Fascinating documentary that tells the colorful story of medieval knights. Location filming, reconstructions, and original music recall the battles, the armor, the tournaments, the chivalry, and the romance that made the knight one of history's most intriguing characters.

The Roman Empire, rotten to the core by the fifth century, lay open to barbarian warriors. Europe was beset by famine, plague, persecutions, and a state of war.

It began like the common cold. Then fever, baseball-sized black swellings on the neck, coughing of blood. Few lived more than two days. The year--1347. It was history's worst biological disaster, and almost half of Europe's population died within three years. Visit the plague ships' rat-infested holds, witness the terror that swept through the towns, and walk with the religious flagellants. Follow a princess as she travels into the center of the plague, a doctor who struggles to understand what is happening, and a Jewish merchant caught up in violent attacks. Hear the actual words of the victims, taken from diaries and journals. From the Pope's palace to the humble huts of medieval peasants, watch as people live and die in the unforgiving grip of fear and death, and wonder how we would act if such a terrible event happened today.

Ten years after his famous 1492 voyage, Christopher Columbus awaited the gallows on criminal charges in a Caribbean prison. He plotted an escape--a last voyage that would restore his reputation.

Fascinating documentary that tells the colorful story of medieval knights. Location filming, reconstructions, and original music recall the battles, the armor, the tournaments, the chivalry, and the romance that made the knight one of history's most intriguing characters.

The Roman Empire, rotten to the core by the fifth century, lay open to barbarian warriors. Europe was beset by famine, plague, persecutions, and a state of war.

It began like the common cold. Then fever, baseball-sized black swellings on the neck, coughing of blood. Few lived more than two days. The year--1347. It was history's worst biological disaster, and almost half of Europe's population died within three years. Visit the plague ships' rat-infested holds, witness the terror that swept through the towns, and walk with the religious flagellants. Follow a princess as she travels into the center of the plague, a doctor who struggles to understand what is happening, and a Jewish merchant caught up in violent attacks. Hear the actual words of the victims, taken from diaries and journals. From the Pope's palace to the humble huts of medieval peasants, watch as people live and die in the unforgiving grip of fear and death, and wonder how we would act if such a terrible event happened today.

Ten years after his famous 1492 voyage, Christopher Columbus awaited the gallows on criminal charges in a Caribbean prison. He plotted an escape--a last voyage that would restore his reputation.

Fascinating documentary that tells the colorful story of medieval knights. Location filming, reconstructions, and original music recall the battles, the armor, the tournaments, the chivalry, and the romance that made the knight one of history's most intriguing characters.

The Roman Empire, rotten to the core by the fifth century, lay open to barbarian warriors. Europe was beset by famine, plague, persecutions, and a state of war.

It began like the common cold. Then fever, baseball-sized black swellings on the neck, coughing of blood. Few lived more than two days. The year--1347. It was history's worst biological disaster, and almost half of Europe's population died within three years. Visit the plague ships' rat-infested holds, witness the terror that swept through the towns, and walk with the religious flagellants. Follow a princess as she travels into the center of the plague, a doctor who struggles to understand what is happening, and a Jewish merchant caught up in violent attacks. Hear the actual words of the victims, taken from diaries and journals. From the Pope's palace to the humble huts of medieval peasants, watch as people live and die in the unforgiving grip of fear and death, and wonder how we would act if such a terrible event happened today.

Ten years after his famous 1492 voyage, Christopher Columbus awaited the gallows on criminal charges in a Caribbean prison. He plotted an escape--a last voyage that would restore his reputation.