I’d love to see a good mini series on Julius Caesar. I doubt it would ever happen.
It’s too bad they cancelled *Deadwood * - I was waiting for him to show up (TR was a good friend of the RL Seth Bullock).
I’d love for Colleen McCullough’s *Masters of Rome *series to be made into a mini-series. You’d need at least three-four years to cover all that she covers.
Beat me to it.
But also on the factual side the famous raid deep into enemy lines by Rodgers Rangers in N.America during the Franco British wars.
The life of artists and the people around them during the hey day of impressionism on Paris’s left bank.
The Wars of the Roses.
Fiction,O’Briens Aubery/Maturin series.
Dochertys medievil investigative/espionage novels.
Sven Hassels depiction of fighting on the Russian front from the viewpoint of ordinary German soldiers
The Broken sword ,a Norse/S&S novel by Poul Anderson
Elric of Melnibone’
The Chieftans,the story of an ordinary British tank crew set in a world where the Warsaw pact invaded W.Europe and a realistic accont of how the convential fighting would have gone.
A movie set amidst the Georgia Gold Rush could be interesting. While outside of Georgia it’s not taught in schools, at least not on par with California’s if it’s mentioned at all, it had major consequences. It was one of the leading causes of the Cherokee removal (prior to that time nobody cared much about the Cherokee lands as they were too remote) and it changed the economy of the nation and confiscated the huge (though less than 1/3 of what they’d had a generation before) tracts of land in the deep south states that the Indians still held after the Creek Wars (1812-1815).
For that matter:
I’ve always wanted to write a historical fiction trilogy (or single book in three parts) based on the Wind/McGillivray.
Slight back-up: as many if not most Dopers know, many Indian tribes- including the Creeks- tracked ancestry through the mother only- who your father was didn’t matter a whit when it came to your tribal and clan memberships. What’s interesting about this dynasty is that they changed race over the course of three generations, but remained at the same time 100% Creek- if they wanted to be.
First generation:
Sehoy Marchand was the “natural” (18th century euphemism fro illegitimate) daughter of a French officer at Ft. Toulouse in the French territory now known as Alabama. By the time she came of age the French were long gone (by some accounts her father was killed in a mutiny, though there’s no confirmation of this) and, like other Creek children, she was reared exclusively in her mother’s house anyway. Her mother was a member of the Wind Clan, which while the Creeks did not have royalty or aristocracy some clans were more equal than others and the Wind Clan was as equal as they came; they produced most of the powerful peacetime and war chiefs (including Red Shoes, who was Sehoy’s brother or uncle- accounts vary.) Sehoy met and became the casual wife of a Scot trader named Lachlan M’Gillivray (a great romance in the histories but more likely a matter of mutual convenience) and he became extremely wealthy in land and other property (and had other wives in the nation and in Savannah).
Their son, Alexander, was 1/4 French, 1/2 Scot, and 1/4 Creek, but 100% Creek by the kinship standards. He was educated in Creek ways by his uncle Red Shoes, then at the finest boarding schools in Charleston and Savannah. He was by all accounts a scholar, well spoken, excellent with math and finance, and would have remained “white” had it not been for the revolution which caused his father to flee the country (he was a Tory) and robbed Alex of his huge inheritance. That’s when he returned to his tribe. For the next 15 years of his life he played whites against Indians, British against Spanish against French, Georgia against Carolinas, etc., and was as skilled as Machiavelli in protecting and promoting his interest through the friction of others (at one point he was a general in 3 nation’s armies as well as a high chief). His personal lifestyle was also a foot in both worlds- large tracts of private land/slaves/livestock and a Federal style (log) mansion like a white man, multiple wives and a matrilineal kinship and an army of braves like a Creek high-chief, and even in dress- white cotton and silk shirts but with a buckskin kilt [honor of both his heritages] and deer leggings, a silk turban with turkey and dyed ostridge feathers, etc… He met Washington and most of the important people of the new nation when he signed a treaty. He also died very dissipated and debauched at a relatively young age.
His nephew, the son of his sister, was William Weatherford, again almost white. Like a lot of young Arabs today he was disgusted by what he saw as the hedonism and corruption of his uncle (who was, for all intents and purposes, his father since the maternal relatives were responsible for upbringing- Alex raised his own children as heir to his property and sent them to Scotland when he died and raised Wm as heir to his political power). He went the opposite direction- running- and became the most powerful war chief the Creeks ever had. He was known as Red Eagle due to his red hair, and led the red forces of the Creek Civil War (the peace forces were the “white villages”), fighting his own siblings and aunts and other relatives who were on the side of the whites. He had some incredible getaways and was a great battle leader, but just too outnumbered and outgunned. The week after Horseshoe Bend (which he was not present at) his wife died, and two days later he surrendered to Andrew Jackson at Fort Jackson, which was built on the ruins of the fort his French great-grandfather had founded and where his grandmother’s trading post had been.
Also tie in the McIntosh chieftains who were similarly Scots/Indians and close relatives of the McGillivray/Weatherfords on both sides of the family. William McIntosh lived a luxurious half-white/half-Indian polygamous lifestyle as well and took it upon himself to surrender much of the Creek land, for which he was butchered by Chief Menawa of Horseshoe Bend and his lands burned.
Anyway, I think as a family history it could be interesting, but I don’t know if it would have a wide audience. I picture Johnny Depp as Alexander, if only because I want to see him in a loin cloth.
For the Second Punic War, general Hannibal (from Carthage) crossed the Mediterranean from Africa to Spain, then crossed the Alps to wage war in Italy, accompanied by his war elephants. After 15 years of fighting in Italy he was called back to Carthage to defend his city which was being attacked by the Romans, and eventually lost a decisive battle, giving Romans the upper hand in the Mediterranean region.
I was told in high school (though I don’t know it it’s true) that one (and only one) of Hannibal’s war elephants left Africa, crossed the Alps, survived the 15-year campaign, and returned to Africa.
I would like to see a mini-series on the life story of that elephant.
Everyone seems to obsess about the Titanic, but I’d prefer to see a series on the Lusitania-I think, in the long run, the sinking had a larger impact on the world at the time.
I also wouldn’t mind seeing something on the Easter Uprising in 1916 Ireland.
Ponce De Leon?
My vote is for Babe Ruth. He was a larger than life celebrity athlete during the roaring 20’s. There’d be speakeasies, women, wild parties, all sorts of debauchery, interspersed with a nostalgic look at classic baseball.
They could develop story lines around his childhood in an orphanage, the segregation of baseball (there’s a story that Ty Cobb refused to room with Ruth on a barnstorming tour because he thought Ruth’s wide nose indicated he had black ancestry), wild drunken orgies (which is why it’d be good for HBO), and, of course, his heroic exploits as a player.