Each episode follows a few documented people through one event. Each page carries the research behind it: who they were, what they faced, and where the evidence comes from.
On 30 January 1945 a former cruise liner left Gotenhafen with refugees, wounded soldiers and navy trainees aboard. That night three torpedoes hit her. The episode follows a ten-year-old boy, a mother of three, a navy doctor and a sailor's family through the sinking and the months after, and asks why no one can say how many died.
About five hundred Spaniards reached Tenochtitlán in November 1519, but they did not walk the road alone. This episode follows the interpreters, the Totonac and Tlaxcalan allies, and the porters who carried the expedition inland, and the people of Cholula who paid for decisions made by others.
On 6 December 1917 the burning munitions ship Mont-Blanc exploded in Halifax Harbour, killing roughly 2,000 people. This episode follows the doctors, children and families of Halifax and Dartmouth through the blast, the flying glass, the snowstorm that followed, and the weeks of care that came after.
A legionary at Vindonissa around AD 35 dislocates his knee in a training collision. A military physician puts the joint back with traction and his hands. The film follows the slow recovery after, and the question of whether a man who can walk can still serve as a soldier.
