Original subtitles

A Spanish settlement stained in innocent blood.

What begins as an unpleasant scheme

leads to bodies

lying in the dust.

In Wisconsin, a serene institution seized

out of righteous anger.

As the National Guard surrounded the area,

there were reports of the back and forth shooting

that happened.

And a subterranean lair in France,

designed with a disturbing objective.

Hitler is convinced that German technology

can still win the war,

and Joe Kennedy, heir to an American political dynasty,

is going to die on his way here.

In America's Midwest, lies an isolated structure,

caught in the crosshairs of a tribe's mission to reclaim

what was once theirs.

Tucked away from the road is a wide, open clearing.

And in the middle of it, there is this colossal,

Georgian style mansion.

It's far too big, too grand, to be a single-family residence.

But who built it and why is it standing empty today?

When you go inside, the stark concrete

offers few clues to its former purpose.

It's bare and cavernous.

This was once a place of religious devotion.

It would become the symbol

of a bitter struggle to be heard.

Some said that it existed on stolen land,

and that conflict would come to a head

in a very dramatic confrontation.

This land is Menominee ancestral lands.

As a people, we've been here since time immemorial.

On a cold January day,

a group descended onto this compound

with shotguns and rifles.

Their motto was "Deed or death."

This was a month-long, armed standoff

and soon it gains national recognition.

Suddenly, you had everyone,

from national grassroots organizations

to movie stars like Marlon Brando,

showing up to the protests.

Chris Caldwell is president

of the College of the Menominee Nation.

His family was involved in the battle that unfolded

in this building in the 1970s.

My Aunt Chris talks about being in here,

ducking from gunfire,

you know, trying to make sure the kids that were with them

knew to duck.

It's been a process to reconcile those things.

When this site was first built,

it stood on territory

that had been taken away from the Menominee.

Its original function belies

what would eventually transpire here.

This grand building was originally constructed in 1939,

as a private residence for a wealthy widow from New York

and her sick daughter.

But sadly, she died before it can be completed.

Then, in the 1950s, the woman donated

the unfinished house and the land to the Alexian Brothers,

an organization that was close to her heart.

The Alexian Brothers are a Catholic group

devoted to religious study and taking care of the sick.

And they turned the property

into what's known as a "novitiate",

somewhere where inductees would come to study

and learn and prepare to take their vows.

The Novitiate operated like this for over 20 years,

but in 1972, they moved their operations to Chicago,

and this building is left empty.

This could've been the end of the Novitiate story,

but events were underway that would send it

on a collision course

with an unfolding crisis

at a nearby Native American reservation.

The Menominee historically inhabited a vast area

that stretched across Wisconsin

to the Upper Peninsula in Michigan.

A series of treaties with the US government in the 1800s

saw their land shrink from 10 million acres

to just 230,000.

Still, the Menominee remained

one of the wealthiest Native tribes in North America,

because they had large interest in timber.

But in the 1950s, their way of life and land

would be threatened once more.

The tribe was doing so well

that the Bureau of Indian Affairs

decided that they were ready to be relieved

from federal government support,

and, in the term of the time,

assimilated into mainstream US society.

The government establishes a policy of termination,

which ends the tribe's sovereign status

and changes the responsibility that the federal government

has towards them.

With termination came an instant tax bill

for the 230,000 acres of our reservation lands.

We had to find a way to pay for that,

and our communities declined.

They went from being

one of the most affluent tribes in the nation

to being desperately poor,

with all the social ills that come along with poverty.

It just pushed the Menominee, I feel, over the brink

to "we really need to figure out

"how do we get back our lands,

how do we get back that connection."

One faction of the tribe

felt the only way to get their voice heard

was direct action.

These were members of the Menominee Warrior Society.

During this period, the same political activism

that we saw on college campuses and Vietnam War protests

was also sweeping Native communities across the country.

Many of the members of the Warrior Society

were inspired by activist takeovers,

like that of Alcatraz in 1969.

In 1975, the Menominee Warrior Society

decided to make their stand.

The target was the Alexian Novitiate,

which had been vacant for three years,

apart from a lone caretaker and his family.

The Menominee Warriors saw this

as a visible symbol of land

that they believed was rightfully theirs.

