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Current Schedule:  Joan of Arc --> The Inca Empire --> Angkor --> Your Vote!

 The Gunpowder Plot: Remember, Remember

On October 26th, 1605, the Lord Monteagle received an anonymous letter warning him of an assassination plot against King James I. A group planned to detonate a cache of gunpowder underneath the House of Lords during the King's speech to Parliament. The so-called Gunpowder Plot, it turned out, was real—but what exactly was it? A nearly-successful act of religious violence? A desperate gambit by Roman Catholics oppressed under English religious policies? A warning to those in power? This series looks at the players, the plot's unwinding, the ensuing trials, and how the event lives in popular memory today.

Policing London: Thief-Takers to Scotland Yard

In 1700, Britain's criminal justice system was deeply dysfunctional—and nowhere more than London. With no police force, bounty hunters patrolled its streets. Its private prisons were so inadequate, the government was shipping prisoners to faraway colonies or holding them on ships in the Thames. But within a century and a half, that would change. This series looks at the development of British policing through the lens of London, including the rise and fall of Jonathan Wild (who was the city's chief law enforcement officer and its underworld kingpin), public hangings at Tyburn, the Bow Street Runners, right through to Scotland Yard.

Confederacy on Trial: Assassins, Camp Guards and Presidents

The Civil War is over. Lincoln is dead, his assassin gunned down during a siege. Federal troops across the South conduct a nationwide manhunt for CSA president Jefferson Davis. But as the armies stand down, a question begins to arise: who will stand trial? Will Confederate generals be charged with treason? Who will pay for Confederate crimes? This series examines the legal cases that followed America's costliest war, from the trial of Lincoln's assassins, to the prosecution of Confederate officers for war crimes and President Grant's war against the Ku Klux Klan. 

Tsarist Repressions: Life Beyond the Pale

When the Russian Empire partitioned the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, it inherited a piece of territory it could neither fully control or culturally understand. The result was a series of brutal repressions, from deadly riots against Jews, to religiously-biased settlement laws, new penal codes and an expansion of Siberian forced labor camps. This series looks at how Russian religious and political persecutions shaped history, from the Katorga camps that would evolve into the Soviet gulag, to the tales of Jewish refugees crossing Europe to try and get passage to America. This is the dark side of Tsarist splendor.