All language subtitles for [EngSub] History Ch - History of the World in Two Hours ( Full ) (720p_24fps_H264-192kbit_AAC).inglés

what if we could tell you everything the

entire history of the world now what if

we told you we could do it in just two

hours

we're going to tell the whole story from

the Big Bang to the present day how the

planet prepared for the rise of man how

the Stone Age led to the steam engine

how the first seeds sprouted into cities

and civilizations everything is

connected more and the path leads to you

it took history 13.7 billion years to

unfold will show you everything you need

to know in the next two hours

this is our infant universe everything

that will ever exist everything that

will ever happen all begins here within

this tiny bundle of energy smaller than

an atom

[Music]

and right now history as we know it is

about to mysteriously begin

for reasons we may never know our

universe suddenly erupts

in a millionth of a millionth of a

millionth of a millionth of a millionth

of a millionth of a second it went from

a size smaller than an atom to bigger

than a galaxy whoosh

what you're seeing is energy and it's

one key to understanding everything that

will unfold in the next two hours within

a fraction of a second the Big Bang

creates all the energy that will ever

exist all the energy that will power the

Stars that will fuel anything that ever

lives all the energy that you will ever

consume dates back to the beginning of

time

when you put gas into your car you're

tapping energy that was created during

the Big Bang you're tapping the energy

of the universe itself

we're only a few minutes into our

two-hour journey but already 380,000

years have passed you are about to

witness the birth of your original

ancestors the first atoms

this is hydrogen the universe will use

it to make everything in the world

around us hydrogen is like a baseball

team you say what player do I want to

start my team with well if I want to

start a universe I want to start it with

hydrogen because from that there's a lot

of heat and a lot of pressure you can

build more kinds of atoms the first

atoms blast through the early universe

then luckily for us they don't spread

out evenly because in those tiny pockets

with more atoms gravity the great

sculptor of the early universe begins to

work its magic

the first galaxies are beginning to form

revealing a timeless secret of the

universe

[Music]

throughout history whenever more matter

and energy can be drawn together in one

place more complex things can emerge we

have all of these urban centers around

the planet where so much creativity so

much art so much science so much culture

came about because of all these

opportunities for things that interact

with each other really in a sense where

there is stuff new stuff can develop and

where there isn't anything nothing much

can develop

[Music]

