WEBVTT

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We are strong.

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We build.

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Innovate.

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And opened new frontiers.

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But the mankind is under threat

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the forces of chaos unleashed.

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They'll bring us to the brink of extinction.

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A midst the chaos on unforgiving planet

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most species will fail.

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But for one all the pieces
will fall into the place

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and the set of keys will unlock a
path for mankind to triumph.

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This is our story,
the story of all of us.

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Northern China, 1215 A.D.

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The Mongols are coming.

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50 000 warriors,

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the world's greatest
cavalry army.

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Their leader Genghis Khan.

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One of the bloodiest
warlords in human history.

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His target, Zhongdu,

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today's Beijing,
China's capital city.

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Cities are key to the
story of mankind.

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Center of power,
learning and wealth.

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They need protecting.

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Zhongdu has 18 miles of
battlement, 40 feet high

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and still vulnerable to attack.

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Half a million
people live in Zhongdu.

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Now, a battle for
the future of mankind

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between city dualer
and the nomad.

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Genghis Khan, son
of the tribal chief.

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His father was murdered,
he was sent to exile.

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If you survived a childhood
like Genghis Khan,

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you're gonna have a
chip on your shoulder.

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You're want prove to
everybody they were wrong.

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You're gonna wanna prove,
that you know what are you doing.

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You're want to prove, that you're
the baddest guy in the block.

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He escapes his captives,

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fights his way to the top,
unites the Mongols

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and begins a campaign of conquest
that would change the world.

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The key to his success:

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a horse,

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domesticated 5000 years
earlier in Central Asia.

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Horses are extended
mankind's frontiers.

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The Mongols can cover
up to 300 miles in a day.

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Using the horse for warfare
unlocks a new key for mankind.

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If we go back to the Mongols
who fighting with the Chinese

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we sees the first trip
point in the history that

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will eventually bring
us to the tank

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and that trip point is horses.

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Mongols start on
horseback at age three.

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They learned to ride
without using reins.

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When they encounter
humans on foot to the Mongols

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those humans were a lot like
sheep. You could scare them,

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you could bolid
them they run.

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They can shoot at full gallop.

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It's the first version
of the Blitzkrieg.

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It is be able to riding to a place,
do damage and then disappear

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before anybody even
knows what hit them.

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Mongol warriors have
four horses each.

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They can eat and sleep
on the horseback.

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No army would travel so far
and so fast until World War II.

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They would travel faster than
the news of their arrival.

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Climate change is one of the
keys to the human story

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and drives the Mongols
to change the world.

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93 million miles from Earth

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a surge in solar activity.

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Blasts of radiation
scorch the planet.

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It's the beginning of three
centuries of global warming.

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Climatic changes in the ancient
world in the premodern world

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directly affected
historical events.

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In Mongolia drought turns
pastures into desert.

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To survive the Mongols
sweeps South towards China,

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the great power in Asia,

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home to the biggest
cities in the world.

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China is the great price.
If you can conquer China

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you conquer the land
of infinite supplies.

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Grain, silk, tea. China is the richest
prize the Mongols can possibly take.

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Approaching Zhongdu, Genghis
Khan issues an ultimatum,

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surrender or die.

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Mongol cruelty is legend.

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Prisoners decapitated.

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Towers of human skulls.

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Children slaughtered.

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I imagine for someone
seeing in the city,

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looking at over the wall and seeing
the massive Mongol horde

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is coming in your direction.

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You have to immediately
question yourself as

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to why I'm still in this city.

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I need to leave or
I'm dead.

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Genghis Khan rape
so many women

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that is many is one in two hundred
people alive today carry his genes.

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"The greatest happiness is to
gathering into the bosom your

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enemy's wives and daughters."

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60 000 women it is
said prefer suicide

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to be raped by the Mongols.

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Their horses get the
Mongols to the city gates,

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but no further.

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To take the city they
used China's engineers

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and force them to
build battering rams.

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Prisoners of war
attacking their own city.

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To defend themselves, Zhongdu
soldiers must kill their own people.

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If the gate breaks the city falls.

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The Mongols overran Zhongdu,

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massacre over 100 000 people,
than torched the city.

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The Mongols were unbelievably
effective military force.

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If they had a target
they want it to take.

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No one stood in their way.

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An eye-witness reports:

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"The earth was greasy of human fat."

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In his life time, Genghis Khan is set
to be responsible for the death

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about to 40 million people.

