Today In History; Giuseppe Verdi's Giovanna d'Arco Premieres

1845: Joan of Arc led the French against the English during the Hundred Years' War and was ultimately captured and executed. She is a national heroine of France and a saint of the Catholic Church. Giuseppe Verdi was only one of the many who have written about her. She has fascinated writers - including William Shakespeare, Friedrich Schiller, George Bernard Shaw, and Bertolt Brecht - throughout the ages. Mark Twain wrote a fictional biography of Joan of Arc under the pen-name Sieur Louis de Conte. To this day the French party Front National uses her image as a symbol of French nationalism.