300 million years after the Big Bang

inside of forming galaxies gravity

continues to squeeze together clouds of

gas and dust causing pressure and heat

to violently rise when the temperature

reaches 18 million degrees Fahrenheit

hydrogen atoms slam together creating a

new element helium and radiating bursts

of energy

the first star is not born suddenly

there were these new beacons of light

shining forth pouring energy into the

universe let there be light

but something is missing from this early

universe there are billions of stars yet

not a single planet to form planets and

eventually people to take the next leap

that would make all of history possible

the universe needs more to work with

than just hydrogen and helium the

complicated elements the heavier things

that we build stuff out of for example

iron ore life built out of carbon and

things like that they actually

manufactured and stars we may see stars

like our own Sun as sources of light but

there is something bigger happening deep

inside stars our element factories they

fuse hydrogen into helium helium into

lithium forging 25 of the most common

elements we'll need to live in clue

carbon oxygen nitrogen and iron so more

than 12 billion years ago stars are

already creating the element that will

spur the iron age allow for the building

of cities and the creation of some of

mankind's most famous monuments but a

look at the Statue of Liberty reveals

the next challenge awaiting the early

universe while the statues frame is iron

her skin requires an element too heavy

to be made in Stars

for Lady Liberty to have material for

her skin for there to be gold for

wedding rings or uranium for nuclear

reactors some elements had to be created

another way stars don't have enough

energy to do the job but if the element

factory isn't powerful enough

how about blowing up the factory

just a few million years after the first

stars form some of them exploded Wham

these explosions known as supernovas are

the biggest blasts in the universe since

the Big Bang providing the extra boost

of energy needed to fuse heavier

elements in the fiery blast of their own

destruction stars create uranium gold

all the rest of the elements that will

fill our world including copper

the periodic table of the elements is

really sort of a library of matter in

the universe

those are your building blocks

everything is coming out of that

particular chemistry set

supernovas are absolutely necessary for

us to be here we have iron in our blood

we have little bits of old supernovae if

therefore just floating around through

us we are all Stardust competent in

bronze age without supernovas

there's no Bronze Age go to any

supermarket and buy a multivitamin and

go and look at the ingredients you'll

find copper you'll find zinc you'll find

selenium you'll find all sorts of

elements that can only be made in a

supernova the elements made by stars

will become the seeds of life on earth

and the drivers of human history but the

journey has just begun

before there can be life the universe

has to build us a suitable home to build

a proper house you have to assemble the

right materials all in one place now on

planets form it's the same thing because

the materials that you have at hand

that's going to dictate the kind of

house that your planets going to be to

get enough of the right material in the

right place all at once takes a very

long time over the next eight billion

years more than half of history as we

know it the element factories continue

their work the stars explode and are

reborn each generation with more heavy

elements than the last until 4.6 billion

years ago

finally there are enough materials

gathered for the next step on the path

to us

a new star is born this is our Sun it's

so massive that it's gathered up 99.9%

of the gas and dust in the solar system

but there's still just enough left

behind for gravity to build some other

things like planets the third one out

from this star will be our home

by the time earth emerges just over four

and a half billion years ago two thirds

of the history of the universe has

already passed

the first sunrises sweep across a

foreboding alien planet a world spinning

so rapidly that a day lasts only six

hours

when you go back to the early Earth

right after the planet formed you really

have to think of the earth as another

planet the Sun would have looked out

over a hellacious scene of just molten

lava

in places you would see rafts of black

volcanic rock within the liquefied Rock

the elements are all in a jumble

something has to bring order out of this

chaos and once again that something is

gravity

lighter material drifts toward the

surface and forms a solid crust

while heavier material sinks toward the

center forming a molten iron nickel core

this churning liquid metal creates a

magnetic field that reaches out into

space like a force field it will protect

our future home from the sun's deadly

charged particles soon this magnetic

field will allow for life to grow and

later guide the explorers who will

connect two halves of the world but for

all this to unfold the earth will need a

critical partner

four-and-a-half billion years ago an

object the size of Mars smashes into the

planet at 25,000 miles per hour

earth swallows up much of the impacter

but a spray of molten debris is whipped

off into space within as little as a

year

gravity gathers this debris into a

secondary sphere in orbit around the

earth where it has been ever since

the formation of the moon was an

incredibly important event in Earth's

history and in fact its creation over

four billion years ago is really

important to the Earth's climate today

the moon keeps earth steady its

gravitational pull prevents the planet

from wobbling saving us from wild

climate swings and the collision that

formed the moon leaves earth tilted on

its axis giving the planet a key

ingredient to life seasons having

seasons is very very important for the

evolution of life on the earth and

having some stability in the tilt of

those axis that's very very important

also for maintaining life on the earth

the moon's gravity also begins to slow

Earth's rotation which will eventually

lengthen our days from six hours to 24

[Music]

4.4 billion years ago it's too hot on

earth for liquid water to exist but

there's water vapor steam in the

atmosphere the trick is how to get it

out of the sky onto any world where you

hope to have life a little rain must

fall

for millions of years as the planet

cools rain pours down forming puddles

lakes and eventually our oceans

by 3.8 billion years ago our planet has

a moon and permanent oceans but it

hardly resembles the place we now call

home to become the stage for all of

human history earth needs an oxygen-rich

atmosphere fertile continents for people

to discover and develop who will create

our modern world there's a trillion of

them crawling on your skin right now

[Applause]

we're telling the history of the world

in two hours from the Big Bang to the

present day and our modern world holds

important clues to the story

in fact structures like this hide a

mysterious link to the first life on

earth

3.8 billion years ago beneath the

surface of our primeval oceans

a revolution is taking place

[Music]

six simple elements including hydrogen

from the Big Bang and oxygen carbon and

nitrogen created by stars have combined

to form the key substances that will

make up all life including us

the most spectacular is DNA within its

spirals hide the secret codes of life

[Music]

700,000 years after the planet first

formed

life on earth begins we stand not on the

shoulders of giants but of tiny

organisms bacteria

[Music]

we're very egocentric we think that we

animals run the world but in fact we are

very late entrance it was an empire of

bacteria long before animals animals

come along and we like to think that we

wiped out that Empire well we would be

dead if we wipe out about Empire I have

within me an entire zoo of bacteria in

fact each one of us has more bacteria

living in our bodies than there are

people on the planet for billions of

years

microbes like these will have Earth's to

themselves like our infant universe the

first life is small simple and full of

possibilities the secret of how it

explodes into all the incredible forms

we see today including us goes back to

the beginning of time

as we've seen all the energy that will

ever exist was created in the Big Bang

all creatures need to grab their share

of this energy to survive the more we

harness the more efficiently we use it

the more complex we can become and

almost all of our share of the Big

Bang's energy is beamed to us by the Sun

two and a half billion years ago some

very special bacteria figure out how to

consume the sun's energy to live in

doing this they also create the most

important waste product in the history

of the world

oxygen soon oxygen will remake our world

but first it has another important job

to do births ancient seas are full of

iron particles and everyone knows what

happens when oxygen meets iron here I'm

a little bacterium I've produced this

oxygen molecule and here's a big piece

of iron clump I rusted this rusted iron

collects on the sea floor

billions of years later these huge

deposits will be raised up to become

major sources of the world's iron and

steel

was these iron deposits that later on

drove the Industrial Revolution in this

way the Brooklyn Bridge and the other

early landmarks of the Industrial Age

are a direct link to some of the first

life-forms on earth once there's no more

iron left in the sea to rust

these ancient bacteria have a mission to

complete

they create so much oxygen that it fills

the oceans and escapes into the

atmosphere

and from then on we have a very

different planet from all the other

planets and sources now life takes a

giant leap for the first time some

bacteria learned to live on oxygen every

human breath is a ritual two and a half

billion years old life tends to stick

with what works even over the course of

billions of years oxygen is a game

changer by taming its power life has

found a better way to energize itself

twenty times more efficient than

anything used on earth before what life

does with all this new energy will be

the story that leads to us

over the next two billion years life

becomes more complex

skies become blue

and so do the oceans that reflect them

large solid continents appear earth is

beginning to look more like the place we

now call home

five hundred fifty million years ago as

the planet celebrates its four billionth

birthday oxygen levels in the atmosphere

have risen from next to nothing to as

much as 13%

take a deep breath because life on earth

is about to go wild

[Music]

this is the Cambrian explosion biology's

version of the Big Bang right after you

have abundant oxygen you get size and

complexity and oxygen lets you do that

it's in this breathtaking span of

roughly 30 million years that most of

the major animal groups evolve by 500

million years ago the first bony fish

have evolved in the seas these fish are

our direct ancestors though they look

nothing like us they evolved the body

parts that will make our own bodies

possible including a spine and a mouth

with jaws and teeth

we owe a great deal to our fish

ancestors in fact all vertebrates today

really represent modifications of the

original fish body plan for the first

four billion years of Earth's history

plants and animals have stuck to the

Seas but that all begins to change with

oxygen comes an ozone layer protecting

us from dangerous radiation

[Music]

