The Odyssey
Ten years after the fall of Troy, the victorious Greek hero Odysseus has still not returned to his native Ithaka. A band of rowdy suitors, believing Odysseus to be dead, has overrun his palace, courting his faithful, though weakening, wife, Penelope, and going through his stock of food. With permission from Zeus, the goddess Athena, Odysseus' greatest immortal ally, appears in disguise and urges Odysseus' son Telemakhos to seek news of his father at Pylos and Sparta. However, the suitors, led by Antinoos, plan to ambush him upon his return.
As Telemakhos tracks Odysseus' trail through stories from his old comrades-in-arms, Athena arranges for the release of Odysseus from the island of the beautiful goddess Kalypso, whose prisoner and lover he has been for the last eight years. Odysseus sets sail on a makeshift raft, but the sea god Poseidon, whose wrath Odysseus incurred earlier in his adventures by blinding Poseidon's son, the Kyklops Polyphemos, conjures up a storm. With Athena's help, Odysseus reaches the Phaiakians. Their princess, Nausikaa, who has a crush on the handsome warrior, opens the palace to the stranger. Odysseus withholds his identity for as long as he can until finally, at the Phaiakians' request, he tells the story of his adventures.
Odysseus relates how, following the Trojan War, his men suffered more losses at the hands of the Kikones, then were nearly tempted to stay on the island of the drug-addled Lotos Eaters. Next, the Kyklops Polyphemos devoured many of Odysseus' men before an ingenious plan of Odysseus' allowed the rest to escape‹but not before Odysseus revealed his name to Polyphemos and thus started his personal war with Poseidon. The wind god Ailos then provided Odysseus with a bag of winds to aid his return home, but the crew greedily opened the bag and sent the ship to the land of the giant, man-eating Laistrygonians, where they again barely escaped.
On their next stop, the goddess Kirke tricked Odysseus' men and turned them into pigs. With the help of the god Hermes, Odysseus defied her spell and metamorphosed the pigs back into men. They stayed on her island for a year in the lap of luxury, with Odysseus as her lover, before moving on and resisting the temptations of the seductive and dangerous Seirenes, navigating between the sea monster Skylla and the whirlpools of Kharybdis, and plumbing the depths of Hades to receive a prophecy from the blind seer Teiresias. Resting on the island of Helios, Odysseus' men disobeyed his orders not to touch the oxen. At sea, Zeus punished them and all but Odysseus died in a storm. It was then that Odysseus reached Kalypso's island.
Odysseus finishes his story, and the Phaiakians hospitably give him gifts and ferry him home on a ship. Athena disguises Odysseus as a beggar and instructs him to seek out his old swineherd, Eumaios; she will recall Telemakhos from his own travels. With Athena's help, Telemakhos avoids the suitors' ambush and reunites with his father, who reveals his identity only to his son and swineherd. He devises a plan to overthrow the suitors with their help.
In disguise as a beggar, Odysseus investigates his palace. The suitors and a few of his old servants generally treat him rudely as Odysseus sizes up the loyalty of Penelope and his other servants. Penelope, who notes the resemblance between the beggar and her presumably dead husband, proposes a contest: she will, at last, marry the suitor who can string Odysseus' great bow and shoot an arrow through a dozen axeheads.
Only Odysseus can pull off the feat. Bow in hand, he shoots and kills the suitor Antinoos and reveals his identity. With Telemakhos, Eumaios, and his goatherd Philoitios at his side, Odysseus leads the massacre of the suitors, aided only at the end by Athena. Odysseus lovingly reunites with Penelope, his knowledge of their bed that he built the proof that overcomes her skepticism that he is an impostor. Outside of town, Odysseus visits his ailing father, Laertes, but an army of the suitors' relatives quickly finds them. With the encouragement of a disguised Athena, Laertes strikes down the ringleader, Antinoos' father. Before the battle can progress any further, Athena, on command from Zeus, orders peace between the two sides.

Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc (in French: Jeanne d'Arc) was born on January 6, 1412 during the Hundred Years War. The French were divided into rival factions: the Burgundians (supporters of the Duke of Burgundy) were allied with the English and supported their claim to the throne, while the Armagnacs supported the Dauphin (the French claimant), Charles.
Stating that God had ordered her to support Charles and drive the English out of the kingdom, in May of 1428 Joan convinced a family relative, Durand Lassois, to bring her to Lord Robert de Baudricourt, the pro-Armagnac commander of the nearby town of Vaucouleurs. After much effort and a second visit in January and February of 1429, he finally consented to give her an escort of soldiers to bring her to the Dauphin.
Charles required her to be examined by Catholic theologians, who finally approved her in late March of 1429. She was then given titular command of an army - as was sometimes done with accepted religious visionaries - and allowed to try to lift the siege of Orleans, which she said was the first mission ordered of her.
Her troops won victories on May 4th, 6th, and 7th, taking one English stronghold after another. Joan was carrying her banner alongside the troops, and was shot near the left shoulder by an arrow on the 7th. The remaining English troops abandoned the siege on the 8th.
This victory was followed by the capture of Jargeau on June 12th and Beaugency on the 16th, and the decisive defeat of an English army at Patay on the 18th. She could now proceed to the second phase of her mission: the coronation of Charles. According to long tradition, the coronation of a French king had to be held in the cathedral at Reims, then occupied by the English and Burgundians.
The army pushed off into enemy-held territory on June 29th. After accepting the surrender of the city of Troyes and other towns, the army entered Reims on July 16th and held the coronation on the 17th.
