Akron Public Library

Do you have what it takes to be a knight?

A knight returning home from the Crusades encounters Death, who agrees to a chess game. In the balance hang the lives of the knight and a group of traveling players.

"More than covering great events that change the contours of history, Professor Garland takes you into the scene and allows you to hear what he terms the "heartbeat of history." Rather than merely reviewing the facts of events such as the Battle of Marathon, the arrest and trial of Jesus, and the coronation of Charlemagne, you'll engage with a variety of first-hand accounts and authentic primary and secondary sources to experience what it was like...

Reconstructs the history and conquests of the barbarian tribes, specifically the Vikings, Huns, Goths, and Mongols, through dramatic reenactments and interviews. Vikings sails with the Norsemen from Arabia to the New World, stopping off for a bit of pillaging along the way. Goths reveals why this once-fearsome people subjected themselves to Roman rule, only to rise up again at the battle of Adrianople. Mongols rides with Genghis Khan and his descendants...

England's Edward I is said to have used a fearsome machine, called "Warwolf," to batter his enemies' castle walls into rubble. Historians think Warwolf was a wooden trebuchet, a missile-throwing siege weapon that dominated siege warfare until cannons were invented. In the Scottish countryside, teams of archaelogists and engineers build two trebuchets side by side, using medieval building techniques.