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[ Man Narrating]
Pioneers on their way to California...
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cross the American frontier...
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and run headlong into a deadly roadblock.
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A trap 200 million years
in the making...
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that for one infamous group...
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will end in horror.
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An epic tragedy
with surprising roots in big history.
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We think of history as a timeline...
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a series of events stretching
a few thousand years into the past.
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It's time to think bigger.
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Instead of a line,
imagine a web of infinite connections...
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interacting over billions of years...
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linked together to create
everything we've ever known-
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our universe, our planet...
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and us.
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When we consider our most epic moments
through the lens of science...
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we unleash
a revolutionary new idea-
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the movement of atoms
steer the movements of men...
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civilizations, galaxies.
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History as we know it
is about to get big.
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[ Narrator] America is growing.
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“Yam!
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Ana' in a great migration
across the continent...
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thousands brave
an arduous trek west...
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in search of land and prosperity.
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Most will succeed...
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but not all.
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In just six months...
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the 81 members of the Donner party
cover 1,500 miles...
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and climb their final obstacle-
the High Sierras.
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We imagine migrants
and their wagon trains and so on...
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heading off in that direction
looking at what's coming.
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This terrifying barrier.
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[ Narrator]
A 10-day blizzard traps the Donners...
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in one of Earth's
most extreme climates.
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Half will perish.
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Others resort to cannibalism to survive.
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Traditional history tells us
their horrible fate is a cautionary tale.
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But big history reveals that the Donner
story is pan' of a bigger pattern...
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a surprising link between mankind...
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and the ground beneath our feet.
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Because of their thin air,
freezing temperatures...
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and perilous terrain...
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mountains are nature's barriers.
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A single range can stretch
more than 4,000 miles.
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And the highest peaks on Earth
reach six miles into the sky.
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Big history connects these barriers
to the global migration of mankind.
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This is the Earth as we know it-
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seven separate continents...
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dotted with dozens
of different mountain ranges.
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The Himalayas, the Alps...
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the Andes, the Rockies.
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But what most people don't realize...
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is that these mountains
aren't separate at all.
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They're connected...
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forming just two
major mountain systems.
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In the east is the Alpide Belt...
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one gigantic system stretching
across all of Europe and Asia.
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It runs from the Apennines to the Alps
to the Balkans through Turkey...
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right on through
to the great Himalayan range.
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[ Narrator]
Its origin 70 million years ago-
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a monumental collision
of the Earth's tectonic plates...
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the south crashing into the north.
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[ Markley ] Africa and India
were moving from the south...
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and gradually heading north
and colliding with Eurasia.
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This led to this great Alpide
mountain range.
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[ Narrator] The Alpide Belt
may contain the highest peaks...
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but there's another, larger
mountain system on Earth.
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It circles the Pacific Ocean...
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stretching the length
of the Americas in the west...
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and Asia in the east...
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to create the formidable Ring of Fire.
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Together, the Alpide system
and the Ring of Fire...
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divide up the continents.
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But big history shows us
that for mankind...
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it's how they divide us that matters.
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As humans look for places
to settle around the planet...
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the prime spots sit within
the east-west temperate zone...
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where crops and animals thrive.
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[ Markley]
Human migration tends to run east-west.
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The length of the days
remains the same...
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the temperature tends
to remain about the same...
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the rainfall tends
to be pretty consistent.
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That means that whatever you were growing
in one place will probably transfer.
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[ Narrator] In Europe and Asia,
the Alpide Belt runs east-west...
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so people here can migrate
unobstructed alongside the mountains...
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to reach new farmlands.
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Not so on the other side of the world.
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The amazing thing about the Ring of Fire
is that it's a north-south system...
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instead of an east-west system
like the Alpide Belt.
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[ Narrator]
North-south mountains are a roadblock.
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They cut people off from
desirable land on the other side...
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and make it harder
for mankind to move around.
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In North America, pioneers
face a series of massive obstacles...
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as they settle the West.
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First, the Appalachians.
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A thousand miles later, the Rockies.
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And after that, the Sierras.
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These ranges run north to south.
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They block the way.
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So for settlers like the Donner party...
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Crossing them is dangerous
but unavoidable.
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And the mountains that divide the earth...
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also separate us from each other...
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and even bring us to war.
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Big history connects forward
to eastern Europe...
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where the Balkan mountains
divide people...
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by ethnicity and religion.
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[ Man ] There always has been
a lot of conflict in the Balkans.
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It's this place that's always
boiling with tensions.
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And it's even a word we have:
to balkanize.
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It means to separate into little pockets.
You end up balkanized.
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[ Narrator] This balkanization
leads to the assassination...
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of Austrian Archduke
Franz Ferdinand in 1914...
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[ Gunshots ]
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Plunging Europe
into the First World War.
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It's a phenomenon that' we see
wherever mountains divide us.
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Like in the Appalachians...
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where isolated mountain valleys
are home to feuding clans...
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like the Hatfields and McCoys.
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[ Man ]
The chain of Appalachians...
