Absalom, according to the Hebrew Bible, was the third son of David, King of Israel with Maacah, daughter of Talmai, King of Geshur.
Alexander III was King of Scots from 1249 until his death. He concluded the Treaty of Perth, by which Scotland acquired sovereignty over the Western Isles and the Isle of Man. His heir, Margaret, Maid of Norway, died before she could be crowned.
The Book of Samuel forms part of the narrative history of Israel in the Nevi'im or "prophets" section of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament called the Deuteronomistic history, a series of books that constitute a theological history of the Israelites and aim to explain God's law for Israel under the guidance of the prophets. According to Jewish tradition, the book was written by Samuel, with additions by the prophets Gad and Nathan. Modern scholarly thinking is that the entire Deuteronomistic history was composed in the period c. 630–540 BC by combining a number of independent texts of various ages.
David is described in the Hebrew Bible as the third king of the United Monarchy of Israel and Judah, becoming king after Ish-bosheth. In the Books of Samuel, David is a young shepherd who gains fame first as a musician and later by killing the enemy champion Goliath. He becomes a favorite of King Saul and a close friend of Saul's son Jonathan. Worried that David is trying to take his throne, Saul turns on David. After Saul and Jonathan are killed in battle, David is anointed as King. David conquers Jerusalem, taking the Ark of the Covenant into the city, and establishing the kingdom founded by Saul. As king, David commits adultery with Bathsheba, leading him to arrange the death of her husband Uriah the Hittite. Because of this sin, David's son Absalom tries to overthrow him. David flees Jerusalem during Absalom's rebellion, but after Absalom's death he returns to the city to rule Israel. Because David shed much blood, God denies David the opportunity to build the temple. Before his peaceful death, he chooses his son Solomon as successor. He is honored in the prophetic literature as an ideal king and the forefather of a future Messiah, and many psalms are ascribed to him.
Saul, according to the Hebrew Bible, was the first king of the United Kingdom of Israel. His reign, traditionally placed in the late 11th century BC, supposedly marked a transition from a tribal society to statehood.
David II was King of Scotland for nearly 42 years, from 1329 until his death in 1371. He was the last male of the House of Bruce. Although David spent long periods in exile or captivity, he managed to resist English attempts to annex his kingdom, and left the monarchy in a strong position.
James Arthur Baldwin was an American novelist, playwright, essayist, poet, and activist. His essays, as collected in Notes of a Native Son (1955), explore intricacies of racial, sexual, and class distinctions in Western societies, but most notably in the mid-20th-century United States. Some of Baldwin's essays are book-length, including The Fire Next Time (1963), No Name in the Street (1972), and The Devil Finds Work (1976). An unfinished manuscript, Remember This House, was expanded and adapted for cinema as the Academy Award–nominated documentary film I Am Not Your Negro. One of his novels, If Beale Street Could Talk, was adapted into an Academy Award-winning dramatic film in 2018 directed and produced by filmmaker Barry Jenkins.
Bathsheba was the wife of Uriah the Hittite and later of David, according to the Hebrew Bible. She is most known for the biblical narrative in which she was summoned by King David, who had seen her bathing and lusted after her. She was the mother of Solomon, who succeeded David as king, making her the Queen mother.
Uriah the Hittite is a minor character in the Hebrew Bible, mentioned in the Books of Samuel, an elite soldier in the army of David, king of Israel and Judah, and the husband of Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam. While Uriah is serving in David's army abroad, David himself, from the roof of his palace, looks down on his city and spies Bathsheba bathing in the privacy of her courtyard. Moved by lust at the sight of her, David calls for her to be brought to him and sleeps with her, impregnating her. In an effort to hide his misdeeds, David tries to call on Uriah to return home from war, hoping that the two will have relations and that he will be able to pass the child off as belonging to Uriah. But Uriah, being a disciplined soldier, refuses to leave his post. So, David murders him by proxy, ordering all of Uriah's comrades to abandon him in the midst of battle, so that he is killed by an opposing army. Following Uriah's death, David takes Bathsheba as his eighth wife.