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As many as Adolf Hitler.

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He conquers more land in 25
years than Rome did in 400.

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4 and half million square miles, the
largest empire so far in human history.

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And the key to his success,
communication.

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600 years before the Pony Express
Mongols can send messages by horseback

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across an area twice the
size of the United States.

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Every 30 miles was relay
post with 400 horses.

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Government messengers
carrying an official medallion

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can claim food and fresh mount,
the world's first passport.

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As the result of Genghis
Khan conquest

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for the first time in history one
can safely travel from one end

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of the world to
the other end.

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Paper, printing and gunpowder

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will head from East to West.

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All keys to the
future of mankind.

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But at the same time
the killer is on the loose

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that wiped out up to half
of Europe's population.

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Mankind battles with
enduring enemy, disease.

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Issyk Kul, a trading post,
midway between Europe and Asia.

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Genghis Khan has been dead
for more than a century,

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but his empire continues.

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Along his trade routes
a deadly traveler,

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bacteria.

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For three and a half billion years

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virtually every corner of
the Earth has been covered

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by these microorganisms.

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Our own bodies contain more
bacterial cells than human cells.

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Most are harmless,
many are essential,

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but these have the
power to kill.

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At Issyk Kul pandemic begins.

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One of the first recording
victims, Kutluk.

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Married, Christian, dubbed.

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His wife's poke remedies
have no effect.

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Imagine your husband comes
back from trading and he has

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it a big blue blisters
and feels ill.

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Is it from the air? From
the water he drag?

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Is it some foreign animal
inside? What's going on?

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You are completely confused.

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Bacteria rushed through
Kutluk's bloodstream.

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They are win his immune
system and spread vilacesly.

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The storing and swelling his glands.

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His skin erupts in giant paswiled source,

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buboes.

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Bubonic plague.

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Pass it on by an
almost invisible carrier,

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the flea.

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It staple diet is blood.

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When it bites, it famets plague
bacteria into the bloodstream.

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Kutlok's wife doesn't know it,

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but she too has been bitten.

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Within days both
of them will be dead.

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In 1337 four people die in Issyk Kul.

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Two years later there
are 100 deaths,

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but this is just a beginning.

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When takes spread,
this infection don't stop.

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Improve transportation makes
diseases almost impossible to control.

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The fleas they carried
the plague hitch a lift,

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from one our closest companions,

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the Black rat.

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Native to Asia, they spread
to Europe with the Romans.

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From a pair of rats 2000
new offspring a year

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and every rat can carry eight
plaque infected fleas.

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Black rats infest the cargo the travels
along the Mongols trade routes.

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Spreading out from Issyk Kul,
the plague sweeps East to China

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and West towards Europe.

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Kaffa on the Black sea,

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the thriving port at the
crossroads East and West.

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Controlled by Italian merchants.

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One man is credited with
spreading the plague into Europe,

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the descendant of Genghis Khan,

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Jani Beg.

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He murdered his own
brother to seize power.

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Now he wants to expand
the Mongol empire westwards.

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Kaffa stands on his way.

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But he has a terrible
new weapon.

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The plague kills his soldiers faster
than they can be replaced.

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But that gives Jani Beg an idea.

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His dead men become ammunition.

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Biological warfare
wasn't entirely new.

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In the 6.century B.C. by the Assyrians
and the Greeks used to poison wells,

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but in the Kaffa Mongols
took it another stage.

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They launched it physically
like a chemical bomb.

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Biological weapons are so deadly,
that been outlawed in 165 countries,

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including Russia and United States.

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But it is thought more
than enough remain,

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to wipe out mankind
in the stroke.

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No one has ever used biological
weapons like Jani Beg.

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One chronicler writes:

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"What seems like mountains of
dead would throw into the city.

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The rotting corpses
is tainted the air.

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Stench was overwhelmed."

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There can be no weapon

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that is as terrifying as what is
unleashed with biological warfare.

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You cannot see germs,
you cannot see disease

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and nothing you can do
can make you immune to it.

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The inhabitants of Kaffa
try to outrun the plaque

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and flee to Europe.

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They have no idea they
bringing the disease with them.

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The plague run out to the world's
most densely populated continent.

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Sienna, Italy.
1348.

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A family locks itself in,

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hoping to lock the disease out.

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The father writes in account

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one of the only surviving records

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as the invasion of Europe begins.

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"It was cruel and horrible thing.

