One explanation for the dancing plague is ergotism. Ergot, a mould that grows on flour can cause hallucinations and spasms, so one theory is that they were all poisoned by it. It is unlikely, however, that so many people could be affected by it for so long a time. Also, it's unlikely that they would all have the same reaction to the mould. Unfortunately modern scholarship has been unable to explain this crazy phenomenon and, you might have noticed, Hailey and Dennis didn't either.
What went wrong:
A wood carving of the Dancing Plague
Nostradamus did leave the University of Avignon after it was closed down because of the plague, but he didn't go straight to Montpellier. According to himself, he wandered the French countryside experimenting with herbal remedies. He actually didn't start prophesying until around the 1550s. That poem was made up, hence its lousiness.
"...a beard that rivalled Plato's."
That da Vinci chronometer sketch doesn't exist either. Obviously. As far as I can tell it's true that Anne Boleyn might have met Leonardo da Vinci. She was Queen Claude's maid of honour before she returned to England and seduced Henry VIII into abandoning Catholicism (or something like that). The royal family frequented Amboise where da Vinci was living thanks to King Francis I's patronage. Pretty cool.
If you have any questions or input you can fill in the comment box below. Sources:
Donaldson, L J, J Cavanagh, and J Rankin. "Leading article: The Dancing Plague: a public health conundrum." Public Health (Nature) 111, no. 4 (July 1997): 201. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed December 27, 2011).
Waller, John. "Dancing Death." BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7608000/7608874.stm
Before you pooh-pooh the universal translator plot device, try writing a time travel/history story without it. My best advice is to just come to terms with it now and we can all get on with our lives.
Now that we've got that out of the way, this was a bit more low key as far as episodes have gone so far. More of a look into Dennis and Hailey's personalities and their relationship with eachother. It was the first episode where they actually stayed together the whole trip, and it gave them the opportunity to discuss the things they've been thinking about since day one.
What went wrong:
The Culprit
It's impossible to know if Atlantis ever existed so I did the best I could. The Santorini (AKA Thera, AKA Minoan) eruption is a real historical event. Dating has been attempted via dendrochronology (tree-ring dating), Egyptian written accounts and various other methods but there hasn't been a conclusion as to when exactly it took place. Some believe the event brought on a volcanic winter, the effects of which were felt as far away as China. It's quite likely that such a cataclysmic event would be remembered through oral tradition and would be an inspiration for Plato's famous tale of Atlantis. It is a leading theory in the real-life Atlantis debate but of course it is impossible to know for sure. It doesn't match up with the figures Plato mentioned for size (bigger than Asia Minor and Lybia combined), year of destruction (about 9600BC) or even location; he said it was past the Pillars of Hercules, or the Straight of Gibraltar, which Santorini isn't. Some have suggested that the Americas were the inspiration for the "Lost Continent." There have been about as many theories as there are landmasses to which to pin them.
Plato wrote about Atlantis in two of his dialogues: Timaeus and Critias. He started to go in greater detail in Critias but the project seems to have been abandoned. There was no mention of Atlantis in Greek literature before Plato. He claimed that it was kept in his family and originally told to them by Solon, the famous Athenian statesman, who heard it on a trip to Egypt.
Ignatius L. Donnelly
Ignatius Donnelly is quite an interesting historical figure. His theories about Atlantis were explained in the story, but if you want to see for yourself you can read his bookAtlantis: The Antediluvian World here. He lays out his point quite clearly at the start.
You can also read a translation of Plato's Timaeushere.
Sources:
Donnelly, Ignatius. Atlantis, the antediluvian world. London: S. Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington, 1882.
Plato. "Timaeus" and "Critias."
Watts, Edward. "Creating the Academy: Historical Discourse and the Shape of Community in the Old Academy." The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Vol. 127, (2007), pp. 106-122
Special thanks to Marta Pavia for help with the Ancient Greek translation.
The best part about this episode, what makes it unique from most time travel fiction, is showing the effects of time travel on a person's physiology. Time-travel-lag is a serious condition that affects all of us. Especially around the beginning and end of daylight savings time.
Another theme is the mini-paradoxes that start cropping up everywhere. Hailey hears Simon and Garfunkel's "Scarborough Fair" then she travels back in time and teaches it to some minstrels in 1215, then they pass the song down through the generations until Simon and Garfunkel hear it in the 1960s and record their own version, which Hailey hears in the 1990s, and so on. That, as well as Dennis being awoken by himself are examples of how time travel works in Chronodyssey. The next episode has a good one too. You should read it.
What went wrong:
King John
King John probably mostly spoke a French dialect, as his father was a Norman and his mother was from Anjou, both regions of what would become France. The peasants would have spoken old English which would have resembled German or maybe Frisian. Hang on one more episode and I'll clear up some of this language nonsense/ability only to visit people in history who spoke (or might possibly have spoken) English.
As for the Robin Hood mystery. It is impossible to know if he was a real guy. There are probably as many theories about the origin of the Robin Hood legend as there are portrayals of it – literally hundreds. It does seem to be true that at least by the late 13th Century people began taking on the name Robin Hood, Robehod, or some variation to distinguish themselves as outlaws.
Some possible real life contributors to the myth are, as mentioned, William Wallace, as well as Fulk FitzWarin, a Marcher Lord who rebelled against King John, and Eustace the Monk, who was a vicious pirate around the same time.
A depiction of Hood and Guy of Gisborne
The balladeers definitely had a hand in Robin Hoods fame. The song that the minstrels sang is called "Robin Hood's Death and Burial" and can been read in full here.
The Sheriff of Nottingham is another elusive figure. One possible contestant is a William de Wendenhal who was sheriff in 1194.
Sources:
Cawthorne, Nigel. A Brief History of Robin Hood. London: Robinson, 2010.
Hilton, R.H. "The Origins of Robin Hood." in Past & Present no. 14 (November 1958): 30-44. JSTOR.
Holt, J. C.. “Hood, Robin.” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed., edited by Lawrence Goldman, January 2007.
Simeone, William E.. "The Historic Robin Hood." in The Jornal of American Folklore 66, no. 262 (Oct. - Dec., 1953): 303-308.
Toothman, Jessika. "Was There a Real Robin Hood?" How Stuff Works.