plants make the move first

[Music]

around 400 million years ago animals are

ready to take the leap among the first

ashore are the amphibians whose

descendants will include us the most

amazing thing about animal evolution

ever for me personally is that moment

that first amphibian walks out of the

primeval ocean onto land and takes a big

gulp of air kind of like great-great

great-great-great-great grandpa coming

out of the ocean and seeing this

fantastic world it's like hey I can live

here look at those trees look at those

bugs there's food here I can do this

eventually humans will conquer every

imaginable terrain but before we can do

that our ancestors must first cut their

final tie to the water mating season

like modern frogs they have jelly like

eggs that would dry out on land

but some amphibians eventually solve the

problem they evolve a new form of egg

with a shell that keeps the moisture in

this allows us to carry the ocean with

us onto land and signals the evolution

of amphibians into reptiles you could be

three four five hundred a thousand miles

away from water and still have the water

in that egg in order to birth that is

the key it cuts that final tie to the

ocean that way we could colonize the

rest of the land

300 million years ago life flourishes in

massive tropical swamps where planet

Earth is cooking up a surprise as plants

die here they are buried compacted and

cooked energy created in the Big Bang

and radiated by the Sun to plants on

earth is now locked away underground

as coal a gift to be opened by human

beings millions of years in the future

[Applause]

250 million years ago

an apocalypse unfolds the biggest spike

in volcanic activity since the early

days of the planet the atmosphere is

choked with carbon dioxide and the

diversity of animal life spawned and the

Cambrian explosion is stopped dead in

its tracks

more than 70% of all species on earth go

extinct in the worst mass die-off in

history the Permian extinction

extinction is a recurring character in

the story of planet Earth five times in

the last 500 million years some

Cataclysm wiped out the dominant species

it's a reshuffling of the deck that

allows new creatures to take hold

new creatures like the dinosaurs

[Music]

dinosaurs will reign for the next 100 60

million years during that time the first

hardwood forests appear

and after more than four billion years

the moon's gravity finally settles earth

into a 24-hour day at the start of the

dinosaur era the continents are

clustered together into a single

landmass we call Pangaea but now they

start to break apart

Africa separates from South America the

fast Atlantic Ocean opens up creating

what will become one of the defining

barriers of human history the gulf

between the old and new worlds the

undisputed stars of the dinosaur era are

animals like Triceratops and t-rex but

there are some important creatures

scurrying around their feet if we were

to trace our lineage back far enough we

would come to really small shrew-like

mammals surrounded by these titans of

reptile life during that time mammals we

were living on the fringes you're maybe

stealing dinosaur eggs maybe just eking

out an existence so the dinosaurs kind

of held us back the biggest headline of

the history of dinosaurs which is 160

million years is that we lost bamas lost

we couldn't get much bigger than a small

cat for a hundred and sixty billion

years all the medium-sized medium big

big gigantic new stupendous animals for

dinosaurs for that whole time they beat

us fair and square

but the deck is about to be reshuffled

[Music]

sixty-five million years ago a six mile

wide object likely an asteroid slams

into the earth

a dust cloud blocks out the Sun

temperatures plummet

every creature on land weighing over 50

pounds goes extinct the reign of the

dinosaurs is over

the greatest gift that the dinosaurs

ever gave us was dying when they went

extinct it gave the mammals time to rise

it doesn't take long after the

disappearance of the dinosaurs for the

first true primates to appear like their

later versions including us these

mammals have evolved forward-facing eyes

allowing for accurate depth perception

and flexible hands with five digits they

have by fingers just like us which means

we can grasp things if you think about

other animals that don't have digits

organized the way ours are their ability

to hold things to manipulate objects is

much more limited

50 million years ago our primate

ancestors are evolving on a planet that

is warming it's so hot

there are jungles at the poles

[Music]

as the continents drift the Americas and

Africa have almost fully taken shape but

in northern Africa modern-day Egypt is

submerged beneath an ancient sea on the

floor of that sea live small shelled

creatures called num you ladies their

shells made of calcium and carbon pile

up on the sea bottom over millions of

years where they formed into limestone

limestone that will be used to build the

great pyramids if you look closely at

the pyramids today you can still see

evidence that these 4,000 year old

monuments are in fact made of 50 million

year old seashells

[Music]

by 10 million years ago earth is

morphing into a world most of us would

recognize the Colorado River is carving

out the Grand Canyon mountain ranges

like the Himalayas have arisen they're

so tall they disrupt weather patterns

setting the stage for a cold air planet

the Isthmus of Panama i merges to

connect north and south america cleaving

the connection between the atlantic and

the pacific disrupting ocean currents

and tipping the world even more towards

an ice age with the planet getting

colder our primate ancestors hang on in

the tropics but a new creature is coming

in that threatens to destroy them

seven million years ago our primate

ancestors live safely in the trees but

their neighborhood is about to be

invaded this newcomer will have as

profound an effect on human history as

any other living thing on earth

it seems almost impossible to believe

but one of the most important things

that will lead to the emergence of us is

the emergence of grass the grasslands

appear almost simultaneously around the

world we get the African savannas we get

the Eurasian steppe left

we get the North American prairies

we get the great grasslands of Argentina

appearing simultaneously around the

world in Eastern Africa grasslands

invade the traditional woodland habitat

of our ape ancestors with fewer trees

and greater gaps between them our

ancestors have to adapt apes noticed

that there's more and more apes in the

same tree in less and less food

increasing incentives apes to go from

one patch of food to a different one

separated by grasslands now one way to

do it is to run like hell the other way

to do it is to extend one's food sources

into the grasslands and seek out the

foods that are available there

and so some apes make the move down into

this stark new habitat

it's a landscape better suited to

primates that can walk on two legs

[Music]

keeping their heads up above the tall

grasses to watch for predators

standing on two feet is a revolutionary

advance because it frees up our hands

pens we will need to shape human history

[Music]

