Department of History

The Crusades began with an appeal from Emperor Constantine to repel the Turks from Constantinople and fed on the pious determination of multitudes to take Jerusalem from the infidels. Soon hordes of armed pilgrims were marching across Europe for the Holy Land.

With Jerusalem conquered, the Crusaders established a Christian kingdom that extended as far as Egypt, sparking outrage throughout the Muslim world and leading to a massive counter-offensive almost half a century later

Gerard Depardieu and Wojciech Pszoniak star in Andrzej Wajda's powerful, intimate depiciton of the ideological clash between the earthy man of the people Georges Danton and the icy Jacobin extremist Maximilien Robespierre, both key figures of the French Revolution. By drawing parallels with the Polish Solidarity movemnt, which was being quashed by the government as the film went into production, Wajada drags history into the present. Meticulous and fiery, Danton hs been hailed as one of the greatest films ever made about the Terror.

about the women who worked in America's first factories, where they came from, how they came to work in the textile mills, and how they struggled to maintain their independence in a new world of opportunity and exploitation

Four ordinary men in two canoes navigate a river they only know as a line on a map, taking on a wilderness they only think they understand. Deliverance, based on James Dickey on his novel, surges with the urgency of masterful storytelling, like Georgia's Chattooga River along which it was shot. Equally masterful is the portrayal of each man's change of character under stress, harrowingly enacted by award winners Jon Voight, Burt Reynolds, Ned Beatty and Ronny Cox. Director John Boorman (Excalibur, The General) sets us on the knife-edge of survival - and draws us in with the irresistible force of a raging current.