Welcome to the History Tricks, where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental.

And here's your 30-second summary.

Once upon a time, there was a teenage girl who was given a choice that forced her into personal reflection.

She quickly decided that she had to go to battle in place of her father.

In the army, people said,

I'll make a man out of you.

And while she looked the part, she was true to her heart and became not just a girl worth fighting for, but a girl who fought.

She fought for honor for her family and her country and her story and legacy will bring honor to us all.

The End

Let's talk about Mulan.

But first, let's drop her into history.

In 220 BC, organized efforts to attach some not-so-great individual walls into the Great Wall began.

In 4 or 5 AD, other than the family secret of his birth, Jesus was a typical little guy in Nazareth.

In 50 AD, the main social drink of China was rice beer, but it was becoming less popular and tea was taking its place.

Around 220 AD, Confucianism was becoming the state ideology of China.

And somewhere in there, the story of a young woman who went to battle in place of her father was born and she and that wall still lived today.

Hello and welcome to the show.

Today, we're harkening back to something we have not done in quite a while.

We are going to cover another fictional character.

Mulan, Chinese warrior, feminist role model, and recently,

maybe an only honorary position is a Disney princess.

Okay, let's just begin by admitting that most of us know Mulan from what the Disney movie in 1998.

...