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I don't know where to begin,

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to tell it's brutal
and pitiless ways."

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The battles for the survival
of mankind has begun.

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Mankind faces a battle
against the extinction.

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Sienna, Italy,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
six months after the
plague invades Europe.

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Thousands are dead.

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Agnolo De Tura,

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local businessman,
the town chronicler.

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He barricades his
family inside their home.

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The killer outside
must not come in.

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Agnolo uses fire and
smoke to war after plague.

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No one suspects
it's carried by rats.

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You don't know what it cause it.
Could be the air, could be the water

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and so you have the sensation
around you of something building up

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but you don't know what it is.

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The plague takes ten
years to cross Asia,

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moving slowly from
village to village.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But Europe is the perfect
breeding ground.

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Hundreds of cities, 80 million
people living in close course.

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These cities have all the
conditions to sustain plague.

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Filth, the squalor.

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Rodents that was just considered
part of natural life of that point

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and nobody considered that
these rodents and their fleas

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could potentially be a problem.

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And then you had these massive
number of people of pact together

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in these small dwellings and this is
exact sort of situation you would want

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
if you trying to cause
a plague epidemic.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The plague has entered
in Agnelo's home,

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infecting his wife Nicoluccia.

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If you ever seen bubonic
plague it's very gross.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
A huge purple growth takes place
which creates psychological trauma,

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havoc and incredible fear.

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Agnolo tries anything.
Everything.

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"Vomit regularly, especially at
the first sign of any illness."

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"Drink glass of your own
urine twice a day."

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"Apply an ointment to the bulbo
made from honey, egg yolks

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and scorpion oil to
dry out the poison."

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"Avoid sex and baths."

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Finally the plague doctor.

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His hood filled with
herbs for the protection.

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His treatment, drain the
disease out from the victim.

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Physicians would try any desperate
measure they could work.

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Blood leading was tried, leeches
were used but none seem to work.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The smartest thing that doctor could
do is stay away from the patient,

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because he's unwittingly we
were taken the bacteria

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from one patient to the next.

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Hold the wife, the plague
bacteria mutating,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
finding new ways to
reproduce and spread.

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They no longer need
to be carried by fleas,

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they are airborne.

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The airborne plague is
fundamentally different because

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it now can be transmitted
from human being to human being.

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The kill rate was 75 percent,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
now nearly 100.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In six months 31 000 people,
60 percent of Sienna wiped out.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
More than two every three person
you knew in Sienna were gone.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Families decimated,
clans decimated.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Everybody decimated.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"I, Agnolo di Tura, buried my
children with my own hands.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There was no one who
grieve for any death

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
for all awaited death.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So many died that all believed
it was the end of the world."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Fear and panic set same.
You asking yourself

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
what's causing
this, you know?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Did I do something wrong?
Did I forget to go to the Church?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And each symptoms seems
like the Devil is doing it.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The overwhelming theory
was an avenging God.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Somehow this was the anger
of God causing this disease.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now, disaster tasks
mankind faiths.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Avignon, France.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Home to Pope Clement the sixth.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
One of the most powerful
man in the world,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
controlling wast armies
and enormous wealth.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When plague hits Avignon the
people expected the Pope to come

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to their salvation, to go and
innersee to God to stop the plague.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But Clement the sixth
can't stop the plague.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It devastates Avignon, killing
1300 people in the single day.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Pope Clement buys a field
and buries 11 000 people,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but it is not enough.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He tries a radical solution.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He consecrates the river Rhone

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as a floating cemetery.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
As bodies floating down the
Rhone river people realized

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the Pope can do nothing for
them either God wasn't listening

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
or worse.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Fear and lost turn to rage.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The mob wants
someone to blame.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
All over Europe the hunt is on.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
1349, the plague
rages across Europe.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Mankind is at its weakest
and most irrational,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
searching for someone to blame.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Strasburg, Germany.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The plague hasn't hit here yet,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but rumors spread faster
than the disease itself

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
about the diabolic plague.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They said it Jews are
poisoned the drinking water.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This was the Middle ages, this
was before the scientific revolution

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and scientific method.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You had a world that was right hood,
superstition, anger, confusion