On New Year's Day, a band of about 40 Menominee

armed with shotguns and rifles arrived at the compound.

They were led by a man they called "the General",

Michael Sturdevant.

They seize the property, and they take the caretaker

and his family hostage.

The Novitiate was now under the control

of the Menominee Warrior Society.

The local police came out in force

and surrounded the building.

The state government acted quickly

to contain the takeover.

The last thing they wanted was for the protest to spread.

Even the National Guard are called in,

eventually grow into a force of over 2,000 troops,

and then you have a standoff at the Novitiate.

The situation had become a powder keg

ready to ignite.

The Warrior Society believed that they were really

in a life and death struggle

for the future of their tribe and their rights.

2 In the early hours of New Year's Day, 1975,

the Menominee Warrior Society led an armed takeover

of the Alexian Novitiate.

A nerve-wracking standoff ensued.

When the Wisconsin National Guard

was called in by the governor,

there were different interactions

between the Warrior Society

and the different local community groups.

And so, there was gunfire back and forth.

The Warrior Society is completely

outmanned and outgunned,

and the government doesn't want

any deaths on their hands,

especially in this already tense situation.

The National Guard had one key advantage.

They were able to cut off the power to the building.

Soon, the heat was out.

It was cold at the time, and supporters would find ways

to sneak into the building-- you know, bring supplies

and other things like that to help.

The actor and activist, Marlon Brando,

even arrived at the Novitiate

to support the Warrior group.

Despite the celebrity backing,

local public opinion about the takeover

was split.

In the surrounding white community, of course,

many were outraged by what they saw as an insurrection.

Even on the reservation itself, there were those who thought

that it would undermine their chances

to have their rights restored.

On February 2nd, after a month-long occupation,

a deal was reached between the Warrior Society

and the Alexian Brothers.

The Brothers agreed to sell the Novitiate to the Menominee

for the sum of $1.

At that point, the Warrior Society

peacefully surrendered,

and 39 of them were arrested.

Looking back, we have to give credit

to the cool heads on both sides.

It ended peacefully

and did not erupt in outright bloodshed.

Five members of the group were charged,

including their leader, Michael Sturdevant,

who was imprisoned.

In April of 1975,

three months after the Novitiate standoff,

the US government restored the Menominee's status

as a federally recognized tribe.

This granted the Menominee the right to self-govern

their existing 230,000 acres of reservation land.

It's unclear how much this occupation

influenced that decision.

Despite the efforts of the Warrior Society,

the Menominee were unable to maintain the building.

Eventually, they decided that the best course of action

was just to give the building back to the Alexian Brothers.

Over the next 50 years,

the property sat empty and suffered damage,

including a fire that gutted the mansion.

In 2021, the Novitiate was purchased

by new owners, who are restoring the property.

Its future use is yet to be decided,

but the Menominee tribe is being consulted.

It was only a building in a moment of time

for the Menominee people,

but there's a lot of significance

that came along with it.

There's a responsibility to learn the lessons

from those events.

In Northern France, tranquil green fields disguise

a conspiracy to lay waste to an entire population.

We're not far from the English Channel.

We're not far from Paris, but here it's the country.

And then you start to see evidence

that there's more here than meets the eye.

There are these huge chunks of concrete

that are really smashed apart.

What could have caused these massive holes

in the quiet French countryside?

Nearby, an entrance leading into the hillside

reveals something unexpected hidden below.

Parts of it looks like it could be a railroad tunnel,

but as you look deeper, it's a lot more than that.

The architecture is very utilitarian,

and it tells you that

this was probably a military facility.

Masses of concrete,

the smell of slave laborers'

blood and sweat.

This has got to be Nazi engineering.

This subterranean complex was built as a last resort

to save an evil empire.

The threat it posed was unlike anything

the world had seen before.

It was a race against time.

Could the Allies stop this weapon

before the Nazis reign terror down on London?

In early 1943, things aren't going well for the Nazis.

The campaign in Russia is slowing down,

and the Allies are gaining ground in North Africa.

Hitler thinks that if he gets German scientists,

German engineers, working in the right direction,

they will create "Wunderwaffen", "wonder weapons",

and those wonder weapons are gonna win the war.

