway. He has been sent by other Christian communities outside the city to meet with Priscilla and Aquila, the leaders of the community hiding out in Rome. Aquila and Priscilla are currently debating whether to stay in Rome and provide hope to fellow Christians or to leave the city with their community and avoid certain death. Paul has been imprisoned inside Mamertine Prison for his strong influence as a Christian leader which makes him a threat to Nero’s power. Mauritius Gallus, the newly appointed prefect of the prison, accuses Paul of ...

Martha Farnsworth runs a girls school in Virginia during the Civil War. By 1864, almost all of the students, teachers, and enslaved persons have left. In addition to Farnsworth herself, only five students and one teacher, Edwina Morrow, remain. While out in the woods searching for mushrooms, Amy, a pupil, comes across John McBurney, a corporal in the Union Army who was wounded in the leg during battle, and has since been deserted. Amy brings McBurney to the school where he falls unconscious. The women lock McBurney in one of the rooms while Miss Farnsworth tends to his wounds. All the women and girls in the school are immediately fascinated by the handsome man.

Taboo is a BBC television drama series produced by Scott Free London and Hardy Son & Baker. It aired on BBC One in the United Kingdom, on 7 January 2017 and on FX in the United States, on 10 January 2017. The series was created by Steven Knight, Tom Hardy, and his father, Chips Hardy, based on a story written by Tom and Chips Hardy. The eight-part series, set in 1814, begins with James Delaney returning to England after twelve years in Africa with fourteen stolen diamonds, following the death of his father and as the war with ...

Set in the Dutch Republic in the 17th-century, during tulip mania, Sophia, an orphan, is betrothed to the elderly Cornelis. In return for the generous dowry, her sisters are able to emigrate to New Amsterdam, where they have an aunt awaiting them. Three years later, Sophia is unhappy in the marriage, since Cornelis seems to be concerned only with conceiving an heir, to no avail thus far. Cornelis believes this misfortune to have something to do with a mistake he made in the past, with his previous wife: she miscarried their first child and when Cornelis asked the doctor to save the second child over the wife, he feels that God punished him by taking both his wife and his child ...

The film begins with a prologue where the veteran Portuguese Jesuit priest Cristóvão Ferreira witnesses the torture of Japanese converts he has been trying to bring to the Christian faith. The priest appears to be helpless in the presence of Japanese authorities conducting the torture and cannot assist his converts in any way. A few years later, at St. Paul’s College, Macau, an Italian Jesuit priest, Alessandro Valignano, receives news that Ferreira renounced his faith in Japan after being tortured. In disbelief, Ferreira’s Portuguese pupils, the young Jesuit priests Sebastião Rodrigues and Francisco Garupe, set off to find him. Kichijirō, an alcoholic fisherman who fled ...

After crushing a Zealot revolt led by Barabbas, Clavius, a Roman Tribune, is sent by Pontius Pilate to expedite a crucifixion already in progress. Three days later he is appointed to investigate the rumors of a risen Jewish Messiah. Pilate orders him to locate the missing body of Yeshua, one of the crucified men. In doing so, Pilate seeks to quell an imminent uprising in Jerusalem before the Emperor arrives. Failing to secure Yeshua’s body, Clavius, with the support of his loyal aide Lucius, attempts to locate and question the disciples of Yeshua and those involved in his crucifixion and burial for clues to his disappearance. Numerous leads ...

A.D. The Bible Continues (also known as A.D. Kingdom and Empire) is an American biblical drama television miniseries, based on the Bible, and a sequel to the 2013 miniseries, The Bible, and follows up from the film Son of God which was a more in depth look on Jesus’s story. It is produced by Roma Downey, Mark Burnett, and Richard Bedser. The limited series began airing on NBC on Easter Sunday, April 5, 2015, in twelve weekly one-hour episodes. The story takes place immediately after the events of ...

Queen Gorgo of Sparta tells her men about the Battle of Marathon, in which King Darius of Persia was killed by General Themistocles of Athens ten years earlier. Darius’s son, Xerxes, witnesses his father’s death and is advised to not continue the war since “only the gods can defeat the Greeks”. Darius’s naval commander, Artemisia, claims that Darius’ last words were, in fact, a challenge and sends Xerxes on a journey through the desert. Xerxes finally reaches a cave and bathes in an otherworldly liquid, emerging as the 8-foot tall “God-King”. He returns to Persia and declares war on Greece to avenge his father. As Xerxes’s forces ...

In 1300 BC, Moses, a general and accepted member of the Egyptian royal family, prepares to attack an encamped Hittite army with Prince Ramesses at Kadesh. A High Priestess divines a prophecy from animal intestines, which she relates to Ramesses’s father, Seti I. She tells the two men of the prophecy, in which “a leader” (either Moses or Ramesses) will be “saved” and the savior “will someday lead.” During the battle, Moses saves Ramesses’s life, leaving both men troubled. Later, Moses is sent to the city of Pithom to meet with the Viceroy Hegep, who oversees the Hebrew slaves. Upon his arrival, he encounters the slave Joshua and saves him ...