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[ Man Narrating ] Cryptic images mark
the world's most famous currency.
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But the dollar has other mysteries-
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hidden links that connect countries
on four continents...
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00:00:20,814 --> 00:00:26,736
their dollars and a symbol
that signifies wealth around the world.
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Ifs a secret born billions of years ago...
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and revealed...
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on 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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History as we know it
is about to get big.
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[ Narrator]
Gold gets all the glory.
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It's the metal of the gods.
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And as traditional history tells us...
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it's a prize
that millions have rushed to claim.
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But while we go for the gold,
first isn't always best.
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Big history reveals the power
of our second-place metal.
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Silver is shinier...
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harder...
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and stronger than gold.
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And silver has an unusual property-
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it kills germs.
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When American families
were crossing the wilderness...
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they often invested
in one good silver coin...
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which they would plop
into their milk jug...
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and that actually prevented
the milk from spoiling...
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on their journey
through the wilderness.
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[ Narrator]
Silver can do so much.
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But gold has always
been more valuable...
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because it's so much harder to find.
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There's over 10 times more silver
on Earth than gold.
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Why is there more silver than gold?
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Big history looks to the stars.
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This star, several times
more massive than our sun...
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is an element factory.
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Inside the star, gravity and heat
crush and restructure atoms...
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forming elements, including metals
like aluminum and iron...
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that will spread out into the cosmos...
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when the star collapses
and explodes as a supernova.
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The supernova's energy
transforms more atoms.
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In this process, all of these other
elements are cooked up, if you like...
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including silver.
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[ Narrator]
But supernovas don't make gold.
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These do.
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The ruins of two supernovas-
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each half a million times more dense
than the Earth.
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They're called neutron stars.
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And when they collide...
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they release more energy
than our sun releases in its lifetime...
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creating elements heavier than silver,
including gold.
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But these collisions are rare.
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There are far more supernovas...
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which is why there's
more silver than gold...
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in the universe and on Earth.
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[ Narrator] Intense heat
helps create silver in the cosmos...
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and steers silver and other metals
around the Earth.
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Underground volcanoes
spread them through the crust...
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along a highway
of superheated lava.
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[ Man ] That melting process,
amongst other things...
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tends to concentrate
different minerals together.
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Veins of silver appear.
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And, of course, then it plays
a huge role in human society.
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[ Narrator]
So deposits of metals like silver...
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appear in places
where there's been high volcanic activity-
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from the Pacific Ring of Fire...
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to the Mediterranean.
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Big history connects
the chemistry of the cosmos...
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to geology and the precious metal
that will unite the world.
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We are now in ancient Greece
on the eve of an epic invasion.
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Persia is on the march.
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It's the mightiest ancient empire...
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with the largest army and navy
the world has ever seen.
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The Greeks will be no match-..
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For an invasion force
of over 1,200 ships...
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without a secret weapon.
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Three years earlier,
as the Persians prepare for war...
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the Greeks discover
a buried treasure.
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History's second-ranked metal
is about to make a power play.
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[ Narrator] The world's first coins
are made of gold.
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But gold is so rare,
the supply can't keep up with demand.
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Silver is the solution.
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Gold is a strategic resource.
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But silver is more common than gold,
so you can have it in circulation more.
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[ Narrator] Silver becomes the currency
of choice in the Mediterranean.
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And that's good news for the Greeks.
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They were mining for silver,
which was a valuable currency...
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and they hit
a particularly rich vein of it.
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[ Narrator] Greece sits
on a hot spot of volcanic activity.
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The mines of Laurium near Athens...
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contain more silver
than anywhere else in the ancient world.
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The Greeks mint it into coins...
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to pay men...
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to build warships...
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to face the Persians and win.
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Victory means that Greek ideas survive.
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So, basically, western democracy
was saved by a silver mine.
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[ Benjamin ] These loads of silver
allowed classical Greek civilization...
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to pass many of the great ideas
and philosophies onto the Roman world...
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and eventually onto Europe.
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So silver effectively allowed
Greek civilization to become embedded...
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at the heart of western civilization
even today.
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And this is the sort of perspective
that big history can bring.
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[ Narrator] Silver is the unsung hero
that saves democracy-
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the second-place metal
with first-class impact...
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that decodes a powerful secret...
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hidden in the most famous money
in the world.
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Big history uses science
to change the way we see the world.
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It reveals that silver's second-place rank
among metals...
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links to the birth of the elements
in exploding stars.
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Supernovas that create so much silver...
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we consider it less valuable than gold
but more useful for everyday money.
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A cosmic connection
that's encoded in the U. S. dollar.
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Traditional history speculates
about these mysterious symbols.
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The strange pyramid
with the all-seeing eye.
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But big history links to geology...
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to reveal the origins of the dollar.
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A Central European valley...
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in what is now the Czech Republic.
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Here, prehistoric volcanoes...
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have left behind some
of the richest silver stashes on Earth.
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In the 16th century...
