In August of 1578, King Sebastian of Portugal rode into battle in the African desert against the advice of his commanders, the King of Spain, and the Pope. He was twenty-four years old. He led fourteen thousand men deep into Morocco in the heat of an African summer, toward a waiting army he could not defeat, because he believed — genuinely, completely believed — that he was the Hidden King of prophecy, destined to conquer Africa and usher in a new age of divine justice. He did not come back. Eight thousand of his men died with him. His body was never conclusively identified.

Portugal lost its king, its independence, and sixty years of its sovereignty in a single afternoon.

Host Shawn Spainhour takes you into the full story: a shoemaker in a small walled town who wrote prophecies that were banned by the Inquisition and copied illegally ...