The Empire Strikes Back (III) | The Croissant, Dinner at Omar Khayyam's, and a Murder in Sarajevo

Hollywood & History - 016

The third and final segment of our interview with Professor Shedel weaves together different stories to bring our fascinating conversation to a close. We learn how Austrian bakers helped defeat the Ottomans during the 1683 siege of Vienna and invented one of the world's most famous pastries. From there, we take a trip down memory lane, as Professor Shedel relates to us his fond memories of going to George Mardikian's famed San Francisco restaurant Omar Khayyam's. It turns out that the professor as a young boy may have run into Soghomon Tehlirian, the principal protagonist of the story Armen and Michael are currently working on. Tehlirian's life trajectory culminating with the assassination of Talat Pasha closely parallels that of his near mirror contemporary, Gavrilo Princip. Professor Shedel recounts the intricacies of the successful plot that led to the death of Austro-Hungarian archduke Franz Ferdinand and the worldwide conflagration it set off. And we round all of this off, finally, with a discussion of some of the professor's favorite films.

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