Peaky Blinders and history

I am a huge fan of the Netflix series Peaky Blinders. When it first came out in 2013, I didn't really pay much attention to it. Then, around Season 3 in 2015, I watched it and was hooked. One of the things I learned while watching the series, and finally the movie this year, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, was how many bits of history were intertwined with the obvious fictional elements. It is a huge reason I am a fan. There is something about historical fiction that, as someone who studies and researches history, draws me to it. I think the biggest thing is that it opens up stories, people, places, and events I would not normally have sought out. When I do look into them, I am fascinated by the real history as well as how that history gets interpreted for entertainment. And this show has a LOT of history in it. Regular characters, and even the Peaky Blinders themselves, are based on real people. The Shelby family was obviously fictional, but the real Peaky Blinders were not. They…