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silver coins minted here
stimulate trade.
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They spread all over Europe.
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The coins are called thalers...
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because they come
from a silver-rich valley...
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and the German word
for “valley” is thal.
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Soon, the word is used
for any silver coin.
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And in English,
“thaler” becomes “dollar. ”
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The dollar becomes
the official currency of the U.S. in 1785.
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But at the time,
there's no U.S. mint.
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America can't make its own coins.
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So the first American dollars
are actually Spanish pesos.
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These coins are almost
a hundred percent pure silver.
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And so they become
like standard units of value.
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[ Narrator] The peso is a temporary fix
that leaves a permanent mark.
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This image of columns
draped by royal banners...
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is believed to be
the origin of the dollar sign-
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a symbol used by countries
around the world.
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So how does a simple Spanish coin
get so much power?
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Big history connects the spread of money
to another silver hot spot-
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the Andes Mountains,
along the Ring of Fire.
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In the 16th century...
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Spanish conquistadores
arrive in the New World...
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with one thing on their mind-gold.
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But as we've seen,
the stars have given us far less gold...
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and far more silver...
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concentrated in places
where volcanoes have moved metals...
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like the Andes Mountains.
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The Spaniards
stumbled across a mountain...
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that is as close to a mountain
of pure silver as geology allows.
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[ Narrator] This is Potosi...
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a 13,000-foot-high treasure chest.
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But the Earth
has this treasure on lockdown...
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because the same heat
that brought the silver here...
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bonds its atoms
with other less valuable metals, like lead.
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[ Benjamin ]
The geology component of big history...
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shows us that this unique chemical bonding
takes place between silver and lead...
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and it's quite difficult to separate-
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much more difficult than just mining
and using gold, for example.
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[ Narrator] The key to unlocking the silver
is another element...
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that can draw its atoms
away from the lead.
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Big history zooms in.
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Mercury atoms and silver atoms
are attracted to each other...
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00:14:09,934 --> 00:14:11,936
and they will kind of
glom on to each other.
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00:14:13,354 --> 00:14:15,773
Mercury is also a liquid...
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so it's good at getting
in nooks and crevices inside minerals...
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and kind of scouring
for every last silver atom...
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and you can separate out and get
the silver out through another process.
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[ Narrator] Bu! releasing a
mountain is worth of silver. -.
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00:14:34,542 --> 00:14:36,794
Will take twice as much mercury. -.
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And big history reveals the key...
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because the same volcanoes
that create Potosi...
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also build a mountain of mercury
less than 800 miles away.
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And from, as they said,
the marriage of these two mountains...
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came this absolute river of silver.
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[ Narrator] The Spanish
come to the New World for gold...
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but find almost' .90 times more silver.
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In just 150 years,
they export' 16,000 tons...
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worth seven billion dollars today.
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A river of silver that connects
the world like never before-
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linking the silver-rich West...
187
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with the silver-hungry East...
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and feeding a growing demand in one
of the most powerful empires on Earth-
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China.
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[ Benjamin ] The silver was coming across in
huge treasure galleons across the Pacific...
191
00:15:57,416 --> 00:15:59,460
to Manila in the Philippines.
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From there it was being brought to the
great port cities of southern China...
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00:16:03,005 --> 00:16:05,841
where the Chinese
were demanding silver as payment...
194
00:16:05,924 --> 00:16:08,385
for highly valuable Chinese exports.
195
00:16:10,387 --> 00:16:13,891
[ Narrator] China has long been isolated
from the West.
196
00:16:15,309 --> 00:16:17,353
But the river of silver...
197
00:16:19,063 --> 00:16:22,566
begins to shift the balance of power
in the world.
198
00:16:24,568 --> 00:16:27,571
[ Mann ] In that moment
is the beginning of globalization.
199
00:16:27,655 --> 00:16:29,657
Most people my age
just kind of think of globalization...
200
00:16:29,740 --> 00:16:32,826
as something that's been around
for the last 15 or 20 years.
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00:16:32,910 --> 00:16:37,748
But, in fact, we've been living in a fairly
globalized world for 400 years or more.
202
00:16:42,920 --> 00:16:45,422
And big history perspective
helps you understand that.
203
00:16:50,386 --> 00:16:54,390
[ Narrator] But as so much silver
falls into the hands of one empire...
204
00:16:56,141 --> 00:16:58,519
this treasure...
205
00:16:58,602 --> 00:17:01,605
becomes a ticking time bomb.
206
00:17:06,443 --> 00:17:09,405
[ Narrator] Big history
is a new way to see the world...
207
00:17:10,531 --> 00:17:15,202
revealing how volcanic activity
builds mountains of silver...
208
00:17:15,285 --> 00:17:17,579
that turned the second-place metal...
209
00:17:19,748 --> 00:17:22,751
into the first metal
to unite the world.
210
00:17:26,255 --> 00:17:29,299
But what happens
when the silver runs out?
