WEBVTT 00:00:01.180 --> 00:00:04.370 Hi there my name’s John Green; this is Crash Course World History and today we’re going 00:00:04.370 --> 00:00:08.500 to talk about the Dark Ages, possibly the most egregious Eurocentrism in 00:00:08.500 --> 00:00:09.460 all of history, 00:00:09.460 --> 00:00:10.900 which is really saying something. 00:00:10.900 --> 00:00:15.310 (We’re Europe! The Prime Meridian Runs Through us; We’re in the Middle of Every Map; and 00:00:15.310 --> 00:00:18.730 We Get To Be a Continent Even Though Were Not a Continent.) 00:00:18.730 --> 00:00:20.530 But let’s begin today with a pop quiz: 00:00:20.530 --> 00:00:24.240 What was the best year of your life, and what was the worst year? 00:00:24.240 --> 00:00:27.930 Mr. Green, Mr. Green: Best 1994, Worst 1990. 00:00:27.930 --> 00:00:32.640 Oh, me from the past. It gets so much better, and also so much worse. 00:00:32.640 --> 00:00:36.500 For worst year I’m gonna go with 2001; best year 2006. 00:00:36.500 --> 00:00:40.640 Alright now it’s your turn, dear pupils: share your best and worst years in comments 00:00:40.640 --> 00:00:41.780 during the intro. 00:00:41.780 --> 00:00:43.180 [music intro] 00:00:43.180 --> 00:00:44.570 [music intro] 00:00:44.570 --> 00:00:45.969 [music intro] 00:00:45.969 --> 00:00:47.370 [music intro] 00:00:47.370 --> 00:00:48.760 [music intro] 00:00:48.760 --> 00:00:50.160 [music intro] 00:00:50.160 --> 00:00:54.120 Right, so what you will quickly find is that your worst year was someone else’s best 00:00:54.120 --> 00:00:54.489 year. 00:00:54.489 --> 00:00:55.829 So, too, with history. 00:00:55.829 --> 00:01:00.039 The period between 600 and 1450 CE is often called the Middle Ages in Europe because it 00:01:00.039 --> 00:01:04.030 came between the Roman Empire—assuming you forget the Byzantines—and the beginning 00:01:04.030 --> 00:01:04.920 of the Modern Age. 00:01:04.920 --> 00:01:08.750 And it’s sometimes called the Dark Ages, because it was purportedly unenlightened. 00:01:08.750 --> 00:01:11.490 But was the age so dark? 00:01:11.490 --> 00:01:12.890 Depends on what you find depressing. 00:01:12.890 --> 00:01:17.340 If you like cities and great poetry, then the Dark Ages were indeed pretty dark in Europe. 00:01:17.340 --> 00:01:22.659 But if like me your two favorite things are Not Dying From Wars and not dying from anything 00:01:22.659 --> 00:01:22.970 else, 00:01:22.970 --> 00:01:25.170 the Dark Ages actually weren’t that bad— 00:01:25.170 --> 00:01:28.060 at least until the plague came in the 14th century. 00:01:28.060 --> 00:01:29.150 And meanwhile, outside of Europe, 00:01:29.150 --> 00:01:33.939 the Dark Ages were truly an Age of Enlightenment.But we’ll get boring Europe out of the way first. 00:01:33.939 --> 00:01:35.259 Let’s go to the Thought Bubble. 00:01:35.259 --> 00:01:39.420 Medieval Europe had less trade, fewer cities, and less cultural output than the Original 00:01:39.420 --> 00:01:40.590 Roman Empire. 00:01:40.590 --> 00:01:45.119 London and Paris were fetid firetraps with none of the planning of sewage management 00:01:45.119 --> 00:01:50.170 of places 5,000 years older like Mohenjo Daro in the Indus Valley Civilization, 00:01:50.170 --> 00:01:51.170 let alone Rome. 00:01:51.170 --> 00:01:52.640 But with fewer powerful governments, 00:01:52.640 --> 00:01:57.509 wars were at least smaller, which is one reason why Europeans living in Medieval Times— 00:01:57.509 --> 00:02:00.920 Uhh THOUGHT BUBBLE I KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO DO THAT. 00:02:00.920 --> 00:02:04.479 Anyway, people in Medieval Times lived slightly longer— 00:02:04.479 --> 00:02:06.040 life expectancy was 30— 00:02:06.040 --> 00:02:08.310 than Europeans during the Roman Empire— 00:02:08.310 --> 00:02:10.279 when life expectancy was 28. 