Mystery Files

- Season 1

(2010)

Join historical investigators as they dissect one of history's most controversial astrological books...and its author.

How do we get close to a killer the police haven't been able to identify for over 100 years? With the help of renowned British crime historians and authors applying modern techniques, "Mystery Files" unearths new evidence to eliminate an age-old suspect, and to discover a new, likely candidate who was right under the policemen's nose.

Historians search for the real events behind the many versions of the stories about Robin Hood and his merry men. Robin was so legendary in his own day that his name became a passed-own alias. The earliest records of both historical characters and 'ballads' point to two real robbers, in the 13th and 14 century, a Robin and a Robert. Each operated in the sire of a lewd sheriff of Nottingham but also had roots in neighboring York, in each case administered by the same sheriff, with whom each had a personal feud. Specifics about either regain largely speculative.

Join medieval historians as they separate fact from Tudor propaganda in an attempt to solve of 500-year-old murder mystery.

Exploring the various different accounts surrounding the death of Rasputin.

William 'Billy the Kid' Brady is presented in legend as either a Robin Hood of the Wild West or the most wanted thieving monster, but neither fits modern research of the real man. He made his name during the 'Lincoln county war', when local business competitors hired guns for their dirty power play, and the regulators were put in charge of order. Billy really was a kid, a teenager making wrong choices sealing his fate. He was convicted for a murder, wanted (not top of the list) and naively accepted a pardon offered by New Mexico territorial governor Wallace but ...

What were the origins of the real King Arthur?

One of history's greatest artists also invented the tank, the helicopter, and the diving suit...or did he?

Over time, Abraham Lincoln's status has risen to almost mythic proportions, but what's the real story behind the legend?

Egypt's last queen from the Macedonian dynasty of the Lagids, descended from Alexander the Great's general Ptolemy, managed to win the struggle for the Pharaonic throne from her brother-spouse by seducing Julius Caesar, who took control of strategic granary Egypt during his triumvirate's civil war, so as to be maintained as client queen. After Caesar's political murder in Rome for founding a virtual monarchy, she sides with Marc Anthony, whom she seduced, only to perish with him in suicide after Octavian's victory in the next civil war. But did she seduce such astute ...

The literary horror classic theme traces to Voltaire, the Illumination author 'philosopher' who who was a bitter enemy of Louis XIV's absolute monarchy. He had himself been a victim himself for three years of the 'lettre de cachet', a practice which gave the crown discretionary powers to have any subject arrested and incarcerated indefinitely without form of trial. Secret prisons in desolate fortresses are documented, as author St. Mars was governor under war minster Louvois, as well as anonymous prisoners and even masks, but an iron mask for years would have been ...

Last Russian emperor ('czar') Nicholas and his five kids (weakling heir and four girls) were revered by the simpleton Russian people like saints, until the Great War turned out disastrous and the imperial commander in chief was blamed for national misery. The Menshevik revolution brought peace by capitulation to the German empire and a quiet revolution, the dynasty being 'bannished' to a luxury palace. But Lenin's Bolsheviks seize power and ordered the 'tyrant' imprisoned to desolate, hostile Ekaterinaburg, guarded by a zealot captain. The czar's cousin, the British ...

Enter the complex and compelling mind of Joan of Arc and discover what led this 19-year-old to martyrdom.