On June 13, 1944,

seven days after the D-Day landings,

Hitler unveiled the first wave of a new destructive power

developed under the wonder weapon program.

They were called "vengeance weapons".

The V1 was a flying bomb that buzzed when it went overhead.

And when it was about to drop, it got totally silent,

meaning that the people below

knew it was about to strike them.

Four months later, the Führer revealed

the next stage of his plot

to wipe London from the map.

The V2 rockets were essentially

the first ballistic missile.

They're going to hit without warning,

and at speeds that you just can't intercept.

Hitler really believes

that by sending the vengeance weapons,

the "Vergeltungswaffen", into England,

he is going to break the British will to fight.

But the crazed dictator still had one last piece

of his destructive puzzle to complete.

It was called the Fortress of Mimoyecques.

Caroline Albert is an expert on this clandestine Nazi facility.

Construction on the site begins in 1943.

Over 1,200 workers arrive to begin

digging out those tunnels.

Despite all this natural reinforcement, they went ahead

and put a 16-foot reinforced concrete top over it.

The Allies were completely unaware of the ferocity brewing

beneath the French countryside.

It was basically a huge cannon,

and it fired shells

using multiple explosive charges along its barrel.

The round goes past firing chamber after firing chamber,

going faster and faster

until it is able to fly all the way to London

and bang!-- deliver a payload

right into the center of the enemy capital.

But this complex wouldn't house just one of these super guns.

Each of the five firing shafts was meant to hold five cannons,

totaling 25 in all.

In theory, it could fire 600 shells an hour, 24 hours a day.

The Allies had no idea what was coming.

Yet the French Resistance spotted something sinister

was underway and alerted British intelligence.

When Allied reconnaissance flights discover this space,

they're not quite sure what it is,

but they know that it's big,

they know that it's Nazi,

and they know that it has to be destroyed.

2 At Mimoyecques Fortress during World War II,

Hitler ordered the construction of the V3 cannon,

a weapon of such fury

he believed it could turn the tide of the conflict

in his favor.

Between November 1943 and the spring of 1944,

British and US airmen fought

through an onslaught of anti-aircraft fire

to try and really take this place out.

They drop over 4,000 tons of armaments,

and it's still there.

Something else needs to happen to destroy this.

The Allies turned to the brilliant engineer

Barnes Wallis,

who created an innovative bouncing bomb

to destroy German dams earlier in the war.

Now, we need to destroy a German concrete bunker.

He developed a extra large bomb

that was called "the Tallboy".

It would bury itself in the earth before exploding,

and it would create an earthquake.

It was the perfect weapon to destroy underground structures.

Throughout the spring of 1944,

the Nazis rushed to complete the V3 cannons.

But before they could be deployed,

the skies darkened over Mimoyecques.

On July 6, 1944, the Allies send

over 100 Halifax bombers.

They're carpet bombing the target

in order to destroy anything on the surface.

And then, the Lancaster bombers are going to fly in

with the Tallboy bomb.

Three near misses and then a direct hit.

With that hit, they've managed to smash

through that massive concrete roof.

Yet the Allies still feared the site could be operational.

They couldn't take the chance that Hitler's weapon

could still flatten London.

US Navy airmen were tasked with a top secret mission,

to take Mimoyecques out once and for all.

It was codenamed "Operation Anvil".

This is a project designed to take worn-out bombers

and turn them into an early form of drone.

They would have pilots on board who would set the explosives,

parachute out, and the plane would continue on

to its target.

One brave pilot steps up for the mission, and that pilot was

Joseph P. Kennedy.

Joseph was the eldest of the Kennedy children,

and his father had been grooming him to be president

from a young age.

On August 12, 1944,

he and his co-pilot took to the skies.

Kennedy radios in the code words "spade flush" to indicate

that they were about to jump out of the plane,

but then those ended up being his very last words.

The whole plane goes up into enormous explosions,

there is literally nothing left

of Kennedy and his co-pilot.

It's sad that when JFK heard the news, he said,

"And now the burden falls on me."

Less than a month after Kennedy's tragic death,

Canadian troops arrived at Mimoyecques

and found it had been abandoned by the retreating Nazis.

