The Asahi TV quiz show "Sekai Tsukai Dense- tsu Unmei no Da-da-da-dan (World's Exciting Legends) -- on Tuesday at 8 p.m. -- explores the lives of historical figures whose reputations have a tragic dimension. This week, the subject is a woman who caused tragedy for everyone else: Catherine de Medici.
Catherine, who was born to the Florentine ruler Lorenzo de Medici in 1519, married the duc d'Orleans, who later became King Henry II of France. Following her husband's death and that of her first-born son, Catherine became the de facto ruler of France until 1574, when her third son, Henry III, ascended to the throne. Catherine's was not a smooth reign. In order to maintain power, she constantly had to manipulate the competing religious factions under her rule, the Roman Catholics and the Protestant Huguenots. In her most extreme political move, she instigated the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in which 50,000 Huguenots were slaughtered. It was an event predicted by Nostradamus and one that left her with the reputation of a butcher in French history books.
Butchery of a different sort is the subject of a dramatic special that will be broadcast on the same night on Nippon TV. "Kore wa Senso Da (This is War)" (Tuesday, 9:03 p.m.) is a faithful dramatization of the police work that surrounded the Tokyo sarin subway gas attack, which happened nine years ago next month. Over a three-month period that included the attack itself, the police investigated the religious group Aum Shinrikyo who, as everyone now knows, was responsible for the attack.