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certainly set up very independent
clans of families...
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and they developed
a number of blood feuds...
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instead of allowing
normal justice systems...
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at some county courthouse
miles away.
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[ Narrator] Mountains divide us and
steer our movements around the planet.
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But they have another power
that we're willing to kill and die for.
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How do we know?
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There are clues hidden
in the oldest murder mystery on earth.
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[ Narrator] Big history reveals how
mountains steer the movements of man...
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divide us into feuding clans...
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even spark a world war.
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But mountains have another secret
that links them to the story of man.
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Big history connects back
to the Bronze Age...
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and one of the oldest-known murders
on earth.
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High in the Alps,
a young man takes his final steps...
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brought down
by an arrow in the back.
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5,300 years later, in 1991...
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his frozen body emerges
from a melting glacier.
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He is known as Ötzi the Iceman.
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Ötzi the iceman died in the mountains, but
he clearly didn't live in the mountains.
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He was up there for a reason.
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You have to figure
he was looking for something.
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[ Narrator]
Scientists recover two intriguing clues...
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his ax blade, made almost
entirely of pure copper...
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and arsenic residue in his hair.
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[ Markley] The evidence of
the copper ax and the arsenic residue...
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leads us to believe this man was
probably a metalworker of some kind...
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and that was why
he was in the mountains.
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And the most likely thing
he was looking for was metal.
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[ Narrator]
Mountains are a treasure trove...
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[Anvil Clanging ]
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Of the minerals and metals
that people have always needed.
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Flint for fire.
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Copper and tin for Bronze Age swords.
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Iron...
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gold...
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silver.
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But metals are no more common
in the mountains than anywhere else.
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So why do Ötzi and millions like him...
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have to trek into the mountains
to get them?
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Big history connects to geology.
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Minerals are often miles deep...
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buried under sediments
that piled up over millions of years.
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Early man has no way
to dig that deep.
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But mountains do.
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Continents collide to create
mountains that climb miles high.
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Then erosion bulldozes
the outer layers of earth...
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and exposes the prize.
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[Valle ] Mountains pretty much
do excavation for us.
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When you're walking along a cliff face
and you see your rare mineral or coal...
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or anything like that sticking out of it...
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it's easy to grab a pickax and a shovel
and start mining and follow the vein.
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Try and do that
in the middle of a flat plain.
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You dig down.
You may not even find anything.
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[ Panting ]
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[ Narrator]
Bronze Age men like Ötzi...
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will be among the first
to die for these riches.
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In modern times, mountains
offer up another vital resource-
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energy.
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Obviously, the coal that comes
out of the Appalachians...
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helps drive the industrial revolution
in North America.
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Think of the role of that coal in driving
the great machines, the great factories.
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Without that coal, itself the product
of mountain building...
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we might not have had
industrialization.
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[ Narrator] But not all the riches raining
down from mountains are set in stone.
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Big history reveals how height
and gravity work together...
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to make mountains
into water towers.
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Mountains reach so far into
the atmosphere that they create weather.
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00:15:12,037 --> 00:15:15,749
They force moist air
passing over them to rise...
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where it cools...
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and its water vapor
condenses and falls as rain.
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00:15:25,593 --> 00:15:28,012
Mountains are rainmakers.
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All the wettest places on Earth...
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are on the windward side of mountains.
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In temperate zones,
this moisture usually falls as snow.
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[ Man ] In the growing season,
that water is then slowly melted away...
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where it feeds into
the world's biggest river systems.
199
00:16:00,419 --> 00:16:02,796
And so, very simply,
without the role of mountains...
200
00:16:02,880 --> 00:16:04,798
allowing the water to accumulate
and then releasing it...
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at a slow and steady rate
in the summer...
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we simply wouldn't have the major
watersheds that we have in the world today.
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00:16:17,728 --> 00:16:20,064
[ Narrator]
So if mountains are so vital...
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00:16:21,190 --> 00:16:24,026
what would the Earth
be like without them?
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There is a sign hidden in the place
where mountains are born...
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00:16:29,657 --> 00:16:34,244
a place where few men
have ever gone.
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[ Narrator] Big history shows us
how geology shapes our history...
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00:16:43,754 --> 00:16:46,465
how mountains act
as giant bulldozers...
209
00:16:46,548 --> 00:16:50,010
to raise up and carve out metals...
210
00:16:53,764 --> 00:16:56,684
and as giant blenders
that churn the atmosphere...
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to water the planet.
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00:17:03,565 --> 00:17:07,236
But the mountains most essential
to life on Earth-..
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00:17:09,405 --> 00:17:11,907
Are the ones we can't see.
214
00:17:13,367 --> 00:17:15,869
Big history connects back...
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00:17:15,953 --> 00:17:19,206
to an unprecedented expedition
in the mid-Atlantic.
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00:17:28,799 --> 00:17:31,385
[Tapping I
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00:17:31,468 --> 00:17:34,763
It's the age of the first
transatlantic telegraph.