They also made another chilling discovery.

The fortress had already been destroyed beyond repair

by the earlier Tallboy bombing raid.

Today, the upper level tunnels of Mimoyecques

can be visited by the public.

But the lower levels were so badly damaged,

some of the secrets of Hitler's vengeance fortress

will never be known.

In a remote region of southern Spain,

an isolated structure conceals

a story of forbidden love and ruthless retribution.

We're in this landscape of rugged hills and dusty plains.

It feels like something more from the Wild West than Spain.

It's an arid, barren place.

Even in the best of times, eking out an existence here

must have been hard.

Yet signs of life reveal somebody settled

in this unforgiving landscape.

All the way out here, there's this structure.

It's kind of hauntingly beautiful, standing alone

against this vast, empty scenery.

Walking around, you can see a lot of the rooms

are just empty shells.

It's hard to tell what this place once was.

Then you start to see clues.

With its bell tower and raised area inside for an altar,

you quickly realize this was a church.

You also get the feeling that this is a home.

You've got the kitchen and the pantry,

but apart from these details,

many of the traces of whoever lived here

have long since disappeared.

In the beginning, this was a peaceful dwelling.

It became the scene of a shameful crime of revenge.

This place has been immortalized

in books, in plays, and even Hollywood films.

Grooms jilted at the altar,

lovers fleeing in the night,

violent confrontations...

this story has it all.

It's like the original telenovela.

2 In the desolate plains of Almería, Spain,

is a crumbling ruin that would become infamous.

Miguel Jaume Mora is a guide in this arid region.

Growing up as a child, I've heard

so many stories about this place.

The first time I came

was roughly 17, 18 years ago,

and I was so impressed, actually.

Like many locals, Miguel was drawn

to the tale of intrigue

that unfolded within these walls.

This building is well known all over the country

for all its tragic happenings.

It is a very important part of the local culture.

It's a shame, actually, to see the state in which it is.

Essentially, it's a kind of farm complex

common in the south of Spain.

It was originally built in the 1700s by Dominican monks,

and that's why it has such an elaborate chapel.

They were given the property

because no one wanted to live here.

Life here would have been very difficult.

It was called the "Cortijo del Fraile",

the "Farmhouse of the Friar".

But in the mid 1830s, the government decides

it's gonna take possession of many of the properties

that were owned by the church.

They sold it to raise money,

and so the farm goes into private hands.

For almost a century, the rhythms of life

in this dusty outpost remained the same.

Farmers growing and selling their produce,

living in harmony with the seasons.

But in the early 1900s,

a new family arrived at the Cortijo.

With them, came scandal and murder.

One of the families that lived here, uh,

was a widower with his daughters,

Carmen and Francisca,

who was known to everyone as "Paca".

Paca was given a cruel nickname,

"Paca la Coja,"

meaning "Paca the Lame".

While the family blamed her limp on polio,

it's said that the real story

is her father beat her so badly as a baby,

he permanently damaged her hip.

Well, we're just in the house where Paca lived,

here at the farm.

This room was one of the bedrooms,

and it could have actually been Paca's bedroom.

Eventually, the elder sister, Carmen,

got married and moved out of the Cortijo,

and Paca grew increasingly close

with her cousin, Francisco.

She was in love with her cousin when they were children.

The usual thing when they would play,

"well, you're gonna be my boyfriend,

and when we're older, we'll probably get married."

But Paca's father paid no attention

to her youthful infatuation,

and in 1926,

began looking for a suitable husband for her.

Whoever she married would receive a generous payment,

called a "dowry,"

and they would play an integral role

in the running of the Cortijo.

As it happened, Paca's sister came up with a plan

for who she should marry.

There was a local laborer named Casimiro.

He just so happened to be her husband's brother.

How convenient.

It seems like this was all part of a sinister plan to marry

her sister to someone inside the family

that they could control.

Carmen was very ambitious.

She wanted to try to gather all the properties

and get her husband to be the farmer

that was in charge of this farm.

Paca was completely unaware of her sister's cruel intentions,

and agreed to the marriage.

It was a decision that ended in tragedy.

On the evening of the 22nd of July,

the year 1928,

is a reception of the wedding.

