‘Once-in-a-millennium moment’: Medieval masterpiece Bayeux Tapestry finally goes on show in London

The 230-foot tapestry telling the story of William the Conqueror’s 1066 invasion reflects a “really seismic moment in British history,” the project’s curator told NBC News.

LONDON — Dramatic, bloody and occasionally lewd, the Bayeux Tapestry has lived for nearly a millennium as a hand-stitched tale of a conquest that changed the course of history.

Now the medieval masterpiece is making history itself, having left France for the first time in centuries to go on display in London’s British Museum — a show so popular that tickets sold out long in advance of its public opening on Thursday.

Roughly 230 feet long, it tells the story of the fight for the British crown between William the Conqueror, a duke from Normandy, and the last Anglo-Saxon monarch, Harold II, also known as Harold Godwinson, which culminated with the gruesome Battle of Hastings on Oct. 14, 1066.

Transported earlier this year to London in a secretive, high-tech operation, the ancient tapestry, which NBC News was given exclusive access to earlier this week, is now highlighting the modern detente between Britain and France, whose history is defined by centuries of rivalry, colonial ambitions and bloody conflict on land and sea.

The tapestry is…

Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/world