00:02:10.279 --> 00:02:11.540 Instead of centralized governments, 00:02:11.540 --> 00:02:15.900 Europe in the middle ages had feudalism, a political system based on reciprocal relationships 00:02:15.900 --> 00:02:19.109 between lords, who owned lots of land, and vassals, 00:02:19.109 --> 00:02:22.909 who protected the land and got to dress up as knights in exchange for pledging loyalty 00:02:22.909 --> 00:02:23.819 to the lords. 00:02:23.819 --> 00:02:26.189 The lords were also vassals to more important lords, 00:02:26.189 --> 00:02:28.669 with the most important of all being the king. 00:02:28.669 --> 00:02:30.239 Below the knights were peasants 00:02:30.239 --> 00:02:35.769 who did the actual work on the land in exchange for protection from bandits and other threats. 00:02:35.769 --> 00:02:37.879 Feudalism was also an economic system, 00:02:37.879 --> 00:02:41.969 with the peasants working the land and keeping some of their production to feed themselves 00:02:41.969 --> 00:02:44.939 while giving the rest to the landowner whose land they worked. 00:02:44.939 --> 00:02:48.919 The small scale, local nature of the feudal system was perfect for a time and place where 00:02:48.919 --> 00:02:52.359 the threats to peoples’ safety were also small scale and local. 00:02:52.359 --> 00:02:53.549 But of course, 00:02:53.549 --> 00:02:55.579 this system reinforces the status quo – 00:02:55.579 --> 00:02:59.709 there’s little freedom and absolutely no social mobility: 00:02:59.709 --> 00:03:02.010 Peasants could never work their way up to lords, 00:03:02.010 --> 00:03:03.519 and they almost never left their villages. 00:03:03.519 --> 00:03:04.480 Thanks, Thought Bubble. 00:03:04.480 --> 00:03:07.219 One more point that’s very interesting from a world history perspective: 00:03:07.219 --> 00:03:12.719 this devolution from empire to localism has happened in lots of places at lots of different 00:03:12.719 --> 00:03:13.059 times. 00:03:13.059 --> 00:03:14.819 And in times of extreme political stress, 00:03:14.819 --> 00:03:17.620 like after the fall of the Han dynasty in China, 00:03:17.620 --> 00:03:22.109 power tends to flow into the hands of local lords who can protect the peasants better 00:03:22.109 --> 00:03:23.239 than the state can. 00:03:23.239 --> 00:03:27.139 We hear about this a lot in Chinese history and also in contemporary Afghanistan, 00:03:27.139 --> 00:03:32.359 but instead of being called feudal lords, these landlords are called warlords. 00:03:32.359 --> 00:03:33.930 Eurocentrism striking again. 00:03:33.930 --> 00:03:35.489 The other reason the Dark Ages are called Dark 00:03:35.489 --> 00:03:37.790 is because Europe was dominated by superstition 00:03:37.790 --> 00:03:42.309 and by boring religious debates about like how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. 00:03:42.309 --> 00:03:43.249 And while there’s something to that, 00:03:43.249 --> 00:03:46.180 the Middle Ages also saw theologians like Thomas Aquinas, 00:03:46.180 --> 00:03:48.629 who was quite an important philosopher, 00:03:48.629 --> 00:03:49.749 And women like Hildegard of Bilgen, 00:03:49.749 --> 00:03:54.119 who wrote all this important liturgical music and also basically invented the genre of the 00:03:54.119 --> 00:03:55.189 morality play. 00:03:55.189 --> 00:03:55.799 All that noted, 00:03:55.799 --> 00:03:58.180 things were certainly brighter in the Islamic world, 00:03:58.180 --> 00:03:59.449 or Dar al Islam. 00:03:59.449 --> 00:04:00.819 So when we last left the Muslims, 00:04:00.819 --> 00:04:04.969 they had expanded out of their homeland in Arabia and conquered the rich Egyptian provinces 00:04:04.969 --> 00:04:07.799 of the Byzantines and the entire Sassanian empire, 00:04:07.799 --> 00:04:09.459 all in the space of about 100 years. 00:04:09.459 --> 00:04:14.119 The Umayyad Dynasty then expanded the empire west to Spain and moved the capital to Damascus, 00:04:14.119 --> 00:04:16.359 because it was closer to the action, empire-wise 00:04:16.359 --> 00:04:18.229 but still in Arabia. 