The tradition at the time was to celebrate first,

and then hold the wedding ceremony the following morning.

All the guests started to arrive, and among these guests

that were invited to the wedding,

her cousin, Francisco.

Francisco didn't come to celebrate.

He was simply biding his time.

Francisco seizes the opportunity,

and he sneaks into her bedroom.

He begs Paca to run away with him

so that they can be married the next morning.

She never...

was in love with Casimiro.

That's when she started to think about it.

And she told Francisco, "It's now or never."

And that's when they escaped

through this passage to the stables.

The lovers believe they will be long gone before anybody

realizes what had happened, but they were wrong.

Paca's sister and her husband,

whose plan was going very badly now,

also rode out into the desert,

and it wouldn't be long before they found them.

2 On July 23rd, 1928,

an infamous wedding was set to take place.

Paca, the bride to be, was not in love with the man

she was arranged to marry,

the brother of her sister's husband, Casimiro.

Instead, she eloped with her cousin Francisco.

Paca's sister, Carmen, was furious.

She told her husband, José, and they got a horse

and soon went chasing them.

It's said that they hid behind some undergrowth

as the lovers approached,

and then they jumped out to confront them.

José had a revolver.

He brought it out and he just shot three times, three shots,

and killed Francisco.

And apparently, Carmen told José,

"I'll be in charge of my sister."

Carmen begins strangling her until...

well, until she stops moving.

The murderous couple fled the scene and left the bodies

to be discovered by the other guests, out looking.

They found Francisco dead on the floor,

and Paca nearby,

desperately clinging to life.

At first, Paca was unwilling to reveal who had attacked her,

fearing it would bring shame to the family.

But she eventually identified the assailants

to the authorities, and a trial date was set.

Her sister Carmen was found guilty of attempted murder,

but she served just 15 months in jail.

Her husband, who killed Francisco,

was sentenced to just

eight years in prison for the murder.

The events of that night were a media sensation.

Newspapers across the country wrote about

this horrific incident.

The breathless coverage also caught the attention

of a well-known Spanish author.

It inspired one of his greatest works.

Five years on, Federico García Lorca premiered his play,

"Bodas de sangre",

or "Blood Wedding."

The play opens to nationwide acclaim

and to this day it's performed around the world.

And the story of the terrible events

that took place on this farmstead are immortalized.

Paca died in 1987.

She refused to ever talk about what happened

at this remote farm.

She lived out her days as a recluse

in a house near the Cortijo.

She never married again,

and it's said she wore black for the rest of her life,

in mourning for her true love, Francisco.

After the events of the blood wedding faded into the past,

life at the Cortijo returned to normal.

Yet, that all changed in the 1960s.

This is the age of the Spaghetti Westerns,

Western movies with Italian directors, great soundtracks,

and they're filmed in Italy and Spain.

Of all the Spaghetti Western directors, none is more famous

than Sergio Leone and his iconic "Dollars" trilogy.

The Cortijo would be chosen to play a key role

in two of those movies,

1965's "For a Few Dollars More"

and "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" in 1966,

both starring Clint Eastwood.

It's even said that the harsh Almería sun was so bright

it forced Eastwood to keep his eyes half-closed,

giving rise to that famous, intense, gimlet stare.

But its fame couldn't save it from decay,

and the abandoned farm slowly descends into ruin.

On the Albanian coast stands the faded icon of an era

ruled by Europe's most obscure dynasty.

It's neither ancient nor modern.

It could be, from some angles, a mid-century hotel,

but it also has the aspect of kind of a Moorish palace.

The inside is just as stunning.

The ceilings are adorned with ornate plaster,

and the staircases are solid marble.

This was clearly built to impress.

The man behind this hilltop citadel

was infamous for his iron will,

respected and feared in equal measure.

He was considered a traitor,

a dictator,

and one of the most important politicians of the country

during the 20th century.

His extravagance and his hubris brought in great wealth.

It's what built places like this.

But with a spectacular rise comes a spectacular fall.

Andi Penari is a state historian

and expert on the period in Albanian history

when one man revolutionized the country.

I mean, mixed feelings in here,

visiting the entrance of this beautiful villa,

'cause it reminds us of a time when aristocracy and nobility

managed to control the country.