[Applause]

2.6 million years ago

early proto-human x' or hominids walk

and earth whose rocks are loaded with

the element silicon

[Music]

created in the cores of stars billions

of years before silicon is the second

most abundant element in Earth's crust

one of its chemical quirks is the

ability to bond with oxygen to form

crystals that combine into solid rocks

rocks that can be chipped and shaped

without shattering

hominids started doing this 2.6 million

years ago breaking crypto crystalline

silica --tz-- to make sharp edges and

people use them for millions literally

2.6 million years

[Music]

simply having a modified stone with a

sharp edge on it now suddenly you have a

hammer you have a crude cutting edge a

simple modified stone means a human can

suddenly do a thousand more things than

we could do previously

[Music]

that little extra bit of technology

enabled our ancestors to persist and

eventually turn into us

[Applause]

[Music]

silicon launches the first technological

revolution the Stone Age

[Music]

millions of years after it powers our

first handheld devices another chemical

quirk of silicon will make it the height

of technology once again

the next leap towards becoming truly

human relies on a little-known secret of

our home planet in the known universe

it turns out earth may have a rare and

special power

of all the planets and moons in the

solar system we think that earth is

unique in the ability to sustain fire

other planets and moons have lightning

and lava

but only on earths do we have the two

critical things we need for fire to burn

a vast fuel supply in the form of plants

and trees and an atmosphere full of

oxygen to fan the flames if fire wasn't

the possibility you'd have nothing like

like us running around Homo sapiens they

made a world with fire

our ancestors have fire firmly under

control by eight hundred thousand years

ago it's a skill that connects us back

to the very beginning

[Music]

remember that all energy was created in

the Big Bang and all life is in a

competition for our share of this energy

[Music]

using fire to cook is like having an

external stomach to break down foods

releasing more calories giving us more

energy which in turn allows us to

support bigger brains fire is also the

ultimate gateway technology we will soon

use it to turn clay into pottery metal

into weapons water into steam power if

you don't have fire you can't have the

internal combustion agent no fire no

metal no fire no rubber did some

technology that opens a world of

possibilities for creatures that know

how to use it

200,000 years ago the modern human has

fully taken shape the larynx or voice

box which is high up in the throat in

our ancestors descends more complex

sounds are now possible yet we begin to

speech for the first time information

can be shared between individuals and

across generations

humans have gained a critical advantage

over every other creature on earth the

key tell my grandfather said that when

the elephants didn't show up we go often

hunted zebras now my aunt told me that

her cousin found this water hole on the

other side of that River and we can all

benefit and we can all understand what

they mean when they're describing what

they found out on that landscape

language changes humans from being like

standalone computers to being networked

computers where you can share

information one doesn't need to depend

on one's own personal experience one can

borrow the personal experience of anyone

with whom one can communicate that's a

powerful advantage

no other creature has that as a species

humans become exponentially smarter

the global game board has been said and

we are now ready to play 100,000 years

ago man can move

we have agile hands and primitive tools

we can communicate and control fire we

are finally ready to expand out of our

African home on a path millions of years

in the making

[Music]

shifting continents have linked Africa

and Eurasia into the largest contiguous

land mass on earth afro-eurasia 33

million square miles more than twice the

surface area of our entire moon for

early humans this means more than half

the land on earth can be reached on foot

[Music]

human dispersal was a crucial game

changer we are one of the few primates

that they live on more than one

continent simultaneously know that means

is that we're better insulated from the

kinds of things that cause big mammals

to become extinct than other primates

are its extinction insurance dispersal

is extinction insurance but just as the

world begins to open itself up to man

the planet turns on us an ice age begins

now the planet will test us like never

before

by 50,000 years ago glaciers begin to

advance down from the North Pole

at the same time humans continue their

conquest of the globe arriving in China

and Australia by 30,000 years ago Homo

sapiens reach Europe for the first time

by 20,000 years ago with the ice nearing

its most extreme the march of man

reaches the frigid Tundra of Northeast

Siberia despite the trials of the Ice

Age man endures and develops the last

skills we will need to be truly human

[Music]