00:04:18.229 --> 00:04:19.609 That was really important to the Umayyads 00:04:19.609 --> 00:04:22.569 because they’d established this hierarchy in the empire with Arabs like themselves at 00:04:22.569 --> 00:04:23.479 the top and in fact 00:04:23.479 --> 00:04:28.129 they tried to keep Arabs from fraternizing with non-Arab muslims throughout the Empire. 00:04:28.129 --> 00:04:29.830 This of course annoyed the non-Arab Muslims, 00:04:29.830 --> 00:04:30.289 who were like, 00:04:30.289 --> 00:04:33.590 “I don’t know if you’re reading the same Quran we are, but this one says that 00:04:33.590 --> 00:04:34.830 we’re all supposed to be equal.” 00:04:34.830 --> 00:04:37.370 And pretty quickly the majority of Muslims weren’t Arabs, 00:04:37.370 --> 00:04:39.939 which made it pretty easy for them to overthrow the Umayyads, 00:04:39.939 --> 00:04:41.669 which they did in 750 CE. 00:04:41.669 --> 00:04:43.720 Their replacements, the Abb(ah)sids, Abb(uh)sids? 00:04:43.720 --> 00:04:44.419 Hold On... 00:04:44.419 --> 00:04:46.860 D’ahh, I’m right twice! 00:04:46.860 --> 00:04:47.470 Right, 00:04:47.470 --> 00:04:50.770 so the Abbasids were from the Abb(ah)si or the Abb(uh)-see family 00:04:50.770 --> 00:04:55.610 which hailed from the Eastern and therefore more Persian provinces of the Islamic Empire. 00:04:55.610 --> 00:04:59.169 The Abbasids took over in 750 and no one could fully defeat them— 00:04:59.169 --> 00:05:01.819 until 1258, when they were conquered by— 00:05:01.819 --> 00:05:03.060 wait for it— 00:05:03.060 --> 00:05:06.560 the Mongols. 00:05:06.560 --> 00:05:08.680 The Abbasids kept the idea of a hereditary monarchy, 00:05:08.680 --> 00:05:11.110 but they moved the capital of the empire to Baghdad, 00:05:11.110 --> 00:05:15.150 and they were much more welcoming of other non-Arab Muslims into positions of power. 00:05:15.150 --> 00:05:16.060 And under the Abbasids, 00:05:16.060 --> 00:05:20.229 the Dar al Islam took on a distinctly Persian cast that it never really lost. 00:05:20.229 --> 00:05:22.389 The Caliph now styled himself as a king of kings, 00:05:22.389 --> 00:05:23.789 just like the Achaemenids had, 00:05:23.789 --> 00:05:26.830 and pretty soon the caliph’s rule was a lot more indirect, 00:05:26.830 --> 00:05:28.409 just like the original Persians’. 00:05:28.409 --> 00:05:30.229 This meant that his control was much weaker, 00:05:30.229 --> 00:05:35.030 and by about 1000CE , the Islamic Caliphate which looks so incredibly impressive on a 00:05:35.030 --> 00:05:38.620 map had really descended into a series of smaller kingdoms, 00:05:38.620 --> 00:05:41.259 each paying lip-service to the caliph in Baghdad. 00:05:41.259 --> 00:05:44.879 This was partly because the Islamic Empire relied more and more on soldiers from the 00:05:44.879 --> 00:05:45.379 frontier, 00:05:45.379 --> 00:05:46.550 in this case Turks, 00:05:46.550 --> 00:05:50.770 and also slaves pressed into military service, in order to be the backbone of their army, 00:05:50.770 --> 00:05:56.310 a strategy that has been tried over and over again and has worked exactly zero times. 00:05:56.310 --> 00:05:59.030 Which you should remember if you ever become an emperor. 00:05:59.030 --> 00:06:02.340 Actually our resident historian points out that that strategy has worked-- 00:06:02.340 --> 00:06:05.749 if you are the Mongols. 00:06:05.749 --> 00:06:08.689 More important than the Persian-style monarchy that the Abbasids tried to set up was their 00:06:08.689 --> 00:06:11.430 openness to foreigners and their ideas. 00:06:11.430 --> 00:06:15.599 That tolerance and curiosity ushered in a golden age of Islamic learning centered in 00:06:15.599 --> 00:06:16.210 Baghdad. 00:06:16.210 --> 00:06:20.520 The Abbasids oversaw an efflorescence of culture unlike anything that had been seen since Hellenistic 00:06:20.520 --> 00:06:21.270 times. 00:06:21.270 --> 00:06:24.229 Arabic replaced Greek not only as the language of commerce and religion, 00:06:24.229 --> 00:06:25.490 but also of culture. 