This show picks up where Dan's Thor's Angels show left off. In the early Middle Ages Pagan Germanic-language speakers like the Vikings are a dying breed. Many of their contemporaries wish they'd die faster.

The Atlantic Slave Trade mixes centuries of human bondage with violence, economics, commerce, geo-political competition, liberty, morality, injustice, revolution, tragedy and bloody reckonings. That sounds like a lot, yet this show merely scratches the surface of this enormous subject.

When do spirit, tenacity, resilience and bravery cross into madness? When cities are incinerated? When suicide attacks become the norm? When atomic weapons are used? Japan's leaders test the limits of national endurance in the war's last year.

Can suicidal bravery and fanatical determination make up for material, industrial and numerical insufficiency? As the Asia-Pacific conflict turns against the Japanese these questions are put to the test. The results are nightmarish.