the clues lie in these symbols we have

taken an intellectual leap to think

beyond the here and now beyond what is

simply needed to survive we can only

start saying we have an organism that is

human that is the same as us

when we start seeing evidence of

symbolic thought it's when we start

seeing a picture of a cow that everybody

will recognize as the picture of a cow

because only when we start seeing all of

those things can we say that is a human

people or creatures that think like us

that see the world in the same way as us

and from that moment on human history

was marked to be radically different to

any other species on this planet

now with huge amounts of the planet's

water locked up in ice sea levels

plummet by three to four hundred feet

the last great barrier to the spread of

man is erased we come across the Bering

Land Bridge from Siberia to North

America we are telling the history of

the world in two hours and in just one

hour

more than 13 billion years have already

passed these years of preparation have

allowed man to finally emerge and spread

out across the planet and human history

as we know it can truly begin our

history of the world began with the

beginning of time the Big Bang it has

taken us on a journey of nearly fourteen

billion years now as humans take center

stage

it's important to remember just how

small a slice of history we actually

occupy to make things simple

imagine compressing 14 billion years of

history down to just 14 years

on this scale the earth would have

existed only for the past five years so

that's about a third of the history of

the universe large complex creatures

would have developed seven months ago on

this scale dinosaurs went extinct only

about three weeks ago the entire

recorded history of humans would span

only the last three minutes modern

industrial societies the Industrial

Revolution effectively six seconds ago

what this shows me is that we humans

have been around for only a very brief

instant in the recorded history of the

universe

mankind has waited billions of years for

our brief instant to shine as the Stars

and our evolving planet carried out the

slow work of organizing the elements in

a way that would make human history

possible

it's 10,000 BC less than 100,000 years

after expanding out of Africa man has

reached South America

humans have met the adversity of the ice

age head-on and rather than die off we

have adapted become even more

intelligent and now we have colonized

the entire globe from coast to

mountaintop

from tundra

to desert humans are there our closest

living ancestors chimpanzees live in the

tropics they only live in the tropics

humans have managed to colonize the

entire globe ice age land bridges

allowed man to spread around the world

but now the ice begins to melt and sea

levels rise again humans are trapped and

separated in two vast and unconnected

hemispheres each pocket of humanity left

to make the best of what it has been

given as the glaciers recede they carve

out lakes rivers and bays the map as we

know it emerges in Africa increased

rainfall causes Lake Victoria and Lake

Albert to overflow and form Egypt's Nile

River in Eurasia other rivers emerge the

Tigris and Euphrates in Mesopotamia

modern-day Iraq the Indus in modern-day

Pakistan and China's yellow and Yangtze

these river valleys become critically

important for how human history will now

be played out following the retreat of

these ice sheets these are the river

valleys whose waters and fertile soils

will allow the first seeds of

civilization to be planted with

temperatures warming after the Ice Age

plants and animals are more plentiful

and man can finally choose to stop

moving permanent settlements begin

populations grow

[Music]

with more mouths to feed our ancestors

have to get clever they had to find a

way to increase the amount of food they

could get from the surroundings

now one discovery forever changes the

planet and the path of mankind

we learn to plant seeds

and the seeds we sow come from the same

plants that millions of years earlier

spurred our evolution from ape to man

the unheralded hero of human history

grass the grass seed is tiny right it's

no food I can hunt a bison or I can take

grass hunter bison right ironically

grass seeds become the most important

food crops in the world but they're the

things that are ignored by

hunter-gatherers for thousands and

thousands of years people don't start

using it until they absolutely have to

use them some of the species of grass

that we are most familiar with includes

sugar cane it includes wheat and rye and

barley all of the cereal crops are types

of grass so it's not just that beautiful

green lawn that we measure our

middle-class success from it's also the

staple crop upon which civilization

depends it is the majority of our

calorie intake once again it all goes

back to the Big Bang

central to the story of all life is our

competition for that energy created at

the beginning of time just as oxygen

gave us an edge just as fire allowed us

to consume more calories switching to

farming is an energy revolution a

hunter-gatherer needs 10 square miles of

territory to provide himself with enough

sustenance enough energy in the form of

plants and meat to survive a farmer can

harvest the sun's energy so efficiently

he can fulfill his needs using only 1/10

of a square mile of land in the warming

after the last ice age farming begins to

take hold in a half-dozen places around

the globe but by the fortunes of

geography no place in the ancient world

has a better concentration of plants and

animals that can be domesticated than

the Middle East's Fertile Crescent in

the Middle East we have this remarkable

convergence of species that seemed to

have been susceptible to domestication

both plants and animals in terms of

animals we're talking about cattle pigs

sheep and goats in terms of plants two

varieties of wheat rye barley lentils

figs all in this very small part of the

world

unlike the Fertile Crescent and the rest

of afro-eurasia places like sub-saharan

Africa and the Americas have very few

wild species that can be easily

domesticated it's a critical difference

people blessed with the right mix of

plants and animals will become more

powerful and get a massive head start on

the road to the modern world

[Music]

