10. The Life Of Charlemagne

Charlemagne was the King of the Franks and the Holy Roman Emperor, and ruled most of Western Europe from 768-814. The Franks that he ruled over were a Germanic tribe that lived in what are now Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and western Germany. He used warfare extensively during his reign, and as a great military strategist to further his main goal of creating a unified Europe.

Pope Leo III proclaimed Charlemagne the Holy Roman Emperor in 800. Throughout this capacity, he promoted the Carolingian Renaissance, a renaissance of thought and culture in Europe. The majority of Western Europe was under Charlemagne’s rule when he passed away in 814. Some people today refer to Charlemagne as the founder of Europe.

A movie focusing on his rise to power, his relationship with his family and how he butchered his way across Europe and attained ultimate power in the West would be an enthralling movie.

9. Xenophon & The Persian Expedition

Around 400 B.C. Xenophon, a Greek soldier, was among 10,000 elite mercenaries led by Cyrus the Younger, who attacked the Persian Empire. When Cyrus the Younger and his generals were betrayed and murdered, the army was left with no leader. The army, about to be quickly enveloped and annihilated came together and quickly nominated Xenophon as its leader.

What follows is one of the greatest adventures ever told. The story follows Xenophon leading 10,000 mercenaries, thousands of miles from home, out of Persia and through hostile terrain. They encounter vicious tribes trying to kill them, brutal terrain, horrendous weather and internal policical problems that threaten to tear them apart before they can even get home. The story is thrilling and would make an excellent movie.

8. The Peloponnesian War

The Peloponnesian War was a war fought in ancient Greece between Athens and Sparta. The two most powerful city-states in ancient Greece at the time (431 to 405 B.C.). This war shifted power from Athens to Sparta, making Sparta the most powerful city-state in the region.

The Peloponnesian War signalled the end of Greece’s Golden Age, a shift in warfare, and the fall of Athens, previously Greece’s strongest city-state. Athens was incorporated into the Spartan Empire and remained intact despite a slew of dictators before transitioning to democracy. Athens lost its dominance in the region to Sparta until both were conquered less than a century later and made part of the kingdom of Macedon.

This would make a fantastic movie because it would show conflict between two famous empires. It would highlight the realisation of what happens when a rising power confronts an already exiting dominant one. Parallels have been drawn between America and the Rise of China and what could happen in the future with these two countries.

7. Delphine LaLaurie

A horror movie about Delphine LaLaurie should be disturbing, visceral and as close to the acts she committed as possible to keep on the edge of your seat. There are so many Netflix Documentaries and Movies about serial killers in the 20th Century. However there are few on killers before 1900 and Delphine LaLaurie is one of them.

One night in 1834 a fire broke out in her mansion. Neighbours rushed out to help and to pour water on the house to stop the fire and to help the family evacuate. Only to find Delphine alone, without any slaves, which was peculiar. A search was conducted and what was found was one of the most horrific scenes one could imagine.

First slaves were found in the attic, who clearly had been tortured, beaten, bruised, and bloodied within an inch of their lives. Eyes were gouged out, skin flayed, and mouths filled with excrement and then sewn shut. There were slaves wrapped in intestines, slaves with holes in their skulls and much, much more.

A horror film about this serial killer would be haunting and show the true terror in slavery and the acts committed with impunity.

6. The English Civil War

The English Civil War was fought between 1642-1651 and they centred around a massive struggle for power between King Charles I and Parliament, who both wished to decide how England, Scotland and Ireland were governed. Families and communities all over the country were affected and there was a significant loss of life.

At the crux of this war was the radical challenge to the absolute power of the monarch, which led to the only instance of a British King being executed and the only instance of Republican governance in British history. The conflicts irrevocably changed the dynamic between the King and Parliament, raising concerns about democracy and power that paved the way for Parliament’s long, gradual ascent to become the dominant source of national authority.

A movie made today on this would be fascinating as few people actually know anything about the English Civil War. This is a great story about power, corruption, greed, conflict and the will of the common people.

5. Millennium Challenge 2002

Millennium Challenge 2002 was a 250 million dollar military war game exercise that was designed to test US new technologies and tactics against a modern foe based on Iran.

The scenario was that the Blue Force, the U.S. military, was invading a Middle Eastern country (Iran). Blue Force’s mission was to reopen shipping lanes, destroy Red’s weapons of mass destruction, and take over the territory under Red’s control.

