The Last Confession is a stage play by Roger Crane based around the election and death of Pope John Paul I. The play follows Giovanni Benelli (David Suchet) who recounts, during his last confession, his role in the death of John Paul and how this led him to lose his faith.

Disturbed by the corruption in Vatican City, caused mainly by Paul Marcinkus and Jean-Marie Villot, Benelli attempts to manipulate the August 1978 conclave and elect Albino Luciani as Pope. The plan succeeds and Luciani becomes Pope John Paul I but his unconventional views and actions make him enemies in the Curia.

Just thirty three days into his reign, John Paul dies suddenly and Benelli investigates the death, suspecting the Pope was murdered. Realising that a request for an autopsy would damage the church, Benelli decides to end the investigation and tries to become Pope himself. This time his efforts to manipulate the conclave fail and a compromise candidate, Karol Wojtyła, is elected Pope.

The Last Emperor is a 1987 biopic about the life of Puyi, the last Emperor of China, whose autobiography was the basis for the screenplay written by Mark Peploe and Bernardo Bertolucci. Independently produced by Jeremy Thomas, it was directed by Bertolucci and released in 1987 by Columbia Pictures. Puyi's life is depicted from his ascent to the throne as a small boy to his imprisonment and political rehabilitation by the Chinese Communist authorities.

The film stars John Lone as Pu Yi, with Joan Chen, Peter O'Toole, Ruocheng Ying, Victor Wong, Dennis Dun, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Maggie Han, Ric Young, Vivian Wu, and Chen Kaige. It was the first feature film for which the producers were authorized by the Chinese government to film in the Forbidden City in Beijing. It won nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.

The film opens in 1950 with Pu Yi's re-entry into the just-proclaimed People's Republic of China as a political prisoner and war criminal, having been captured by the Red Army when the Soviet Union entered the Pacific War in 1945 (see Soviet invasion of Manchuria) and been in their custody for the past five years. Puyi attempts suicide, which only renders him unconscious. In a flashback, apparently triggered as a dream, Puyi relives his first entry, with his wet nurse at his side, into the Forbidden City.

Alexander Pearce (1790 – 19 July 1824) was an Irish convict who was transported to Van Diemen's Land for seven years for theft. He escaped from prison several times, but was eventually captured and was hanged and dissected in Hobart for murder.

Pearce was born in County Monaghan, Ireland. A Roman Catholic farm labourer, he was sentenced at Armagh in 1819 to penal transportation to Van Diemen's Land for "the theft of six pairs of shoes". He committed various offences in Van Diemens Land, and on 18 May 1822 was advertised in the Hobart Town Gazette as an absconder, with a £10 reward for his capture. When caught, he was charged with absconding and forging an order, a serious crime. For this he received a second sentence of transportation, this time to the new secondary penal establishment at Sarah Island in Macquarie Harbour.

Pearce led an escape from Macquarie Harbour Penal Settlement and became notorious for cannibalising his fellow escapees as they traversed the West Coast of Tasmania.

Anne Boleyn ( /ˈbʊlɪn/, /bəˈlɪn/ or /bʊˈlɪn/); c.1501 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of Henry VIII of England and Marquess of Pembroke in her own right. Henry's marriage to Anne, and her subsequent execution, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the start of the English Reformation. Anne was the daughter of Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard, and was educated in the Netherlands and France, largely as a maid of honour to Claude of France. She returned to England in early 1522, in order to marry her Irish cousin James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormond; however, the marriage plans ended in failure and she secured a post at court as maid of honour to Henry VIII's queen consort, Catherine of Aragon.

Early in 1523 there was a secret betrothal between Anne and Henry Percy, son of the 5th Earl of Northumberland. However, in January of 1524 Cardinal Thomas Wolsey broke the betrothal, Anne was sent back home to Hever Castle, and Percy was married to Lady Mary Talbot, to whom he had been betrothed since adolescence. In February/March 1526 Henry VIII began his pursuit of Anne. She resisted his attempts to seduce her, refusing to become his mistress as her sister Mary had. It soon became the one absorbing object of Henry's desires to annul his marriage to Queen Catherine so he would be free to marry Anne. When it became clear that Pope Clement VII would not annul the marriage, the breaking of the power of the Catholic Church in England began. In 1532, Henry granted her the Marquesate of Pembroke.