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and unfortunately
that often to prejudice.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Ever since the 6. century B.C.
their homeland was conquered.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Jewish people have created thriving
communities around the planet.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Today, 26. countries have 
Jewish populations over 10 000.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When fear grips mankind
minority is an easy target.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The authorities in Strasburg
try to protect them,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
posting guards in the streets.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But isolation breeds contempt.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The mob takes the
law into its own hands.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
February, 14th.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The Saint Valentine's 
day massacre.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Jews of Strasbourg
were given a choice,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
convert or die.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
One thousand Jews
are burned alive.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But the massacre does
nothing to save the city.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Five months later
the plague arrives

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
claiming another 16 000 victims.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
All over Europe great
cities like deserted.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
An eye-witness reports:

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"Shops are shed,
people rare.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
A deep silence on
almost every place.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Consider what we were
and what we become.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There was a crowd of us,
now we are alone."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Mankind rendered powerless

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
by tiny bacteria.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Across Asia and Europe the plague
kills over 15 million people in 15 years.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But isolation can protect us.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The Atlantic ocean has stopped
the plague reaching the Americas.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The key to mankind's future
in a hands of visionary leaders.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Two hundred years
after Genghis Khan

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
young Inca warrior
prepares himself for battle.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Pachacuti.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Courageous, dynamic, inspired.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
A vision of the Sun God
drives him into a mighty battle,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it will create the
Empire of the Incas.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Pachacuti had enormous
sense of himself.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The name means World shaker.
He gave himself the name, you know,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I am the conqueror of the world.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The Americas are
home to 90 million people,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
living in total isolation
from the rest of mankind.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In this new world,
there are no horses.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They've been hunted to extinction.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
No iron tools.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
No wheel vehicles.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But the key to life in the Andes
high altitude agriculture.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This is a mountainous people,
a mountainous society

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and so if you wanna have available
farmland you have to build terraces

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
along the mountain slopes. And when
you go through the Andes today,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you see the remains of
terraces everywhere.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Thousands of feet above sea level

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
they cultivated crops totally
unknown to the rest of the world.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Potatoes, tomatoes, corn.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Sixty years later the Spanish will
bring this super food back to Europe.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
A key moment in shaping
the diet of mankind.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But the riches of their land
make the Incas a target.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
To keep their territory
they need to defend it.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Pachacuti will have to fight
against the fearsome enemy,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
lead by a dead king.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The story of mankind in
shaped by men of destiny.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Pachacuti, leader of the Incas.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
His enemy, the Chancas.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Bloodthirsty warriors. They use the
bones of their enemies as trophies.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Their goal, crush Pachacuti

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and captured the
Inca capital, Cuzco.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Leading the Chancas
into battle,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Uscovilca.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Powerful, ruthless and dead.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The life initiated the
Chanca reign of terror.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In death he speaks
to his priests.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In the Andes the ancestors are
very much present in people's lives

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and so important
people are mummified.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Long before the Egyptians the people of
south America preserved their dead.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Children, adults,
whole families.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The oldest mummies have
survived for 7000 years.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
By Uscovilca leading them
Chanca warriors feel invincible.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They outnumbered the Incas
and take no prisoners

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but Pachacuti has a plan.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The goal was to try the captured
the mummified body of your enemy.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
If you could tapel Uscovilca
then victory was yours.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He believes in something
more powerful than Uscovilca.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Inti, the Sun God,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the most important God
in Inca mythology.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The night before the battle Inti
comes to him in the dream

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and promises him
glorious victory.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Pachacuti seizes the idea of
portraying himself as the living

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
son Inti himself in body
by the power of the Sun.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Pachacuti's father has fled,
his brother has fled.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But he chooses to stay and
lead the Incas to the battle.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You go up proving yourself to
your man by setting example

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and say: "You know what?"
"I'm might die today,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but that's okay, because
I was born to do this.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And I guarantee an every true
leader that's ever win the combat

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
has felt that way."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Pachacuti tongs the Chancas

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
stoking their anger.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He holds his men back,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
maintain the discipline,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
until they unlish 
of valey of stones.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Every time I winning the combat have
everything to do with the will to win.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
That's would wins battles.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Pachacuti makes his move.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Inca legend recall his bravery.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The young Prince prove
himself at the enemy.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He was so agile, fast, he terrified
Uscavilca's bodyguards.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The Chancas vanquished.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The Incas victory over
the Chancas was legendary.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They never stop talking about it,
they never stop celebrating it.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Pachacuti will kick-start the biggest
empire ever seen in the Americas.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Most of modern-day Chile, Bolivia
and Peru, united under Inca rule,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
until link their territory a network
of trails stretching 25 000 miles,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
over some of the steepest
terrain on Earth.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
At the end of the trail,
Machu Picchu,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Pachacuti's palace in the clouds,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
unknown to the rest of mankind.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But the isolations of the
Americas is coming to an end.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In Europe survivals of
the plaque will rebuild,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
launching a new era of
conquest and exploration,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that will lead to discover
of the New world.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
1352, the Sahara.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The largest desert on the planet,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a siry wilderness, the size
of the United States,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the toughest challenge in
the explorer can face.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Ibn Battuta.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He left Morocco at age 21