When the game was initiated the Red Team leader, a retired Marine Corps general, Paul K Van Riper, did not do what the Americans thought and when faced with an imminent attack when straight on the offensive.

By the second day of the drill, he had located Blue’s fleet using a fleet of tiny boats. Red unleashed a large barrage of cruise missiles in a pre-emptive strike, overwhelming the electronic sensors of the Blue forces and destroying sixteen battleships. Over 20,000 service members would have died if the effort had been successful in a real fight. This would have actually resulted in the worst loss of American lives since the attack on Pearl Harbour. Which in real terms would have been the biggest loss of American life since the attack on Pearl Harbour.

An armada of small Red boats “sunk” a sizable chunk of Blue’s navy shortly after the cruise missile onslaught, using both conventional and suicide attacks to take advantage of Blue’s poor detection of them.

Throughout the exercise Van Riper adopted an asymmetric strategy and used unconventional tactics that the Blue team couldn’t compete with and on the second day the exercise was paused. In order to continue the exercise, the exercise controllers “refloated” the U.S. fleet and allowed the exercise to continue as though Red’s victory had never happened.

Following the restart, there were rule changes that sparked accusations that the war game had changed from an open, free, and honest playtest of American warfighting capabilities into a tightly controlled and scripted exercise designed to result in a crushing American victory. Van Riper resigned from the exercise in the middle of the war game because of his harsh criticism of the new exercise’s scripted character. Later, according to Van Riper, Vice Admiral Marty Mayer changed the exercise’s objectives to reinforce current doctrine and ideas within the US military rather than being a teaching tool.

A movie about this would be excellent to see on the big screen. It would be interesting to see a modern war movie with Americans fighting against one another, simply in order to defend their country from potential conflict with other nations. However succumbing to their own corruption and abuse of power to maintain their jobs and positions as senior leaders in their own Armed Forces. Looked the other way, and pursued their view of America Dominance with the latest tech, rather than take a deep introspective look at their own strategies to keep America safe and looked at what actually worked vs what appeared to work on paper.

4. Library of Alexandria

One of the biggest and most important libraries in the ancient world was the Great Library of Alexandria, located in Egypt. Before it was destroyed, this renowned library in Ancient Egypt thrived for six centuries and served as the intellectual and cultural hub of the ancient Hellenistic world.

Due in significant part to the active and well-funded procurement methods of the Ptolemaic kings, the Library swiftly amassed a large number of papyrus scrolls. The exact number of these scrolls kept at any given time is unknown, but estimates range from 40,000 to 400,000. At its height, Alexandria had a reputation as the centre of study and wisdom because it housed the greatest collection of ancient manuscripts, which included works by Plato, Aristotle, Homer, Herodotus, and many more. At the library, some of the most brilliant minds of the time worked, studied, and taught.

The library had, however, all but vanished by the fifth century A.D. The library lost much of its power after having many of its collections stolen, destroyed, or otherwise left to deteriorate. The library was actually just a memory by the seventh century A.D. when the Arab Caliphate of Omar (sometimes spelled Umar) captured the city and may have burnt the library to the ground.

This library was fascinating simply because it would have housed centuries worth of knowledge from our great past. The way people thought centuries ago, their discoveries, histories of peoples no longer known, events forgotten. Knowledge that we no longer have. A movie around the rise and fall of this library, the surrounding great minds, the political upheavals and the library’s inevitable destruction should highlight the importance of how our species has indevoured to heighten and increase our knowledge, and to remember the past in face of humanities madness.

3. Eddie Chapman

Eddie Chapmans life deserves a movie. This is a great spy tale.

Eddie Chapman was a professional criminal in the years before the Second World War, who specialised in robbing safes by blowing them open using the explosive gelignite. His skill as a thief made him a good deal of money and allowed him to live the life of a wealthy playboy in Soho, London. However by the start of 1939, he was being hunted by the police and fled to Jersey. Chapman was caught by the Jersey police after burgling a nightclub and was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment. He remained in prison even after the Germans invaded and occupied the Channel Islands in July 1940, and was finally released in October 1941.

He subsequently volunteered his services to the Germans as a spy and was eventually accepted by the German secret service, the Abwehr. The Abwehr saw Chapman as an ideal candidate for a spy. He claimed to be hostile to the British state, not least because he was still wanted by the police for his crimes on the UK mainland. His connections with the criminal underworld offered the possibility that he could recruit additional agents for the Germans, and his expertise with explosives would enable him to carry out acts of sabotage. In particular, the Germans wanted him to attack the De Havilland aircraft factory in Hertfordshire.

