When the Meermin set sail from Madagascar for South Africa on a hot summer’s day in 1766, the Dutch crew had no idea they were about to make history. The ship was filled to capacity with human cargo, slaves bound for hard labor building the Dutch West India Company’s colony at Cape Town. But the Meermin with its crew and cargo would never make it to Cape Town. Instead, in a dramatic altercation, the slaves mutinied and managed to overpower the Dutch crew, ordering the ship be sailed back to Madagascar and freedom. But the crew of experience sailors deceived the slaves and turned the boat around each evening to make for Cape Town. And so the circumstances for a dramatic climax – and shipwreck – were laid when the ship and its desperate passengers finally spied land.
The tale of the Trojan Horse is one of the most captivating stories in Greek mythology. Immortalized in the literary blockbusters of Homer and Virgil, it features some of the most famous faces in Greek legend, from Helen of Troy to Aphrodite and Achilles. Since the 19th-century discovery of the site of Troy in modern-day Turkey, historians have searched tirelessly for evidence of a real Trojan War, Troy's demise, and the truth behind this world famous myth. Now, archaeological evidence is mounting that suggests a Trojan War did indeed happen. What's more, the city's defenses were so impenetrable, that some historians are asking whether the Trojan Horse–generally thought to have been a myth–could actually explain how the enemy got inside the walls. Now, scientists explore how discoveries of charred bones and arrowheads point toward a violent showdown around 1200 BC, exposing the true scale of Troy's defenses and supplies, and investigate the real possibility that a Trojan Horse could have been used to trick Troy into defeat.