00:06:25.490 --> 00:06:28.620 Philosophy, medicine, and poetry were all written in Arabic 00:06:28.620 --> 00:06:31.240 (although Persian remained an important literary language.) 00:06:31.240 --> 00:06:36.650 And Baghdad was the world’s center of scholarship with its House of Wisdom and immense library. 00:06:36.650 --> 00:06:40.150 Muslim scholars translated the works of the Greek Philosophers including Aristotle and 00:06:40.150 --> 00:06:40.520 Plato 00:06:40.520 --> 00:06:43.389 as well as scientific works by Hippocrates, Archimedes 00:06:43.389 --> 00:06:45.280 and especially the physician Galen. 00:06:45.280 --> 00:06:48.460 And they translated and preserved Buddhist and Hindu manuscripts that might have otherwise 00:06:48.460 --> 00:06:49.479 been lost. 00:06:49.479 --> 00:06:51.460 Muslims made huge strides in medicine as well. 00:06:51.460 --> 00:06:54.449 One Muslim scholar ibn Sina, wrote the Canon of Medicine, 00:06:54.449 --> 00:06:58.279 which became the standard medical textbook or centuries in both Europe and the Middle 00:06:58.279 --> 00:06:58.840 East. 00:06:58.840 --> 00:07:01.360 And the Islamic empire adopted mathematical concepts from India 00:07:01.360 --> 00:07:04.279 such as the zero, a number so fascinating and beautiful 00:07:04.279 --> 00:07:06.789 that we could write an entire episode about it but instead 00:07:06.789 --> 00:07:08.939 I’m just gonna write it a little love poem: 00:07:08.939 --> 00:07:10.039 Oh, zero. 00:07:10.039 --> 00:07:11.249 Pretty little zero. 00:07:11.249 --> 00:07:14.779 They say you’re nothing but you mean everything to mathematical history 00:07:14.779 --> 00:07:15.889 ....and me. 00:07:15.889 --> 00:07:17.919 Oh it’s time for the Open Letter? 00:07:17.919 --> 00:07:21.779 [Scoots to chartreuse throne of pure velvety awesomeness] 00:07:21.779 --> 00:07:23.710 An Open Letter to Science and Religion: 00:07:23.710 --> 00:07:26.099 But first lets see what’s in the Secret Compartment. 00:07:26.099 --> 00:07:27.620 Oh, champagne poppers? 00:07:27.620 --> 00:07:30.409 Stan, what am I supposed to do with these? 00:07:30.409 --> 00:07:31.610 Dear Science and Religion, 00:07:31.610 --> 00:07:33.879 You’re supposed to be so irreconcilable and everything, 00:07:33.879 --> 00:07:35.360 but not so much in the Abbasid Empire. 00:07:35.360 --> 00:07:36.060 I mean, 00:07:36.060 --> 00:07:38.099 Muslim mathematicians expanded math to such a degree 00:07:38.099 --> 00:07:40.469 that we now call the base ten number system 00:07:40.469 --> 00:07:43.629 and the symbols we use to denote it “Arabic numerals.” 00:07:43.629 --> 00:07:46.590 And religion was at least part of what pushed all that learning forward. 00:07:46.590 --> 00:07:48.449 Like the great philosopher Ibn Rushd argued that 00:07:48.449 --> 00:07:52.379 the only path to religious enlightenment was through Aristotelian reasoning. 00:07:52.379 --> 00:07:54.680 And Muslim mathematicians and astronomers developed algebra 00:07:54.680 --> 00:07:57.449 partly so they could simplify Islamic inheritance law. 00:07:57.449 --> 00:07:59.400 Plus they made important strides in trigonometry 00:07:59.400 --> 00:08:01.330 so that people understand where to turn 00:08:01.330 --> 00:08:03.169 when trying to turn toward Mecca. 00:08:03.169 --> 00:08:05.460 You were working so well together, science and religion, 00:08:05.460 --> 00:08:10.059 but then like Al and Tipper Gore, just couldn’t last forever. 00:08:10.059 --> 00:08:13.860 Nothing gold can stay in this world, nothing gold can stay. 00:08:13.860 --> 00:08:15.210 Best wishes, John Green 00:08:15.210 --> 00:08:17.740 Baghdad wasn’t the only center of learning in the Islamic world. 00:08:17.740 --> 00:08:20.860 In Spain, Islamic Cordoba became a center for the arts, 00:08:20.860 --> 00:08:22.050 especially architecture. 