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00:17:35,639 --> 00:17:39,017
And a British ship
surveys the ocean floor.
219
00:17:41,353 --> 00:17:43,897
[ Markley] H.M.S. Challenger
was looking for a good route...
220
00:17:43,981 --> 00:17:46,358
to lay a cable across the Atlantic...
221
00:17:46,442 --> 00:17:48,736
and they came across something
quite unexpected...
222
00:17:50,446 --> 00:17:54,408
a massive mountain range
under the ocean...
223
00:17:54,491 --> 00:17:57,619
the entire length
of the Atlantic Ocean.
224
00:17:57,703 --> 00:18:00,831
We call it now the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
225
00:18:03,000 --> 00:18:06,837
[ Narrator] This 10, 000-mile stretch
of constant earthquakes...
226
00:18:06,920 --> 00:18:11,133
volcanoes and spewing vents...
227
00:18:11,216 --> 00:18:13,677
is not just a mountain range.
228
00:18:14,887 --> 00:18:17,514
It's a mountain factory.
229
00:18:19,057 --> 00:18:23,562
As the sea floor separates
and builds these mid-ocean ridges...
230
00:18:24,563 --> 00:18:27,649
continents are shoved apart...
231
00:18:27,733 --> 00:18:31,236
creating mountains
thousands of miles away.
232
00:18:32,529 --> 00:18:35,009
[ Benjamin ] Here are the processes
that drive plate tectonics.
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00:18:35,073 --> 00:18:40,704
These same mountain ranges are driving great
parts of the crust of the Earth to move...
234
00:18:40,788 --> 00:18:43,707
and to create eventually
other mountain ranges.
235
00:18:45,542 --> 00:18:49,713
[ Narrator] Without this factory
constantly building new mountains...
236
00:18:51,089 --> 00:18:55,469
our existing mountains
would slowly erode away...
237
00:18:55,552 --> 00:18:59,014
turning Earth into a nightmare planet.
238
00:18:59,723 --> 00:19:02,309
If there were no mountains on Earth...
239
00:19:02,392 --> 00:19:06,563
the entire planet would be radically
different than what we know today.
240
00:19:08,065 --> 00:19:10,567
Imagine no windbreaks...
241
00:19:11,485 --> 00:19:14,530
so wind just continually speeds up.
242
00:19:14,613 --> 00:19:18,325
Whirlwinds, gigantic tornadoes, cyclones.
243
00:19:20,244 --> 00:19:22,371
It would be completely uninhabitable...
244
00:19:22,454 --> 00:19:25,415
completely unlivable.
245
00:19:27,584 --> 00:19:29,169
[ Narrator] Underwater...
246
00:19:29,253 --> 00:19:33,715
the intense heat rising from
the Earth's molten interior...
247
00:19:33,799 --> 00:19:37,261
gushes out through black smokers...
248
00:19:39,096 --> 00:19:42,516
creating a hellish soup
of broiling chemicals...
249
00:19:42,599 --> 00:19:47,354
that billions of years ago
may have created life.
250
00:19:48,480 --> 00:19:50,800
[ Benjamin ] Here's where
early forms of bacteria appear...
251
00:19:50,816 --> 00:19:54,695
feeding off the energy and heat that was
coming out of these volcanic eruptions.
252
00:19:54,778 --> 00:19:58,532
Here we think the first life
on Earth appeared...
253
00:19:58,615 --> 00:20:02,786
beside these great
undersea mountain ranges.
254
00:20:05,038 --> 00:20:07,291
[ Narrator]
We've seen the power of mountains...
255
00:20:10,460 --> 00:20:13,213
as barriers that separate us...
256
00:20:16,174 --> 00:20:18,969
bulldozers that bring us riches...
257
00:20:21,889 --> 00:20:24,057
sources of water...
258
00:20:29,396 --> 00:20:31,607
and perhaps even life.
259
00:20:35,319 --> 00:20:37,654
Mountains define the landscape...
260
00:20:38,322 --> 00:20:41,658
carving the earth
into a complex playing field...
261
00:20:41,742 --> 00:20:45,579
with obstacles that dare us
to challenge them.
262
00:20:46,955 --> 00:20:50,167
They divide us, sustain us...
263
00:20:51,376 --> 00:20:53,837
and shape who we are.
264
00:20:58,508 --> 00:21:01,386
But the story of mountains
is just the beginning.
265
00:21:01,470 --> 00:21:04,348
There's a much bigger puzzle
hidden in big history.
266
00:21:04,431 --> 00:21:06,683
Each episode unlocks a clue.
267
00:21:08,268 --> 00:21:09,853
Things like water...
268
00:21:11,188 --> 00:21:12,606
meteors...
269
00:21:13,690 --> 00:21:15,651
and the sun hold the key.
270
00:21:16,193 --> 00:21:19,947
Watch them all and you'll see
this grand mystery revealed.
271
00:21:20,030 --> 00:21:23,283
The big history of time, of space.
272
00:21:23,367 --> 00:21:26,703
The big history of us.
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