211
00:17:30,134 --> 00:17:32,428
Big history connects back...
212
00:17:39,143 --> 00:17:41,770
to 1839.
213
00:17:41,854 --> 00:17:46,483
The mountain of silver called Potosi,
once the world's treasure chest...
214
00:17:46,567 --> 00:17:49,027
has shrunk a thousand feet...
215
00:17:49,111 --> 00:17:52,781
after almost 300 years
of nonstop mining.
216
00:17:54,158 --> 00:17:57,161
The river of silver is drying up.
217
00:18:00,622 --> 00:18:02,249
And a shortage...
218
00:18:02,332 --> 00:18:04,334
turns into a crisis.
219
00:18:08,297 --> 00:18:11,592
Traditional history
calls it the Opium War.
220
00:18:12,384 --> 00:18:17,973
But big history reveals
it's silver that sparks the fight.
221
00:18:24,521 --> 00:18:27,941
The British Empire spans the globe...
222
00:18:28,025 --> 00:18:31,487
its far-flung colonies
linked through trade.
223
00:18:32,488 --> 00:18:34,406
China trades with Britain.
224
00:18:34,490 --> 00:18:38,285
But while it sells items like tea...
225
00:18:38,368 --> 00:18:40,537
it buys almost nothing.
226
00:18:41,872 --> 00:18:44,792
China only wants
one thing from the West-
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00:18:46,001 --> 00:18:48,045
payment in silver.
228
00:18:50,631 --> 00:18:55,719
So when the global shortage
causes Britain's silver to run low...
229
00:18:55,803 --> 00:18:59,556
the British must find something else
to trade for tea.
230
00:18:59,640 --> 00:19:02,480
[ Benjamin ] And the English government
came up with this unique idea...
231
00:19:02,559 --> 00:19:05,020
of replacing silver with opium...
232
00:19:05,103 --> 00:19:10,067
and began to force Chinese exporters to take
large chests of opium instead of silver.
233
00:19:11,401 --> 00:19:15,989
[ Narrator] Four million Chinese
are already addicted to British opium.
234
00:19:16,073 --> 00:19:19,743
China's government doesn't want
more people getting hooked.
235
00:19:20,702 --> 00:19:25,624
Eventually the Chinese reacted,
tried to destroy the opium chests.
236
00:19:30,170 --> 00:19:33,131
[ Narrator]
The British respond with force.
237
00:19:34,925 --> 00:19:38,971
Their superior weapons
oven/vhetrn the Chinese...
238
00:19:39,054 --> 00:19:43,350
and China, weakened,
can no longer resist.
239
00:19:43,433 --> 00:19:46,603
[ Benjamin ]
For much of the past 5,000 years...
240
00:19:46,687 --> 00:19:51,191
China has been undoubtedly the wealthiest,
most powerful state on this planet.
241
00:19:51,275 --> 00:19:53,819
The balance of power
has now utterly shifted...
242
00:19:53,902 --> 00:19:56,238
and this is staggering news
to the Chinese at the time.
243
00:19:56,321 --> 00:19:57,948
They were really not prepared for this.
244
00:20:03,370 --> 00:20:07,332
[ Narrator] The British and other
western powers flood into Asia.
245
00:20:07,416 --> 00:20:10,961
They claim colonies and riches.
246
00:20:12,963 --> 00:20:17,593
The big history perspective
reveals how a brutal war over silver...
247
00:20:19,678 --> 00:20:22,347
and the century of upheaval that follows...
248
00:20:22,431 --> 00:20:24,474
has an important legacy.
249
00:20:25,017 --> 00:20:28,812
It tears down the divide
between East and West...
250
00:20:29,855 --> 00:20:32,691
and leads to a globalized future.
251
00:20:35,652 --> 00:20:40,198
While the historic quest for gold
first draws us across oceans...
252
00:20:41,491 --> 00:20:44,286
big history reveals how silver...
253
00:20:44,369 --> 00:20:48,790
our second-place metal,
gets a chance to shine...
254
00:20:51,001 --> 00:20:54,004
as atoms changed in supernovas...
255
00:20:57,382 --> 00:20:59,176
change our world.
256
00:21:02,346 --> 00:21:05,474
But the story of silver
is just the beginning.
257
00:21:05,557 --> 00:21:08,477
There's a much bigger puzzle
hidden in big history.
258
00:21:08,560 --> 00:21:11,021
Each episode unlocks a clue.
259
00:21:11,104 --> 00:21:13,315
Everyday things like salt...
260
00:21:14,733 --> 00:21:16,818
gold...
261
00:21:16,902 --> 00:21:18,362
and horses...
262
00:21:18,445 --> 00:21:20,155
hold the key.
263
00:21:20,238 --> 00:21:24,117
Watch them all, and you'll see
this grand mystery revealed.
264
00:21:24,201 --> 00:21:27,788
This big history of time, of space...
265
00:21:27,871 --> 00:21:30,624
the big history of us.
22421
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