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and vowing never to
travel the same road twice.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He's explored over 40 countries,
but this is his first time in the Sahara.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"We set off into a desert,
took lead avoid the settlements.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There's no rad,
no track, only sand."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But at this time, the Sahara
holds the key to mankind survival.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The plague rages through Asia,
Europe and the Middle East.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It's killed up to a fifth
world's population.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In Damascus, Syria, Ibn Battuta
records 2400 deaths in a single day.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But the Sahara is the
barrier against the pandemic.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
With temperatures
up to a 145 degrees

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the plague can't survive
the heat of the desert.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Few living things can.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The Sahara is vast, it's a
definition of a horrible place to be.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There is no water, it's incredibly hot,
your eyes are playing tricks on you,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
your mind start
playing tricks on you.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It's incredible ordeal.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The body's cooling system
shuts down. Heat stroke.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And you stop sweating because
you have no built to get rid of

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
fluid to light to cool down.
You stop thinking normally

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and you start erratic bizarre
behavior that ultimately leads to death.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Ibn Battuta's life in the hands
of his traveling companions,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the Touareg.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Nomads from North Africa,
they lived in the Sahara

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
for over a thousand years,
trading something we take

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
for granted today, but was
once one of the most valuable,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
commodities on the planet.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
salt. -Salt was everything,
salt was literally the

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
difference between life and death.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Before of refrigeration salt was
the key to preserving food.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It absorbs water and
stops bacteria from growing.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Salted food can last for
a year without spoil.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Access to salt determine you
would be powerful enough.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
I can't send an army across the water
or great distances without provisions

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and their provisions are going
bad if they are not salted.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The Touareg have discovered
a rich supply under their feet.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Millions of years ago
the Sahara was a sea.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
As the water evaporated and
left behind huge salt deposits.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The salt trade is the Touareg life live.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They mined in Taghaza in
the middle of the Sahara.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Than tracks hundreds
of miles South,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to the markets in the great
cities of the Mali empire,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Djenne, Gao and Timbuktu.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But it is a dangerous
journey in a deadly landscape.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The greatest fear of 
every traveler,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the sandstorm.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
With dub in seconds by
70 miles per hour winds.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When the sandstorm hits it fills the
air with sand, fills your lungs,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
fills your eyes and your
nose, you can't see.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This wind and the sand can
strip the paint off a car.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You have to get
shelter or you die.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"One of our party was
lost in the desert.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
After that I never went ahead
or never lack behind again."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
After two months in the Sahara
Ibn Battuta's camel train

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
reaches the destination.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The cities of Mali.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"Travelers have nothing to fear.
They gave me gifts of food

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and treated me with
the athmos generosity.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Make God reward that
for their kindness."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Touareg merchants can now
trade their precious cargo.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In Mali salt is so in demand
its trade it for gold.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Today most gold in the world has
to be mined deep underground.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In Mali it flows at the
bedrock of the river Niger.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
At this time, as much as
two-thirds of the world's known

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
gold reserves are in West Africa.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The key returns Mali's rulers into some
of the richest men on the world.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
And their cities into
center of learning.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Timbuktu University one of
the oldest in the world,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the first in sub Saharan Africa.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Up to 25 000 people the quarter
of the population students.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Over 300 000 scrolls.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
One of the greatest
libraries in the Islamic world.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Scholars from lots a lots of places
went there to study the schools.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It was the world wide web.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There's the place where
information was held.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This is Africa's golden age.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In the South great Zimbabwe,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
climing city of stone,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
legendary site of King
Solomon's mines.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In the highlands of Ethiopia an
ancient Christian empire

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
claiming to descend for
the Queen of Shiva.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In on the East coast, Kilwa,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
one of Africa's busiest ports.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Ibn Battuta will return to Morocco
and write the oldest surviving

