Sarah Dunant finds chilling parallels between recent events in Washington and the Sack of Rome in 1527.

"Both seemed to feel," Sarah writes, "that whatever the threat, 'God's Holy City' or 'the seat of American democracy', were somehow, by their very nature, inviolate. I mean nobody would dare, would they?"

Powerful first-hand accounts, the crowd fired up by wild stories and the use of new technology are all there.

Producer: Adele Armstrong