Beginning in the 8th century, the Danes began a long era of well-organized raids across the coasts and rivers of Europe. Large areas outside Scandinavia were settled by the Danes including what became know as the Danelaw in England, the Netherlands, northern France and Ireland. Two Viking warriors from the same clan separated for more than 1000 years and have finally been reunited at the Danish National Museum in Copenhagen.

Danelaw was established as an area ruled by Vikings and extended across much of England. A group of fairly young Viking warriors was found here buried in a mass grave near the church where they had been killed by orders from King Aethelred II, King of the English. The warrior hilighted here was in his 20s and died from injuries to his head. He had sustained 8 to 10 hits to the head and several stab wounds to the spine.

French revolutionists condemned King Louis XVI to death on 21. January 1793 by means of the guillotine at the Place de la Revolution in Paris (roughly where the Obelisk decorating the Place de la Concorde stands today). After a short but defiant speech he lost his head as the crowd rushed to the scaffold to dip hankerchiefs into his blood as momentos. An ornate gourd decorated with French Revolution themes was recently uncovered which had contained a blood soaked hankerchief dating to this time. The gourd was allegedly a gift to Napoleon Bonaparte who became First Consul of France in 1799 and Emperor in 1804. An anonymous Italian family was in its posession since possibly the late 1800s and came forward with the relic. It bears an inscription that Maximilien Bourdaloue on 21. January dipped his hankerchief in the blood of the king. Dried blood was scraped out and this is the same DNA we present in this DNA spotlight! The sample contains unsually high and rare markers for the Y-DNA haplogroup G2a.

Louis XVI's direct male line ancestor Henri IV was famous for enacting the Edict of Nantes which guaranteed religious liberties to Protestants ending 30 years of fighting between French Protestants and Catholics - he was assassinated in 1610 by a French Catholic zealot. The remains had been presumed lost in the chaos of the French Revolution after a mob of revolutionaries desecrated the graves of French kings in the royal chapel of Saint-Denis in Paris in 1793. However, the head was passed down over the centuries by secretive private collectors and positively identifed in 2010 with a radiocarbon date between 1450 and 1650. The features were consistent with the king's face including a dark mushroom-like lesion near the right nostrial, a healed facial stab wound and a pierced right earlobe. The hair color and moustache and beard on the mummified head fit the appearance of the king at the time of his death as well as matched his portraits. Furthermore cutting wounds were visible corresponding to the separation of the head from the body in 1793 and digital facial reconstruction of the skull matched the plaster mould of his face made just after his death in 1610. The DNA was then tested and compared to the blood from the gourd.

The Crusader States (also known as Outremer) were created after the First Crusade (1095-1102) as a way to keep hold of territorial gains by Christian armies in the Middle East. Crusader castles were built all over Outremer to serve not only as defensive structures, but also as administrative and economic centers designed to last for many years to come. The four small Outremer states were the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Edessa, the Country of Tripoli and the Principality of Antioch. This analysis focuses on the former Phoenician and later Roman colony of Sidon / Saida which remained in Arab hands until 1110 when King Baldwin I of Jerusalem and King Sigured I of Norway captured it. The city was then re-captured by the masterful Saladin in 1187, only to be re-taken by German Crusaders in 1197. It remained a key Crusader stronghold until the Saracen invasion of 1249 when it was destroyed - this series of exchanges presented the backdrop for the ill-fated 7th Crusade.

The 7th Crusade was led by Louis IX of France from 1248 to 1254. Jerusalem had recently fallen and there was no popular enthusiasm at the time for a new crsusade, as Europe was involved in many internal conflicts. Bela IV of Hungary was rebuilding his kingdom from ashes after the devastating Mongol invasion of Europe. Henry III of England was struggling at home and Haakon IV of Norway was in the midst of a civil war. Louis IX was almost alone in declaring a new crusade to the east and in 1248 sailed from Aigues-Mortes and Marseilles with an army of 15,000. They sailed for Cyprus but Louis decided to focus first on attacking Egypt. While marching towards Cairo, Louis' main force was attacked by Mameluk Baibars and defeated. In 1250 while attempting to return to a safer location, Louis himself was captured and taken prisoner after his army was annihilated. He was ransomed for 800,000 bezants after which he fled to Acre, one of the safest crusader strongholds in Outremer. The French King re-enforced local defenses and moved north to Sidon.