Aldo takes us to a very special house on 23 Rue Beauregard in Paris. In that house lived a shady character, Catherine Deshayes, who was responsible for the murder of thousands of infants. She and 36 others were burned at the stake by Louis XIV.

Il était une fois... ("Once Upon a Time...") takes us back to the origins of Western civilization on the island of Crete. This lively animated series is for French learners of all ages!

Learn about the birth of democracy in ancient Greece and watch a scene from Sophocles's famous tragedy, Antigone, in the next installment of Il était une fois....

In the next installment of Il était une fois..., we meet some of the great thinkers of ancient Greece: Socrates, Euripides, Sophocles, Protagoras, Anaxagoras, and others. You're sure to be enlightened by the end!

In the last segment of this animated series on ancient Greece, we learn about the later years of the empire, filled with endless wars and the ostracism of some of its most famous citizens.

This new episode of "Il était une fois..." covers Cortés and the Aztecs. The story starts in 1519, when Ferdinand Magellan attempts to circumnavigate the earth. His ship makes it as far as Brazil.

The Maestro recounts the events just before Ferdinand Magellan's untimely death in 1521, only a year after he discovered the passage that would allow him to circumnavigate the globe.

The Aztecs are apprehensive about the arrival of the white men. It is a bad omen. Spanish conqueror Cortés is appointed Captain and will be heading toward new territories.

November 18, 1518... Cortés, the ambitious adventurer, sets out to discover and conquer the unknown empire of Mexico at daybreak before Velasquez has a chance to stop him.

Cortés is negotiating with the friendly natives of Mexico with the help of his interpreter, who had been shipwrecked in a previous expedition and speaks Mayan. They are offered a young woman slave, Malintzin, who speaks Mayan and Aztec.

Cortés exchanges gifts with the Aztec Emperor, Montezuma. An excellent diplomatic move on both sides!

Tension is building between the Aztecs and the Spaniards, not to mention within Cortés's own ranks. Despite this, the conquistador rallies his troops to conquer Mexico.

Cortés sets out to conquer Mexico with his four hundred men, sixteen horses, and seven cannons. He is joined later by native forces, the Totonac warriors.

The Maestro explains how the revolutionary ideas of the early discoverers, which we now take for granted, were not always well received. Before Galileo, for example, everyone believed that the sun and all the other planets revolved around the earth!

In this video, a young Galileo gets one of his first revolutionary ideas on how to measure time. Pretty impressive for a fourteen-year-old, huh?