Professor Abraham Van Helsing, a fictional character from the 1897 gothic horror novel Dracula, is an aged polymath Dutch doctor with a wide range of interests and accomplishments, partly attested by the string of letters that follows his name: "MD, D.Ph., D.Litt., etc.", indicating a wealth of experience, education and expertise. The character is best known through many adaptations of the story as a vampire hunter and the archenemy of Count Dracula.
Ish-bosheth, also called Eshbaal, was one of the four sons of King Saul and the second king over the Kingdom of Israel, after the death of his father and three brothers at the Battle of Mount Gilboa.
Jonathan Rhys Meyers is an Irish actor. He is known for his roles in the films Michael Collins (1996), Velvet Goldmine (1998), Bend It Like Beckham (2002), Alexander (2004), Match Point (2005), Mission: Impossible III (2006) and his television roles as Elvis Presley in the biographical miniseries Elvis (2005), for which he won a Golden Globe Award and earned a Primetime Emmy Award nomination, as King Henry VIII in the historical drama The Tudors (2007–10), which earned him two Golden Globe Award nominations, and in the NBC drama series Dracula (2013–14) as the title character. He also starred as Bishop Heahmund in the History Channel television series Vikings.
Davidand Jonathan were heroic figures of the Kingdom of Israel, who formed a covenant recorded in the books of Samuel.
Jonathan Harker is a fictional character and one of the main protagonists of Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula. His journey to Transylvania and encounter with the vampire Count Dracula and his Brides at Castle Dracula constitutes the dramatic opening scenes in the novel and most of the film adaptations. Stoker appropriated the surname from his friend Joseph Cunningham Harker (1855-1920), a set designer at the Lyceum Theatre and father of actor William Gordon Harker (1885-1967) as well as great-grandfather of actress Polly Adams, whose actress-daughters Susannah Harker and Caroline Harker adopted the Harker surname for their stage names.
The Man in the Iron Mask is a 1998 American action drama film directed, produced, and written by Randall Wallace, and starring Leonardo DiCaprio in a dual role as the title character and villain, Jeremy Irons as Aramis, John Malkovich as Athos, Gerard Depardieu as Porthos, and Gabriel Byrne as D'Artagnan. The picture uses characters from Alexandre Dumas's D'Artagnan Romances and is very loosely adapted from some plot elements of The Vicomte de Bragelonne.
Jonathan is a heroic figure in 1 Samuel in the Hebrew Bible. A prince of the United Kingdom of Israel, he was the eldest son of King Saul as well as a close friend of David, who eventually succeeded Saul as king.
The Book of Lost Things is a fantasy novel by John Connolly. The book follows David, a twelve-year-old boy who struggles with his mother's death and his father's remarriage to a woman named Rose, with whom he has a baby named Georgie. When a World War II bomber plane crashes into his garden, he finds himself transported into the fantasy world of his books; he must find the King, who can return him to his home. The novel takes a fresh look at traditional fairy tales, following a child's journey into adulthood.
Stuck in Neutral is a young adult novel by Terry Trueman. It focuses deeply on the subject of cerebral palsy, quality of life, and euthanasia. The main character is Shawn McDaniel, a fourteen-year-old who has cerebral palsy. The story, told from Shawn's perspective, also focuses on how his family copes with the condition. Shawn's mother, brother, sister, and father are all talked about in the book. Stuck in Neutral received recognition as an Honor Book for the Michael L. Printz Award in 2001.
Bring Up the Bodies is a historical novel by Hilary Mantel and sequel to her award-winning Wolf Hall. The second part of a trilogy charting the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell, the powerful minister in the court of King Henry VIII, it won the 2012 Man Booker Prize and the 2012 Costa Book of the Year. The final novel in the trilogy, The Mirror and the Light, was published in March 2020.
"A Man Without Honor" is the seventh episode of the second season of HBO's medieval fantasy television series Game of Thrones.