one animal that gives any human who

containment an almost unbeatable edge is

the horse

it's a little-known fact that although

horses first evolved in the Americas

they died out there along with many

other large mammals around 10,000 BC

there was at least three species of Ice

Age horses in North America maybe more

some as small as ponies some his biggest

clients tails they had revolved in North

America for 40 million years they're

part of the whole history and then

they're gone these powerful potential

allies disappear before they can be used

by the first North Americans fortunately

before that happened large numbers of

horses escaped back across the Bering

Strait land bridge and spread out across

the great grasslands the steppe lands of

central Eurasia a narrow escape that had

a profound effect on human history

around 4000 BC nomadic people in Central

Asia learned to tame them for the first

time domesticated horses will be

harnessed across Eurasia advancing

everything from work to warfare

perhaps no other animal has had a bigger

influence on the course of human history

and the circle wouldn't be complete for

another 5,000 years when Christopher

Columbus would bring horses with him on

his second voyage to the Americas his

horses would be the first to set hooves

in the Americas

since the great die-off over 10,000

years earlier

6,000 years ago domestication of animals

and plants sets the stage for the next

phase of human history like clouds of

interstellar dust gathering in material

to form stars a type of gravity is at

work as places like Sumeria located in

part of the Fertile Crescent known as

Mesopotamia draw in people support large

populations and spin up into centers of

power and innovation

by 3,000 BC some of these Sumerian

settlements can truly be called our

first cities one of them Warrick has

around 50,000 people living in less than

one square mile a population density

that rivals modern-day New York City

humans have become so efficient at

deriving energy from domesticated food

that this land area which would have

supported only a single hunter-gatherer

now can support thousands but a change

in diet also triggers a new dependence

once you move to agriculture you are

depending for 80 90 percent of your

calories on perhaps one or two species

in the case of the Middle East wheat and

barley in the case of wheat and barley

they both ripen at about the same time

humans have to gather the seeds at the

same time so now we have our food for

the year that has arrived in one hit

it's like getting your salary paid once

a year you need to record it you need to

plan because if inevitably your crop

fails you have famine and you're not

going to have another go for another 12

months

in these first cities crops are king to

keep track of them our our ancestors

developed the first writing to protect

them

the first armies and to administer them

the beginnings of politics when you have

hundreds or thousands of people who are

living together there's simply too many

people to sort of run around and create

a census it creates a need for

government it creates a need for some

form of social and political hierarchy

planting seeds has set man on a new path

settlements have grown into cities but

to take the next epic step from city to

civilization will need the help of a

very surprising creature

5,000 years ago after wandering the

earth for more than a hundred thousand

years mankind has begun to settle down

we cluster near rivers along the Tigris

and Euphrates the Nile the Indus

[Music]

the yellow and Yangtze civilizations are

about to take off

but first they must all master one thing

trade the more they exchange goods and

learn from other lands the faster they

grow it seems that long-distance trade

and communication is a necessary

precursor to allow urban civilization as

we know it and surprisingly the first

civilizations arise on the back of a

creature with a lowly reputation in the

modern world the donkey

the donkey caravan is the interstate

highway and high-speed Internet of its

day their routes will lay the groundwork

for the modern world moving not only

goods like timber and bronze but ideas

and stories the civilizations they

connect will be some of the first

described in the Bible the caravan

routes converge at the Persian Gulf

where they link up with ships that carry

goods to India it essentially brought

these civilizations together into great

cultural and material exchange and

really was the beginning of the trend

towards globalization it is a key to

understanding how our world works to

this day just like the first

civilizations we trade and form networks

these networks form hubs and throughout

history being at that hub

has meant one thing the amount of ideas

the amount of cargo that passes through

a region seems to have a direct

correlation to how powerful and

important layer by 2,000 BC humans have

gone from humble huts to massive

monuments in Africa great pyramids arise

on the banks of the Nile

the first stages of Stonehenge rise up

in ancient Britain and back in Sumeria

artificial temple mounds called

ziggurats climb ever higher toward the

heavens to cement these massive

structures together the builders of

Sumeria turned to a substance that oozes

from sea pitches along the Euphrates

River

it's called bitumen used as asphalt in

the modern world it is the first

petroleum product to be exploited by

mankind while the Tumen is highly prized

the lighter thinner substance using from

the ground along with it is considered a

nuisance by the ancients because it

catches fire so easily

the ancients call it naphtha we call it

gasoline and it's one of the first

indications of the fast oil fields that

will one day turn the cradle of

civilization into a center of wealth and

warfare the legacy of these first

civilizations can be seen in surprising

ways the Sumerian counting system was

based on the number 12

rather than 10 which is why we divided

our days into two 12-hour blocks our

hours into 60 minutes and our minutes

into 60 seconds

the Sumerians also likely invented the

wheel which eventually leads to another

innovation that will change the course

of man but chariot thus bringing

together the Sumerian invention of the

wheel with the the domestication of the

horse that had occurred amongst these

nomadic peoples into this Sun roof

formidable piece of military technology

around 1200 BC a chariot driven Clash of

Civilizations cuts off trade routes for

copper and tin the metals we need to

make bronze tools and weapons but

luckily

the Stars have made us an alternative

iron now metalsmiths make a crucial

discovery by working at higher

temperatures they can release the power

of this ancient metal easier to sharpen

and 700 times more common on earth than

copper it is a game-changer humanity

enters the iron age

as we reach the first millennium BC

history has taken us on a wild ride from

the initial blast of the Big Bang to the

formation of Earth's and its first

creatures and the rise of man we've seen

the Ice Age create bridges to spread

mankind around the world then strand us

on different continents leaving us to

survive on what we have at hand so by

1000 BC the world remains a divided

place the trade network that connects

much of Eurasia and North Africa doesn't

yet penetrate the planets driest deserts

or cross the fastest oceans

cut off by geography are people in

places like sub-saharan Africa and the

Americas with few easy to domesticate

plants and animals of their own they

remain tied to more ancient ways of life

[Music]

600 BC

the cavalry have arrived

humans ride into battle on horseback for

the first time

we've seen the just taming a horse gives

man a massive advantage now pairing him

with iron weapons makes him nearly

unstoppable

these advances in technology they don't

just make a fighting ability possible

they make empires possible

and that is the story of the next

several millennia

with new technology and improved

logistics empires spread uniting massive

land areas under a central control

[Music]

as empires grow so do new beliefs

one interesting phenomenon we see with

the rise of these empires is this idea

of monotheism this idea of a universal

God that develops over time and it's

just a phenomenon Judaism emerges from

which we eventually get Christianity and

Islam Buddhism and Hinduism also arise

the five major religions today are all

rooted in this remarkable era

although empires spread some great

powers remain isolated the rise of the

Himalayas 50 million years earlier has

left China cut off from trading with the

rest of the world but that is about to

change

around 100 BC a Chinese emperor sends an

envoy to the west in search of alliances

the routes he travels will become the

Silk Roads a massive trade network that

connects China across Central Asia to

the Roman Empire China has joined the

world as far as we know no Chinese

trader ever met a Roman no Roman ever

met a Chinese trader at least during

this first period of the Silk Roads but

this vast trade then began to explode

between about 100 BC and about 200 AD we

have three centuries of trade and

cultural exchange on a level that has

not been seen before in human history

but this new human Network also

unleashes hidden dangers

[Music]

