Picture London, England, the year 1600. What comes to mind? Kings, castles, Shakespeare,

all very noble and elegant, and totally boring. But there's another side to the 17th century, and it's brutal.

This was the era when witches were burned at the stake, entire villages

were sacked in battle, and the plague killed tens of thousands. Public hangings were mass

entertainment, and it wasn't unusual to see a decapitated head mounted on a spike on the palace walls.

This isn't just some chapter in a dusty history book.

These long ago struggles shape the world we live in, everything from our geography to our

religion, and even the way we speak today.

On today's episode, The Gunpowder Plot.

This is a twist of history.

It's July 2nd, the year 600.

A 30-year-old Englishman named Guy Fox trudges up the sand dunes outside the small Dutch town of Newport.

But he's not there as an expat or a tourist. He's a soldier.

And all around him muskets explode with gunfire.

Swords clash in battle. His boots sink down in sand that's stained red with blood. Guy is at war.

He clasps his sword tightly as a wounded man calls out to him, Guido. Guy's fellow soldiers are

Spanish, and this nickname Mark's Guy is one of their own. So why are an Englishman and a Spaniard fighting

for their lives on a Dutch beach? It's not the setup to a riddle. The answer is simple.

Religion. Guy may be English, but he is, above all, a Catholic. He has pledged his life

to fight for the glory of the Catholic Spanish Empire, which has

controlled the Netherlands for the past 30 years.

But the Dutch are largely Protestant, and they're willing to fight to the death for their

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