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
account of Timbuktu
and the wealth of Africa.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The Touareg will carry their
gold back across the Sahara.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Its destination across the
Mediterranean to Europe.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
African gold will be key to the
greatest explosion of ideas,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the western world
has ever known.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It will make some men rich
and others reckless.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Venice, 117 mud
islands join together,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
become a thriving
center of congress.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Silk from the Middle East,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
spices from India

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and the key to its wealth,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
gold from Africa.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
A young Venetian,
Pietro Venier,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
hoping to get rich, as a partner
in a bank the Priuli Brothers.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
70 years earlier the plague wiped
out half the population of Venice.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But in the story of mankind
disaster creates opportunity.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Venice is the nursery of
modern banking and finance.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
This is the cradle of Capitalism.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In the 15th and 16th
centuries it is not place to be.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It's absolutely not place to be.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In Venice African gold
dismantled into Ducats,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
an international currency.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Merchants banked their Ducats
with men like Pietro Venier.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Modern banking begins in Italy,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
at the benches "the banchi",
where money change his hands.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They would go to banks to
borrow for personal loans

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and they would go to banks for
borrow for commercial loans.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Many the same reasons
we go to banks today.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But Venice is a magnet for
disadvantaged, lured by its wealth.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Enrico.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
An unemployed migrant,
hungry and tempted.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
340 ducats, over two
pounds of gold.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Pietro Venier has no choice,
he must catch him.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When the trust in
your banker disappears,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the banker's future
has disappeared.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
His work doesn't
count for anything,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
his promises don't count
and if your promises don't count

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you are out of business.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The authorities hang Enrico.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
There's no mercy for
thieves in Venice.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It's men like Pietro Venier
who will finance the Renaissance.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The greatest flourishing of learning in
culture mankind has ever known.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
After the devastation of the
plague our rebirth.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We have works of art, works
of architecture, palaces,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
schools, academies. All of the human
arts flourish where banking flourishes.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They were buying
collections for themselves,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but they were meant
for eternity.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
5000 miles away China is on
the brink of its own rebirth.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The key a deadly
new invention.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
For a century and a half the 
Mongols have ruled China,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but the plague has killed millions,
loosening their grip on power.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
1356, outside Nanjing,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a gang of three
plots of revolution.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Their leader,
Zhu Yuanzhang.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Born dirt poor,
orphaned by the plague.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Zhu Yuanzhang was a peasant.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He was an ordinary man but
he had extraordinary drive.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
His men call themselves
The Red Turbans.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Peasants turned rebels.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
People have nothing to eat

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and when a rebel leader
comes along and says,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
drive out the Mongols that is
an universal enthusiasm.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
By his side his young wife Ma.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Daughter of the warlord,
partner in the revolution.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Ma and Zhu were a
match made in heaven

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and together they were perfect
partners in this rebellion.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Third member of
the gang, Jiao Yu,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
master craftsman,
weapons expert.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Jiao Yu was not just a soldier
but also one of the great

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
brains behind this operation.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Mongols soldiers were trained
to use a bow and arrow

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
with deadly accuracy.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Jiao response, a gunpowder.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Invented 300 years earlier by Chinese
monks looking for the elixir of life.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It's a novelty, used mostly in
fireworks until its power

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
has realized an as explosive.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Jiao designs a weapon he
calls a Human Thunder.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
A small stone propelled by explosive
charge, a lethal combination.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The future of warfare rewritten.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Once the gun shows up on the
battlefield everything changes.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Anyone who picks up
a gun is instantly lethal.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Jiao is quick to see the potential.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"With these fire weapons I'll
conquered the empire as easily

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as turning the palms of my
hands upside down."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Zhu's confidence will
soon be put to the test

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
against the deadliest fighting
force on the planet, the Mongols.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
A 150 years after Genghis
Khan invades their homeland

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Zhu Yuanzhang leads The Red
Turbans at the city of Nanjing.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
A peasant army to drive
the Mongols out of China.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The key to their strategy a
weapon that will change mankind,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the gun.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But their guns are crude design
and can't be aimed properly.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The problem of early firearms
is having the pelacly of the gun

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and going to direction
don't want to.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It's aimed that matters.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Gun maker Jiao's solution
quantity over quality,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a hell storm of bullets.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
To annihilate the enemy you must
waiting until just the right moment.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The fire must be intense.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
One firearm makes no difference but a
hundred firearms makes a big difference