After a year’s training in German-occupied France, Chapman was dropped by parachute into a field in Cambridgeshire on 16 December 1942. Instead of disappearing into the criminal underworld, as his German handlers intended, he handed himself in to the police and MI5. His arrival was expected; unknown to him or the Germans, the British had cracked the Germans’ secret codes and knew in advance when Chapman, would be dropped into the UK.

Chapman was taken to a secret MI5 detention centre in London and he was interrogated. Chapman was fully willing to cooperate. He volunteered to work for the British against the Germans. Although Chapman’s criminal past was a cause for concern, Chapman became Agent ZIGZAG, one of the most important British double agents of the Second World War.

MI5 decided to re-infiltrate Chapman into Germany and obtain more information about the Abwehr. They faked sabotage of the Havilland aircraft factory using camouflage, and making it like a large bomb had exploded inside the factory’s power plant. In addition MI5 arranged for a fake story to be planted in the Daily Express Newspaper.

The Abwehr was delighted with Chapman’s work. In March 1943 he returned via neutral Portugal to Germany and travelled on to an Abwehr safe house in German-occupied Norway where he was awarded Germany’s highest honour, the Iron Cross.

Chapman returned to Britain in June 1944 after Normandy where he gave MI5 all the intelligence he had collected on the Germans while active.

2. St Nazaire Raid

The St Nazaire Raid, also known as Operation Chariot, was a Second World War British amphibious assault on the fortified dry dock at St Nazaire in German occupied France.

The reason the dry dock at St Nazaire was targeted was if destroyed, any German warship in need of repair, would have to return to Germany instead of St Nazaire, and have to pass by the English Channel or North Sea where the Royal Navy would have the opportunity to take out German vessels.

However the operation was regarded as a suicide mission because of the heavy fortifications and the levels of German resistance. The fact that no one believed the operation could be conducted was precisely why it was authorised, the Germans would never believe anyone crazy enough to attempt such an operation.

Along with 18 small vessels, the outdated destroyer HMS Campbeltown sailed from England to France’s Atlantic coast where it rammed through the gates of the dry dock while under heavy enemy fire. Commandos poured out of the ships and began assaulting targets and blowing up anything they could. The destroyer was loaded with delayed-action explosives that were carefully concealed inside a steel and concrete casing and detonated that day, destroying the dock and putting it out of service.

Nearly every small vessel meant to bring the commandos back to England was sunk, destroyed by fire, or destroyed by German gunfire. The commandos battled through the town of St Nazaire to flee by land, but many of them were cornered by the Wehrmacht or they ran out of ammo.

Of the 612 soldiers who participated in the raid only 228 came back to Britain. The operation produced the most Victoria Cross medals for any operation during the Second World War. In British military circles, the operation has been referred to as the greatest raid of all.

1. The Hinterkaifeck Murders

Six people were hacked to death with a pickaxe on March 31, 1922, at Hinterkaifeck Farm in Bavaria, Germany. Andreas and Cäzilia Gruber, a husband and wife, their widowed daughter Viktoria Gabriel, her two children, Cäzilia and Josef, as well as the household maid Maria Baumgartner, were all killed. Josef, a 2-year-old, and Maria were killed in their beds, and the rest of the family was murdered in the barn as they were heaped on top of one another.

Authorities came to the conclusion that the murderer actually stayed on the farm for six days after the crime was committed. Even after the family had passed away, meals continued to be eaten in the kitchen, the family dog was chained to a post when the mailman arrived on Saturday, and the cattle continued to be fed. Neighbours also reported seeing smoke rising from the chimney. The following day, the bodies were found.

The horrifying aspect of this case is the fact that Maria was actually employed on the day she was murdered, taking the place of the previous maid who had left six months earlier due to the “haunted” nature of the property. She informed the family that she had heard voices and footsteps in the attic. The Gruber family had started to hear voices coming from the attic around the time the previous maid resigned. A set of house keys had also vanished, a newspaper he had never seen before was inside the house, and there were scratches on the family’s tool shed that suggested someone had attempted to open the lock. He had also claimed to have seen a pair of strange footsteps coming out of the woods and heading for the house’s back door.

No killer has ever been apprehended despite numerous arrests, and in 1955 the files were closed and the house was raised to the ground.