Crosshairs

EPISODE 10 – Caligula

Cruel, insane and bloodthirsty are all adjectives that could be applied to Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, better known by his nickname Caligula, the third emperor of Rome. His reign was marked by lavishly expensive vanity projects, endless attempts to blackmail his underlings and scandalous rumours of an incestious relationship with his sister. Cassius Chaerea, a member of the Praetorian guard, Caligula’s personal security, refused to sit back and watch as the deranged tyrant bled Rome dry and hatched a treasonous plot to end Caligula’s barbarity once and for all.

 

EPISODE 9 – Malcolm X

In 1965 Malcolm X found himself at something of a crossroads. The prominent civil rights activist, famed for his incendiary oratory prowess, was trying to start a new political movement whilst engaged in a very public split from the Nation of Islam, the black nationalist organisation where Malcolm had made his name. Standing on the stage of the Audubon Ballroom, he was all too aware that his enemies were circling. What he didn’t know was how close they truly were and that his speech, to what he hoped were the next generation of fighters for the cause, would be the last one he would ever give.

 

EPISODE 8 – Reinhard Heydrich

You don’t get a nickname like the Butcher of Prague without earning it and Reinhard Heydrich, one of the highest ranking officers in the Nazi party, had certainly done that. Arriving in the occupied city in 1941, he deported, imprisoned or executed anyone he believed to be standing in the way of the crushing march of the German war machine. His reign of terror demanded a response and Operation Anthropoid was the answer. On December 29th, 1941, as World War Two raged, two soldiers parachuted into Czechoslovakia under cover of darkness. Their mission: to find and kill the man who had been holding Prague hostage.

 

EPISODE 7 – George Tiller (part 2)

By 2009, George Tiller had become one of the most hated men in America. Between the never ending stream of protestors outside his clinic and the near nightly attacks on his character on Fox News the pressure on the Wichita based abortion doctor was reaching critical mass. What’s more, three abortion doctors had been murdered in the previous fifteen years. Tiller refused to be cowed however, continuing to provide the women of his community and beyond with the healthcare they desperately needed. It was a decision which would cost him his life.

 

EPISODE 6 – George Tiller (part 1)

In 1973 the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v Wade judgement makes abortion legal in the United States. Its a practice that has considerable controversy attached to it but Dr George Tiller firmly believes it be a vital option for women in need, opening a clinic in Wichita, Kansas. Soon, his work attracts the attention of the religious right who picket his business and intimidate his staff. Tiller isn’t one to run from a fight and before long, finds himself a central figure in the struggle for women’s right to choose, a position he never sought but a cause he’s willing to fight and ultimately die for.

 

EPISODE 5 – Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln wasn’t a man who cared to draw attention to himself, which is difficult when you’re six foot foot four and the president of the United States. On the night of April 14th, 1865 Lincoln, weary after guiding America through four years of Civil War but optimistic about the future, simply wanted to sit back and enjoy some theatre. Little did he know, that by the time the night was over, all the audience sat in the Ford Theatre would remember was the name John Wilkes Booth and the shot he fired which ended the life of the most powerful man in the country.

 

EPISODE 4 – Veronica Guerin

If you’re an Irish gangster in the 1990’s the last thing you wanted, apart from seeing the inside of a jail cell, is for Veronica Guerin to be writing about you. Through her dogged investigating and fearless reporting, Guerin exposed the rotten underbelly of the Irish criminal underworld – becoming the most famous journalist in the country in the process. That level of notoriety unsurprisingly put a target on the thirty-six year old’s back, and on June 26th 1996, whilst stopped at a red light, Veronica was shot and killed by two men on a motorbike, a murder which sent shockwaves across Ireland.

 

EPISODE 3 – Harvey Milk

Politics is a dirty business. Bringing about change requires fighting tooth and nail and that can make you enemies, something Harvey Milk, San Francisco Supervisor and America’s first openly gay politican, knew all too well. On a cold November morning in 1978, ex-supervisor Dan White, who felt the so-called ‘Mayor of Castro Street’ had played a key role in the premature demise of his own political career, shot and killed his former friend in San Francisco City Hall.

 

EPISODE 2 – Jean -Paul Marat

Its 1793 and the French Revolution is in full swing. Famed political journalist Jean-Paul Marat, a voice for those who want rid of the excesses of the monarchy, is taking a meeting in his bathroom. He has a debilitating skin condition and the bath is the only place where he can find relief. It’s there that the twenty-four year old Charlotte Corday finds him, claiming she has information about his political opponents but instead plunging a knife into Marat’s chest, ending the life of one of the most vocal anti-royalists of his time.

 

EPISODE 1 – John Lennon

John Lennon knows a thing or two about obsessive fandom. Ten years after the breakup of The Beatles, the famed musician from Liverpool has to run the gauntlet of Fab Four devotees camped outside his Manhattan apartment building on a daily basis. On December 8th 1980, Mark David Chapman is amongst them, but when Lennon emerges, instead of producing an album for him to sign or a notepad for him to autograph, Chapman draws a gun and shoots one of the most significant artists of the twentieth century four times in the back.