It belongs to the most powerful men of the period.

In the early 20th century, Ahmed Zogolli

was a regional governor in northern Albania.

But his ambition stretched far beyond his home region.

Starting especially from the end of the First World War,

he became the Minister of Interior

and slowly started to gain more and more power.

But in 1924, Zogolli was ousted after a leftist revolt.

He returned seven months later

with the backing of a mercenary army

and seized control of the country,

later installing himself as president.

But he was not an enlightened leader.

He was a brutal semi-dictator.

He had no qualms about killing off his political opponents.

The power-hungry tyrant,

who had by now changed his name to Zogu,

was still not content.

His dream was to be recognized as actual royalty.

2 In the 1920s,

Albania was ruled over by Ahmed Zogu

with an iron fist.

Yet he wanted to be much more

than just the country's president.

With plenty of enemies,

Zogu realized that he wasn't gonna succeed

without backing from abroad,

and he found a willing partner in Mussolini's Italy.

Mussolini saw Albania as a strategic asset

in the Balkan region

that could strengthen his own fascist dictatorship.

He was happy to pour money into the country

in exchange for influence over its economy and society.

Zogu now had the support he needed

to fulfill his despotic desire.

In 1928, with Italian approval,

Zogu refashioned the governance of the entire country

and named himself Zog I, King of Albania.

So he was the man who controlled

almost everything.

He even developed a Zogu salute,

which was a flat hand

placed at the chest with the palm down.

Next, the newly crowned King Zog

embarked on a series of costly building projects.

This one was called the Royal Villa of Durrës.

The palace was finished in 1937.

It had Italian marble,

elaborate plaster work,

all the best finishings in art.

The idea was a place for the royal family to come

during the summer to escape the heat of the city.

But trouble was brewing.

Mussolini had loaned Albania in excess

of approximately $20 million,

worth around $400 million today.

And he wanted to see a return on his investment.

Mussolini wanted to exert more control,

not just over the government,

even over Albanian culture.

They were even mandating that Italian be taught

in Albanian schools, but the king refused.

Mussolini became increasingly frustrated

with Zog's refusal to comply.

In April 1939, he ordered his troops

to invade Albania.

They landed a small military force,

and after some minor resistance,

quickly took over the country.

This was a stunning fall from grace.

Zog had created a monarchy

out of sheer force of will and political power,

but he was deposed and exiled

by his greatest ally.

King Zog would never again step foot in his homeland

and live the rest of his life as an exile

in England, Egypt, and France.

After World War II,

another political earthquake swept Albania

when it was taken over by a communist regime

that operated under the protective umbrella

of the Soviet Union.

A royal palace had no place in the new People's Republic,

so it was repurposed as a civil government building.

But when communism crumbled in the early 1990s,

Albania's switch to democracy created a new set of problems.

Zog's former palace would be drawn

into the turmoil that followed.

Like so many other previously communist countries,

they didn't have the economic or legal infrastructure

to really make the transition to free market capitalism.

Corruption was everywhere.

The rudimentary financial system was soon dominated

by Ponzi schemes,

and even government officials-backed pyramid schemes.

The pyramid schemes quickly began to default on payments

and declared themselves bankrupt.

Almost overnight, hundreds of thousands of people

saw their savings vanish.

The government collapsed, and anarchy ensued.

Protests spread like wildfire,

and arms depots began to be looted

across the country.

One report estimates that every Albanian male

from the age of 10 upwards

had at least one firearm in their possession.

This was absolute chaos.

In the harbor below the villa,

people streamed onto ships

to flee the country.

In March 1997, with Albania on the brink of civil war,

the violent disorder reached King Zog's lavish villa.

People came in,

they took almost everything in here.

There were poor people trying to steal

to get some money.

So after that, the villa was totally, let's say, abandoned.

And it remains like this.

When you see it, you feel sad.

And you see that, yeah, we built it.

We have destroyed it.

Today, King Zog's villa sits neglected

above a modernizing city.

His family came back to Albania in 2002

and later reclaimed the property.

They then sold it to private owners in 2023.

King Zog's grandson is the head of the royal family,

but any return to power at this point seems pretty unlikely.