After this point Joan was quoted as saying that she hoped God would allow her to return to her family, although the potential retaking of Paris was also a cherished goal. The chance to make a quick march on Paris was prevented by the Royal Court's decision to accept a 15-day truce with the Burgundians. By the time the army arrived near Paris on September 7th, the city had been reinforced.
An unsuccessful attack was made on September 8th, which Joan would later say was made on the decision of the commanders rather than herself. She nevertheless was present, carrying her banner, to motivate the troops, and was shot in the thigh by a crossbow dart while trying to find a place for her soldiers to cross the city's inner moat. Charles ordered the army to withdraw on the 13th, and Joan reluctantly withdrew after donating her armor at the chapel of St. Denis.
Subsequent campaigns that year were smaller in scale and poorly supported by the Royal Court. The successful capture of St-Pierre-le-Moutier on November 4th was followed by an unsuccessful attempt to take the Burgundian-held town of La-Charite-sur-Loire during November and December. She would later attest that this siege was done by order of the Royal Court and not by any counsel from her visions.
After spending the winter at various Royal castles, she returned to the field the following year, leaving the Royal Court along with her brother Pierre, her bodyguard Jean d'Aulon, her confessor Friar Jean Pasquerel, and a small contingent of troops. Fighting near Lagny-sur-Marne led to the defeat and capture of a mercenary unit under Franquet d'Arras in April. Despite predicting her own capture "before St. John's Day", she led a force to bring desperate aid the city of Compiegne, which was under siege by a Burgundian army. Captured by Burgundian troops during a sortie on May 23 1430 and subsequently transferred to their English allies, Joan was placed on trial in Rouen (the English capital of occupied Normandy) by a carefully chosen group of pro-English Burgundian clergy, led by Bishop Pierre Cauchon - one of the many French members of the English council which governed occupied Normandy. Convicted and executed on May 30, 1431, she was later declared innocent by the Inquisition after the war, with the official annulment of the sentence being handed down on July 7, 1456. The Inquisitor-General ruled that the original trial had been fraudulent and partisan and therefore itself an act of heresy, and described Joan as a martyr for the Catholic faith.
After the usual long delay - many other saints were not officially canonized until centuries after their death - Joan of Arc was beatified on April 11 1909 and canonized on May 16 1920.

Hamlet
Hamlet is the son of the late King Hamlet (of Denmark), who died two months before the start of the play. After King Hamlet's death, his brother, Claudius, becomes king, and marries King Hamlet's widow, Gertrude (Queen of Denmark). Young Hamlet fears that Claudius killed his own brother (Hamlet's father) to become king of Denmark, greatly angering Hamlet. Two officers, Marcellus and Barnardo, summon Hamlet's friend Horatio, and later Hamlet himself to see the late King Hamlet's ghost appear at midnight. The ghost tells Hamlet privately that Claudius had indeed murdered King Hamlet by pouring poison in his ear. Hamlet is further enraged and plots of how to revenge his father's death.
In his anger, Hamlet seems to act like a madman, prompting King Claudius, his wife Gertrude, and his advisor Polonius to send Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to spy on Hamlet and figure out why he is acting mad. Hamlet even treats Polonius' daughter Ophelia rudely, prompting Polonius to believe Hamlet is madly in love with her, though Claudius expects otherwise. Polonius, a man who talks too long- windedly, had allowed his son Laertes to go to France (then sent Reynaldo to spy on Laertes) and had ordered Ophelia not to associate with Hamlet. Claudius, fearing Hamlet may try to kill him, sends Hamlet to England. Before leaving, however, Hamlet convinces an acting company to reenact King Hamlet's death before Claudius, in the hopes of causing Claudius to break down and admit to murdering King Hamlet. Though Claudius is enraged, he does not admit to murder. Hamlet's mother tries to reason with Hamlet after the play, while Polonius spied on them from behind a curtain. Hamlet hears Polonius, and kills him through the curtain, thinking the person is Claudius. When finding out the truth, Hamlet regrets the death, yet Claudius still sends him to England, accompanied by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern with orders from Claudius that the English kill Hamlet as soon as her arrives.
After Hamlet leaves, Laertes returns from France, enraged over Polonius' death. Ophelia reacts to her father's death with utter madness and eventually falls in a stream and drowns, further angering Laertes. En route to England, Hamlet finds the orders and changes them to order Rosencrantz and Guildenstern killed, as does occur, though Hamlet is kidnapped by pirates one day later. The pirates return Hamlet to Claudius (for a ransom), and Claudius tries one last attempt to eliminate Hamlet: he arranges a sword duel between Laertes and Hamlet. The trick, however, is that the tip of Laertes' sword is poisoned. As a backup precaution, Claudius poisons the victory cup in case Hamlet wins. During the fight, the poisoned drink is offered to Hamlet, he declines, and instead his mother, Gertrude, drinks it (to the objection of Claudius). Laertes, losing to Hamlet, illegally scratches him with the poisoned sword to ensure Hamlet's death. Hamlet (unknowingly), then switches swords with Laertes, and cuts and poisons him. The queen dies, screaming that she has been poisoned and Laertes, dying, admits of Claudius' treachery. Weakening, Hamlet fatally stabs Claudius, Laertes dies, and Hamlet begins his death speech. Though Horatio wants to commit suicide out of sorrow, Hamlet entreats him to tell the story of King Hamlet's death and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's deaths to all. Fortinbras, the prince of Norway, arrives from conquest of England, and Hamlet's last dying wish is that Fortinbras become the new King of Denmark, as happens.