The Rest Is History

By 1809, Lord Byron found himself untethered and debt-ridden. Disenchanted with politics, frustrated by his literary career and haunted by his illicit homosexuality, he abandoned an oppressive England and set out upon his legendary Eastern adventure. First plunging into a Europe torn asunder by the exploits of his hero, Napoleon Bonaparte, Byron decried the imperialist militarism of the raging Napoleonic Wars...

Few lives from history can have contained as many strange and exciting strands as that of Lord Byron's, whose story reflects the great dramas of the Napoleonic era. A vampiric hero of devilish charisma; a martyr for liberty, a licentious lothario; Byron’s cultural and literary impact cannot be underestimated. The remarkable course of his life, and his mercurial nature can in part be explained by the dark events of his childhood, and the outlandish history of his own family...

Music for sex, dancing, and watching the straight world go by… The explosion of Disco provides an extraordinary window into the tumultuous world of the 1970s, with its themes of sex, drugs, race and sexuality. By the start of the 1970s, America was a nation of dystopian gloom. The radical dream of the 1960’s had dissipated, with economic decline, Vietnam and Watergate polarising and disenchanting the public...

“We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard…” In his speech at Rice University, Texas, in September 1962, President John F. Kennedy reaffirmed America's commitment to an extraordinary, startling project: landing a man on the Moon by the end of the decade. Facing fierce competition from the U.S.S.R...

“I think there is not a devil left in hell, they have all gone into the peasants… smite, stab and slay all”.  Following on from Martin Luther’s dramatic abduction by his powerful protector, Frederick III, he had been secretly kept safe at Wartburg. There, he abandoned his priestly garments for good, and violently wrestled against the devil, in unorthodox ways…Meanwhile, the religious revolution that he had ignited was sweeping through Europe, and setting everything aflame...

"I cannot and will not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe.…Here I stand, I can do no other” The Diet of Worms in April 1521 was a clash of the old world and the new, and one of history’s most dramatic confrontations. An epic showdown that would resound through the ages, it saw the celebrity professor Martin Luther summoned to the imperial free city of Worms on the banks of the Rhine by the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, to defend his radical beliefs...

Three years on from Martin Luther’s publication of the Ninety-Five Theses - a shocking attack on the corruption of the Catholic Church and the selling of indulgences - his radical new ideas and brilliant use of the printing press had unleashed chaos in Christendom...

Martin Luther is one of the few people to have genuinely changed the world, igniting a religious revolution that tore Christendom in two, and undermined European tradition in ways that still reverberate today. But along with Luther’s uniquely tortured psyche, three events contributed to his extreme transformation from young lawyer to fervent monk: the loss of a dear friend, a near fatal accident, and a cataclysmic thunderstorm...

The Reformation, launched in 1517, stands as one of the most convulsive and transformative events of all time, shattering Christendom and dividing Europe for centuries. Its outcome determined the fates of Kings and Emperors, and saw the souls of millions consigned to the fiery pit of heresy. The man behind it all was Martin Luther, a humble monk of obscure origins...

"Then it is I drown again, with all those dim lost faces I never understood… Include me in your lamentations.” The aftermath of the Titanic’s sinking saw different reactions erupt across the Atlantic, and the responses of both mourners and onlookers were visceral. Guilt-ridden survivors were both ostracised and lauded. Heroes became legends - the unsinkable Molly Brown and the band that played on till the frozen end - while villains were condemned forever more...