And in his majestic charity... the Emperor has deigned this day to favor the people of Rome... with an historical final match.

The clanging of shackles brings to our minds the dungeons of the czars, not the flag-bedecked liberty of an American courtroom.

The Sign of the Cross, starring Miss Claudette Colbert as the Empress Poppea... or "Po-ppea, "

By the patronage of Marcus Cassius Severus and for the glory of Emperor Titus, remember, all here, the mighty victory of Senator Quintas Attius Corvus and his annihilation of the Celtic Rebellion.

But mercy was an alien concept to these savages, and with heavy heart, Quintas Attius Corvus ordered his mighty legions, in the name of the Emperor, to attack.

In the year of our Lord, 1442, the Turkish sultan enslaved 1, 000 Transylvanian boys to fill the ranks of his army.

Charlemagne, Holy Roman emperor, said, "To have a second language is to have a second soul" -- strong statement that language crafts reality.

I was sure that I was going to actually experience what it felt like to be a leader of the civil rights movement or a ten-year old boy living on a farm during the dust bowl or an emperor of the Tang dynasty in China.

So anyway, she comes here, 1967, she's pregnant, and she comes from Ethiopia that was celebrating its own jubilee at the time under the Emperor Haile Selassie, and she lands months before the Enoch Powell speech, the "Rivers of Blood" speech.

In ancient China, that means in exile, because Chinese emperors, they put their political enemies in exile beyond mountains.

Any time a dictator in a general’s uniform commits atrocities while claiming to act on behalf of "the people, " we have Augustus Caesar to thank.

The last Roman Emperor, Constantine the 11th, drew his sword and jumped into the gap to stop the onrushing horde, disappearing into legend.

When Emperor Qin Shi Huang unified the states in 221 BCE, the Tibetan Plateau and Pacific Ocean became natural barriers, but the mountains in the north remained vulnerable to Mongol, Turkish, and Xiongnu invasions.

Odoacer and his Ostrogoth successor Theoderic technically remained under the Eastern Emperor's authority and maintained Roman traditions.

Also, contemporary historians have traced the provenance of the manuscript back through Rome and Prague to as early as 1612, when it was perhaps passed from Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II to his physician, Jacobus Sinapius.

Now, no one, of course, would have thought of describing Ying Zheng as a designer at the time -- why would they?

It was formalized and professionalized, but it was restricted to specific roles and generally applied in pursuit of commercial goals rather than being used intuitively, as Florence Nightingale, Blackbeard and Ying Zheng had done.

Her husband had written a history arguing that his grandfather would have made a better emperor than Alexios, but Anna disagreed.

For those who don't know what arcing is, do you remember the Emperor, when he shoots electricity out the ends of his fingers -- (Laughter) that would be kind of like arcing.

They were held alongside other aquatic spectacles on natural and artificial bodies of water around Rome up through Emperor Flavius Vespasian, who began building the Colosseum in 70 CE on the site of a former lake.

The Colosseum was intended to be a symbol of Rome’s power in the ancient world, and what better way to display that power than a body of water that could drain and refill at the Emperor’s command?

Unlike the games in smaller amphitheaters funded by wealthy Romans, these lavish displays of Imperial power were financed by the Emperor.

Parades of exotic animals, theatrical performances, and the awe-inspiring naumachiae were all designed to bolster faith in the god-like Emperor, who would be declared a god after his own death.

But for a brief time, the Flavian Emperors controlled the tides of war and water in a spectacular show of power.

(Laughter) You know, he and his peers in Silicon Valley are the kings and the emperors of our time.

Nicholas and his wife Alexandra devoutly believed in the Orthodox Church, as well as in mysticism and supernatural powers, and this Siberian holy man had them transfixed.

Alexei’s health improved, cementing the royal family’s belief that Rasputin had magical healing powers, and guaranteeing his privileged place on the royal court.

After this incident, Rasputin made a prophecy: if he died, or the royal family deserted him, both their son and their crown would soon be gone.

Rasputin never ceased his scandalous behavior, and they were skeptical of his so-called powers and thought he was corrupting the royal family.