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and a thousand makes even more.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It must have been incredibly confusing
and incredibly frightening.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It is a game changer. Old school
defenses, old school technology

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is no longer effective
against the gun.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Jiao's gun levels the battlefield

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and allows a band of rebels take
on the deadliest army in the world.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
We no longer use horses on a
battlefield. We still use gunpowder.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
That is a lasting change the
battlefield that cannot be ignored.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Over the next 12 years the
Chinese drive out the Mongols.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Nanjing becomes
capital of a free China.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Jiao, a peasant, orphaned by the
plague, becomes the emperor

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of a new Chinese dynasty

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and his wife Ma the empress,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the most powerful
women on the planet.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When Zhu Yuanzhang founded
his dynasty he calls it

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
name which means bright.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The Mongols are darkness
and he is the light.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The Ming dynasty lasts
for 300 years.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Its rulers live in forbidden city,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a vast palatial compound.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
No one can enter or leave
without the emperor's permission.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It takes up to a million
workers, 14 years to build.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
On a borders of China and even
greater engineering project,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the largest defensive
structure in the world,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
began by China's first emperor,
completed by the Ming.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Over five and a half
thousand miles long,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
20 000 towers,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The Great Wall of China.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now a technology first
developed in China

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
will be perfecting in Europe.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It will change the world is
dramatically as gunpowder.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
1450, Mainz. Germany.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Johaness Gutenberg,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
goldsmith, entrepreneur,
inventor of the printing press.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It's still one of the greatest story
in the history of invention.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
You think about the impact that had,
it's really hard to underestimated.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In 15. century Europe books are only
in reach of the clergy and the rich.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Handwritten and labour intensive
it takes it long as three years

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to produce one copy of the Bible.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It was like having this
powerful force of knowledge

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
its lock in these
objects calls books

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and almost nobody
has these things.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The Chinese invented woodblock
printing 700 years earlier,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but it was slow complex work.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
People knew how to press blocks
of wood, but his innovation

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
was the turned into
an industrial process.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Manufacture books. No
one ever done that before.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
A goldsmith by trade he
carves letters in metal

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that can be moved
around and rearranged

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and infinite variety of
words and sentences.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
To print the text a
modified winepress.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He has been working on his
invention for over a decade,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but now he is
run out of money.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He persuades a wealthy businessmen
to see the press in action

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and invest in it,
if it really worthless.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Once you laid up that
type on the page

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
one person could print off a
dozen pages or thousand pages,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it didn't matter.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The information age begins here.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Every page printed in a last 500 years
owes a debt to Gutenberg's invention.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
With the investment
of 800 guilders,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the equivalent of
over a million dollars

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
is printing press
goes into production.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He prints 180 copies of the Bible,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
another 6 billion have
been printed since.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Books can now be produced 
2000 times faster than before.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
20 million are
printed in 50 years.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
As knowledge
begins to spread

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it becomes more with an
reach of ordinary people

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
in ways we had never seen
before in human history.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
All these parallels
here to the internet

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that's a very good analogy.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now a book will inspire one man
to strike out across the oceans

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and change the
future of mankind.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
1476, off the coast of Portugal.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
An Italian sailor shipwrecked
and left for dead by pirates.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
His name, Christopher Columbus.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a dreamer who will unite
a divided world.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He believes he has been saved
by God for a special purpose.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In certain cases an individual
makes a huge impact

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and Columbus is kind of
pure example of that.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He's settles in Lisbon, Portugal.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
With the help of his brother Bartolomeo
he begins to pursue his dream.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He was a guy who has a
tremendous personal ambition.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He was really really wanted to
pull the family up from the mud

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and become an aristocrat,
become a gentleman.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
His dream is 
inspired by a book,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
written 200 years earlier,
but thanks to the printing press

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
has become a bestseller,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
after the Bible the most
widely read book in Europe,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The Wonders of the World,
by Marco Polo.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The epic story of the Venetian's
merchant and his travel East,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
through the Holy Lands,
central Asia

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and on to the exotic
timing cities of China.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It is scarcely possible
to sit down and writing

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
these magnificent of this province.
Here they weave gold tissues,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as well as other kind of silk and cloth.
The city contains merchants

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
of great wealth and
incalcul belemberd people.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Columbus was a classic example of
someone who really was inspired

