The new major-studio release Birth of a Nation brings the story of Nat Turner's 1831 slave revolt to the big screen. Want some background before you head to the multiplex? Start at Encyclopedia Virginia.

• The revolt left about fifty-five white men, women, and children dead in Southampton County. After his capture, Turner apparently described the events and his motivations for violence to a local attorney. Here you can find the full transcript of Turner's "Confessions."
• Then read our overview entry of the document and how historians have found it useful to understanding Turner even as they are skeptical about some of its particulars.
• In 1967, the Virginian William Styron adapted the document for his Pulitzer Prize–winning novel of the same name, The Confessions of Nat Turner. (No, we don't have that transcribed, but it's worth a read anyway!)

Our contributor for both "Confessions" entries is Scot A. French, author of The Rebellious Slave: Nat Turner in American Memory. Perhaps he'll want to update his book (and our entries) after the interesting discussions provoked by Nate Parker's new film. For now, though, we recommend these interesting takes.

• Reviewing the film for Slate, Dana Stevens notes that the real-life Turner "was a much more morally complex figure than the righteous avenger" in the film.
• In the New Yorker, Vinson Cunningham examines the original "Confessions," finding "Turner's deadpan account of the killings [to be] alternately thrilling and terrifying."
• Salamishah Tillet, writing in the New York Times, finds fault with the film's treatment of women, suggesting they are made to be victims of rape or motivations for violence, but are never particularly humanized. (Scot French is quoted in that story, by the way.)
• The New York Post, meanwhile, publishes Sara Stewart's vow to skip Birth of a Nation—not because of how the film treats women but because of how its director and star allegedly treats women.
• Finally, two interesting pieces—one in New York Magazine's Vulture and one in Vox—examine the role of religion in Nat Turner's story.

A long, document-rich entry for the encyclopedia on Turner's revolt is coming soon. We'll let you know when it goes live.

(Image courtesy of Fox Searchlight)

October 3, 1849: Edgar Allan Poe is discovered unconscious and dangerously ill inside a Baltimore tavern.

October 6, 1800: Gabriel, an enslaved man owned by Thomas H. Prosser, is convicted of conspiring to lead a slave insurrection.

October 15, 1818: Elizabeth Van Lew is born in Richmond.

October 27, 1895: A fire breaks out in the Annex of the University of Virginia's Rotunda. The blaze largely destroys the Rotunda building but spares the rest of the Academical Village.

October 29, 1618: Sir Walter Raleigh is beheaded by order of King James I in the Old Palace Yard at the Palace of Westminster.

October 30, 1831: Nat Turner is captured.

(Image of the Rotunda, 1895, courtesy of University of Virginia Special Collections)