1400s: Tamerlane rules his vast territories by allowing his soldiers to keep the booty from the conquests and filling his treasury with ransom money extracted from conquered cities.

1580s: The Ottoman Empire, at the height of its power, controls most of Tamerlane's former territories and arouses fear and misunderstanding from Christian nations.

Today: The Middle East, which is the primary location of the events in Tamburlaine the Great, contains a number of prosperous nations with rich natural resources, but it is one of the most politically unstable regions in the world.

1400s: England is in the midst of the Middle Ages. Henry IV has just come to power, having deposed his cousin Richard II, and he will deal forcibly with the insurrections and other problems resulting in part from the devastation of the Black Plague in the mid-1300s.

1580s: Elizabeth rules England with...