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
by literature and dreamed big.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He's possessed with this some
kind desire win a lottery of life.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He wanted to be the
next Marco Polo.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Columbus's brother
is a map maker.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Together they plot a
revolutionary idea

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to head East by traveling West.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Not over land like
Marco Polo, but by sea.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
What a great opportunity, what
a wonderful thing to be part of.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When I think on of myself,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you know, a little frison.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Map makers at that time no
nothing about the Americas.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
To them this double
continent doesn't exsist.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They believe there's a vast uncrossiable
ocean between Europe and Asia.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Columbus thinks they are wrong,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that the world is
smaller than realized

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and it's quite easy to
sail from Europe to China.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When Columbus said:
"Let's sail a west",

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you know, they head a picture
of the Earth in your mind and

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
they said are
you crazy. -No.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
For almost a decade Columbus
tries to find finances crazy skin.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He's turned down by the rulers
of Portugal, Venice and Genoa.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But the balance of power
in Europe is changing

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
with the help of the gun.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
It hasn't stay
the Chinese secret.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Almost as soon as the Chinese had
invented the first proper gun

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
within 40 years that its
spread all the way to Europe.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
No invention that ever move this fast
in the entire history of the world.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
1486, southern Spain.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
130 years after
The Red Turbans

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
another rebel army
fights for independence

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
using the latest
in gun technology,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the Arcabus.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Technology is always improving
but there is nothing like a war

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to give an outsize advantage to where
ever has that slight technological edge.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The gun improves when arrives
in Europe by traying error.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They want to increase their range.
So what they gonna do?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They gonna increased the link of
the barrel because they know,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
bigger powder charge will how that
ball to travel further in distance.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They are going to tighten the talor
sistum increase the accuracy that ball.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They are gonna find the way
so that it becomes a one man

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
weapon vs. two man weapon.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The real breakthrough came
with the trigger mechanism.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The lever that operate it an armed
that brought this burning match code

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
down into the prime.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Individual soldiers will now armed
with something quite deadly,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
quite accurate and
extremely portable.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
What happens here in Spain

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
will help propel Columbus
to the New world.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The Loja,
southern Spain, 1486.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
A Spanish army below the
walls of an Islamic fortress.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The front line in a religious war that
will shape the future of mankind.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
For more than 700 years Spain
has been run by the Moors,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Muslims from North Africa.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They create their own cities
with their own architecture,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
centers of learning, preserving the
knowledge of the ancient world.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But Spanish army try to reclaim
the country for Christianity.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They forced the Moors to
retreat back to North Africa.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
All that remains is the kingdom of
Granada on the southern tip of Spain.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Key to the conquest of Granada
is the fortress of Illora.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
If the Spanish are to reclaim their
country they need the captured

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
this Moorish stronghold.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
A Spanish Captain, Gonzalo
Fernandez de Cordoba.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Young, ambitious, known in court
as the Prince of Cavaliers.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Cordoba will become one
of Spain's greatest generals,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a tactical genius and the
champion of the Arcabus.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The gun is deadly,
but only at the close range.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
He needs his men to
be near at the enemy.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
For four days stay on mat.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now, he leads a fresh assault.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The noise of the Arcabus is the
equivalent to the jet engine it take off.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Soldiers deafen.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But the Spanish
regroup and fight on.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The closer they get the
more effective their guns.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The victory at the Illora, a turning
point in the reconquest of Spain.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Over the next six years city after
city falls to the Spanish.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
January 2th., 1492,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
a day that changes the
destiny of mankind.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Spanish monarchs Ferdinand and
Isabella ride victorious into Granada.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Gonzalez de Cordoba helps negotiate
the surrender of the Moors.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
A Spanish chronicler calls it:

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
"The most blessed day
that is ever been."

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
In the crowd one man
sences an opportunity,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Christopher Columbus.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Everybody is walking around
the chest of doubt

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
looking a new things to do.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Now do we have our country back we
can start trading with luxury goods

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
with the Chinese and
than Colombo shows up.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Spain is the
new power in Europe.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Ferdinand and Isabella will
fund Columbus's dream.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
They'll sail under
the Spanish flag.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Contact between East and West
once brought death and disease,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but mankind has unlock
the keys to a new future,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
harvesting the power of gold,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
gunpowder

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and the printed word.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
History is made by people with ideas
and the spirit of adventure.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
People who see opportunity
where others see danger.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
A new age is dawning,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that will unite a divided world,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the age of exploration.
BY AUDIO NOTE: RE外