by the beginning of the Common Era great

empires have risen and a massive trading

network connects most of Europe and Asia

but the trade routes also carry an

invisible threat disease massive

epidemics that some blame for taking

down both the Roman Empire and China's

Han Dynasty

but these networks also lead to the

spread of religion

[Music]

in 312 ad the Roman Emperor Constantine

converts to Christianity paving the way

for it to become the dominant religion

of Europe and the West

three centuries later Islam also emerges

a religion that will for a time unify a

territory two-and-a-half times larger

than Rome ever was Arab trade will drive

innovation for the next thousand years

and expand the global network to places

it has never gone before the Arabs are

sitting in the middle of every Eurasia

there are Arab traders who are sailing

off to China there are Arab traders who

are traveling all the way to the

Atlantic Ocean so they are sitting in

the middle of the hub one secret to Arab

trade the camel

a creature whose ancestor like the horse

escaped across the Bering Land Bridge

out of North America a caravan of six

camels can lug as much as two tons of

cargo as far as 60 miles a day twice the

load of a donkey Caravan in half the

time

[Music]

for the first time camel caravans open

up reliable trade routes across the

formidable Sahara Desert leading to the

formation of the first states in West

Africa Arabic trade expands moving salt

from the Sahara to Rome rice from

eastern Asia to India the secrets of

making paper out of China into Europe

and countless other inventions and ideas

around the world whereas I would feel

lemon come from where as I word for

coffee come from they're all Arabic

because the Arabs brought a huge number

of food crops into Europe oranges citrus

crops they come from South China yet

they don't make it to the west until the

great age of the Arabs

in Islamic North Africa one Italian

merchant named Leonardo Fibonacci

becomes well schooled in the ways of

Arab traders he picks up on a simple but

ingenious counting system that

originated in India but is used

extensively in the Arab world his

writings will spread this knowledge to

Europe and around the globe with

everyone counting the same way business

and trade will explode and because of

Fibonacci people today still almost

universally use the numbers known as

Arabic numerals but there is another

idea Arab traders will spread something

even more influential it originates in

China around 800 AD a Chinese alchemists

in search of an elixir for long life

instead stumbles upon chemistry that can

bring sudden death

[Music]

he combines carbon and sulfur with

saltpeter a compound made of potassium

nitrogen and oxygen

forged in the stars these elements now

come together to make gunpowder the

recipe for gunpowder eventually moves

west across the Silk Roads to the

Islamic world where Muslim warriors use

it to fire cannonballs and Christian

Crusaders

Europeans pick up on the idea embracing

and perfecting gunpowder weapons

1492 ad there are roughly 400 million

people in the world but it is still

divided in two in the Americas the

civilizations of the Aztecs Mayans and

Incas have all arisen while halfway

around the world in the aftermath of the

fall of Rome Europe has cracked like an

egg into individual states for Italian

born Christopher Columbus this means he

can appeal for funding from a succession

of European rulers until he finally

convinces the king and queen of Spain to

back his expeditions it has taken all of

Earth's history to make Columbus's

journey possible for tacking into the

wind he uses triangular sails a

technology copied from the Arabs

to guide him the compass an invention

from China and guiding the needle a

magnetic field formed with the core of

the planet itself although Columbus is

looking for a new way to sail to India

what he does instead is finally and

forever connect the two halves of the

world the voyage is not just significant

in American history as you'll see it's a

pivotal event in all of human history

nothing will ever be the same

the end of the Ice Age marooned large

pockets of humanity on separate sides of

the globe for over 15,000 years now

that's all about to change

the voyage of Christopher Columbus in

1492 is taught as one of the most

significant events in American history

in fact it's one of the most significant

events in all of human history prior to

that voyage the great world zones had

existed largely in isolation by crossing

the Atlantic Columbus opens up the vast

American world zone these two enormous

continents of North and South America

with the millions of people that are

living there the resources that are

available and for the first time people

living in Eurasia become aware of this

other part of the world until the voyage

of Columbus these people may as well

have been living on different planets so

isolated were they a trade network that

started with the first civilizations

connected Europe Asia and Africa now

reaches across the Atlantic

in this vast new global network new hubs

will form and once again power will

shift for most of the last 2000 years

Europe hasn't been that important then

we get the age of Columbus and what do

you know this is exactly the time where

we see the rise of the West this is when

the West starts taking over when it gets

itself smack bang in the middle of the

biggest exchanger network the world has

ever seen

now foods that had been isolated on

disconnected continents begin to move

around the world maize from the Americas

shows up in Egypt and China potatoes

from the Andes prove perfectly suited to

the soils of Ireland and Russia

the old Fertile Crescent grains like

wheat begin to feed the Americas new

foods mean more calories more energy

within three centuries of Columbus's

voyage the population of the world will

more than double to nine hundred million

but the unequal hands dealt to the two

hemispheres now play out in a deadly

climax european conquistadors inheritors

of the agriculture and animals of the

Fertile Crescent and the trade spread

along the vast networks of the old world

come bearing guns riding horses and

carrying infectious diseases the result

slaughter

in the years following Columbus's first

voyage 95% of the native population and

the Americas will die from European guns

and germs

[Music]

