Real and fictional
The ledger at the top says who was invented for the Short and which details are documented.
The study companion to the Shorts
The Codex
Every History's NPCs Short follows one ordinary, fictional person through a real moment in history. The Codex is the history itself: what happened hour by hour, which on-screen lines are documented and how firmly, and the sources to read next.
Entries
POMPEII79 AD
EP.01
Eighty-One Loaves
A baker, the morning Vesuvius woke.
BOSTON1919
EP.02
The Brown Paint
A grocer beside a leaking molasses tank.
PRIPYAT1986
EP.03
Three Days
A hairdresser in the town nobody told.
LONDON1666
EP.04
The Parmesan
A waterman on the Thames as London burns.
SIBERIA1908
EP.05
The Second Sun
A storekeeper under a second sun.
BOSTON1859
EP.06
Unplugged
A telegraph operator under a burning sky.
Next entry
In research
Across time · 0 to 2000 AD, to scale
Pompeii 79 AD · London 1666 · Boston 1859 · Siberia 1908 · Boston 1919 · Pripyat 1986. Six entries, 1,907 years apart.
How to read an entry
The day, hour by hour
The timeline drains of colour as the event arrives, the same way the Short does.
Every line, checked
Each on-screen line sits beside what the record says, with how firmly it is documented.
Sources to follow
Every claim has a numbered footnote. Each source says what kind it is, so you can weigh it.
Our rules
- The characters are fictional. The places, dates and documented details are real.
- Every claim on screen has a source, listed in the video description and in its entry.
- When historians disagree, we say so, and the entry shows both sides.
- No gore. No scores, lives or GAME OVER screens tied to real deaths.
- Real people appear only through words they are on record as saying.
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