Mystery Files - Season 2 - Eps 12: Zorro
Decades earlier, a popular writer in Mexico, Riva Palacio, was writing stories with a character called El Zorro, and a character called Guillen Lampart. Much of Palacio’s work was published in New York in 1908, where it could have partly inspired Johnston McCulley. Palacio’s fictional character of Lampart was based on meticulous research in to the real-life crime story of Guillen Lombardo from two hundred years earlier, when Mexico was a colony of Spain, and the Catholic world was in the grip of the Inquisition. Modern-day research in to the Inquisitions records reveals an intriguing fact; Lombardo was not Mexican, he was not even Spanish, he was Irish, and his real name was William Lamport. Posing as an aristocrat by day, Lamport was in fact a spy on a mission for the King of Spain. When he arrived in Mexico City he set about starting a revolution to liberate the local Indians from the tyranny of corrupt Spanish rulers. His actions got him arrested by the Inquisition who put him on trial, and from whose prison he made a breakout that would become legend. This programme examines the personal papers of Lamport, it reveals long-hidden reports from the Mexico archives, and investigates the daring prison escape, to open the Mystery Files on Zorro.
About Mystery Files
Title: Mystery Files
First Air Date: 2010-02-01
Last Air Date: 2011-06-14
Status: Ended
Rating: 1/10 (from 1 votes)
Language: EN
Seasons: 2
Total Episodes: 26
Network: National Geographic Smithsonian Channel Investigation Discovery
Genres: Documentary
Production Companies: Parthenon Entertainment
Synopsis
From the Legends of King Arthur and Robin Hood to the recent events of the Russian Revolution, history is full of fascinating and evocative unsolved mysteries. They have inspired, intrigued and often confounded us – but how much do we really know about them? And can we separate fact from fiction? In Mystery Files, the dust is blown off the case files of the world’s most famous and iconic mysteries in a dynamic series that asks, what is the truth behind the greatest stories ever told?
Cast
Struan Rodger
Himself / Narrator