once the hemispheres are connected

nothing can ever be the same

take the incredible story of sugar

chemically it's the only source of fuel

for our brains a substance we are

programmed to crave raw sugar comes

mostly from sugarcane once again a grass

will play a central role in the story of

mankind

first cultivated more than 6,000 years

ago in Asia Europeans discovered sugar

in the Middle East during the Crusades

and carried it home Europe was hooked

but there's virtually nowhere in Europe

where sugar can grow then we have

Christopher Columbus and the discovery

of the new world and the Spanish

conquistadors yes they initially are

very interested in the gold and the

silver

but really they just want to make it

rich they don't care how they're going

to make it rich and once the gold and

the silver has been looted the next step

is to open sugar plantations the Spanish

themselves don't want to work in the

sugar plantations they start looking

around for a new labor force head over

on the other side of the Atlantic there

is a place where they can buy slaves and

if we look at the history of slavery the

number one destination of slaves from

Africa a sugar plantations so the

history of sugar shapes the development

of history through the Middle East

through the Crusades through the

conquest of Mesoamerica and even the

history of slavery from Africa to the

Americas

[Music]

in the year 1700 mankind has hit a wall

most humans continue to live simple

lives more like our ancient ancestors

than our own when you think back into

the world in 1700 most people were

farmers most people practice small-scale

subsistence agriculture most

manufacturing was done in workshops in

1700 it takes over a year for cargo and

information to circle the planet longer

than it would take us today to get to

Mars

[Music]

what's holding us back is how we power

our lives in Egypt of 2000 BC 90 percent

of all work was done by human muscle

with animals kicking in the rest by 1700

in Europe the majority of work 70

percent is still driven by human muscle

muscle power alone can't clear the path

to the modern age but there's a

breakthrough hidden deep within the

earth

as our history of the world in 2 hours

racist towards of clothes mankind has

hit a wall human progress is stalled by

the limits of our muscle to break

through we'll need a new way to power

our lives and the entire history of the

world

remember that billions of years ago iron

from exploding stars was gathered up

into Planet Earth during its formation

thousands of years ago men started using

this iron for tools and weapons to keep

our forges burning we began cutting down

our forests now 300 years ago in Britain

iron is in high demand and the trees are

running out the British need a new

source of fuel and thanks to the decayed

remains of ancient ferns they have won

coal but coal itself won't power mankind

into the modern world there's one more

fateful twist in the story as the quest

for Cole takes miners ever deeper into

the ground water begins flooding the

tunnels to pump out the water a new

invention is needed in 1712 Thomas

Newcomen produces a pump powered by

burning coal and driven by steam

Newcomen's machine is the first

practical steam engine it is this

combination energy and engine fuel and

machine that will free man from the

limits of his own muscle and change the

world

the Industrial Revolution begins along

with political revolutions in America

and later France this technological

revolution forever transforms the

landscape of the world and before long

the Atlantic world has become the new

economic therefore cultural therefore

political therefore military leader and

will actively dominate global

geopolitics from that moment it is

trains Thunder across the countryside by

the 1870s the internal combustion engine

has arrived and the Germans invent its

killer app the automobile

oil the substance which the ancients

considered to flammable to be of any use

becomes the most important commodity on

the planet fueling even more innovation

The Telegraph and telephone move

messages at lightning speed with

electricity mankind reclaims the night

from darkness

the hub of power has shifted in 1800

Europeans and their descendants

controlled 35% of the land on earth by

1900 they control 85%

by the 20th century fossil fuels and the

internal combustion engine have

amplified everything including warfare

that technology meant that military

power and military conquest was

something that could be international

international in a way that it had never

been before in the 20th century almost

three times as many people are killed as

a result of war as in the previous two

thousand years of human history combined

the application of the industrial skills

industrial technologies of the 18th

century reached their culmination I

think with these extraordinary events

and it's all being driven again by the

micro fossilized bodies of organic

entities are disappeared into ancient

swamps millions and millions of years

ago the Industrial Revolution also

allows the human population to explode

it has taken 200,000 years of human

history from the dawn of man to the year

1900 for the population to reach 1.6

billion

now within the hundred years of the 20th

century it nearly quadrupled to more

than six billion the 20th century is the

most extraordinary moment in human

history never before have we seen change

on such a scale

[Applause]

today humans number close to 7 billion

we are the dominant players on the

planet

we have learned to harness fifty

thousand times more energy than our

ancestors just ten thousand years ago

this energy drives our fast-paced lives

and a literal world wide web a network

that as we have seen has been in the

making for as long as humans have walked

the earth our to our story is coming to

an end a story that really began 14

billion years ago with a tiny universe

where everything was all in one place

then the Big Bang all the energy that

has ever existed created in an instant

gravity sculpted our universe for

billions of years

stars and supernovas created all the

elements we would eventually need then

an extreme earth took shape and settled

into just the right conditions to

support life as the planet evolved life

competed for energy and grew more and

more complex

eventually the conditions were right for

our species to rise we mastered stone

and fire when the Ice Age came we spread

around the planet and when the ice

melted we were stranded on different

continents we learned to bend

plants and animals to our will we built

cities

then civilizations we created a vast

network that linked empires joined

continents then crossed oceans just when

it seemed we had reached our human limit

we found the energy and technology to

carry us into the future on earth the

seeds of the past have bloomed into a

present

filled with energy and creativity the

stories of billions of lives have played

out against the backdrop of a universe

almost too vast to comprehend in

everything that we do in all that we are

we remain living monuments to the past

as we continue to make history every day

you