King George III is often remembered in America as a cartoonish tyrant, but the historical record shows a science-minded, deeply moral and inflexible man who reigned for nearly 60 years. This episode takes a fresh look at the monarch who survived an assassination attempt at Drury Lane in 1800 and calmly stayed for the play.

We follow George from his premature birth and sheltered education through his decision to surrender Crown Estate revenues for a civil list, his faithful marriage to Charlotte, and the Royal Marriages Act of 1772. We then reexamine his role in the American Revolution, his recurring illness and the Regency crisis, his reputation as Farmer George, and his conflicted record on slavery.

• Why he was the first Hanoverian king born in Britain and raised to speak English natively
• How Parliament, not the king, drove the colonial taxes and why the colonists still targeted George
• The abdication notice he drafted after Yorktown and his gracious words to John Adams
• Why recent scholarship favors bipolar disorder over the porphyria theory of his illness
• His patronage of William Herschel, who wanted to name Uranus George’s Star