00:08:22.050 --> 00:08:24.930 This is perhaps best exemplified by the Great Mosque at Cordoba, 00:08:24.930 --> 00:08:29.590 built by the Umayyad ruler Abd al-Rahman I In 785-786 CE. 00:08:29.590 --> 00:08:31.430 That’s right, this building, 00:08:31.430 --> 00:08:34.870 still standing today and one of the most amazing mosques in the world, 00:08:34.870 --> 00:08:36.389 was built in a year, 00:08:36.389 --> 00:08:38.279 whereas medieval cathedrals typically took, like, 00:08:38.279 --> 00:08:39.699 a million years to finish. 00:08:39.699 --> 00:08:42.620 The Muslims of Spain were also engineers who rivaled the Romans. 00:08:42.620 --> 00:08:45.949 Aqueducts in Cordoba brought drinkable water into the city, 00:08:45.949 --> 00:08:49.070 and Muslim scholars took the lead in agricultural science, 00:08:49.070 --> 00:08:51.589 improving yields on all kinds of new crops, 00:08:51.589 --> 00:08:54.880 allowing Spanish lives to be longer and less hungry. 00:08:54.880 --> 00:08:56.220 Everybody wanted to live in Spain, 00:08:56.220 --> 00:08:58.620 even the greatest Jewish philosopher, Maimonides, 00:08:58.620 --> 00:09:01.160 wanted to live in Spain, but sadly he was expelled 00:09:01.160 --> 00:09:03.410 and ended up in Alexandria Egypt. 00:09:03.410 --> 00:09:05.779 There he wrote his awesomely titled defense of rationality, 00:09:05.779 --> 00:09:07.240 A Guide for the Perplexed. 00:09:07.240 --> 00:09:10.980 I’m translating the title, of course, because the original text was written 00:09:10.980 --> 00:09:12.199 …in Arabic. 00:09:12.199 --> 00:09:14.630 Meanwhile, China was having a Golden Age of its own: 00:09:14.630 --> 00:09:18.110 The Tang Dynasty made China’s government more of a meritocracy, 00:09:18.110 --> 00:09:22.490 and ruled over 80 million people across four million square miles. 00:09:22.490 --> 00:09:24.360 And they might’ve conquered all of Central Asia 00:09:24.360 --> 00:09:26.610 had it not been for the Abbasids, whom they fought at 00:09:26.610 --> 00:09:28.470 the most important Battle You’ve Never Heard Of, 00:09:28.470 --> 00:09:29.899 the Battle of the Talas River. 00:09:29.899 --> 00:09:32.250 This was the Ali-Frasier of the 8th century. 00:09:32.250 --> 00:09:36.839 The Abbasids won, which ended up defining who had influence where with the -- 00:09:36.839 --> 00:09:41.350 with the Abbasids dominating to the west of the river and China dominating to the east. 00:09:41.350 --> 00:09:45.019 The Tang also produced incredible art that was traded all throughout Asia. 00:09:45.019 --> 00:09:48.630 Many of the more famous sculptures from the Tang Dynasty feature figures who are distinctly 00:09:48.630 --> 00:09:50.029 not-Chinese, 00:09:50.029 --> 00:09:52.519 which again demonstrates the diversity of the empire. 00:09:52.519 --> 00:09:54.899 The Tang was also a golden age for Chinese poetry 00:09:54.899 --> 00:09:58.279 with notables like Du Fu and Li Bo plying their craft, 00:09:58.279 --> 00:09:59.959 encouraged by the official government. 00:09:59.959 --> 00:10:02.980 And the Song Dynasty, which lasted from 960 to 1258, 00:10:02.980 --> 00:10:05.899 kicked even more ass-it’s-not-cursing-if-you’re-talking-about-donkeys. 00:10:05.899 --> 00:10:07.170 By the 11th century, 00:10:07.170 --> 00:10:09.190 Chinese metalworkers were producing as much iron 00:10:09.190 --> 00:10:11.699 as Europe would be able to produce in the 18th century. 00:10:11.699 --> 00:10:14.060 Some of this iron was put to use in new plows, 00:10:14.060 --> 00:10:15.660 which enabled agriculture to boom, 00:10:15.660 --> 00:10:17.370 thereby supporting population growth. 00:10:17.370 --> 00:10:20.279 Porcelain was of such high quality that it was shipped throughout the world, 00:10:20.279 --> 00:10:22.060 which is why we call it “china.” 00:10:22.060 --> 00:10:25.720 And there was so much trade going on that the Chinese ran out of metal for coins, 00:10:25.720 --> 00:10:27.269 leading to another innovation– 00:10:27.269 --> 00:10:28.040 paper money. 00:10:28.040 --> 00:10:30.750 And by the 11th century, the Chinese were writing down recipes for 00:10:30.750 --> 00:10:33.620 a mixture of saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal, 00:10:33.620 --> 00:10:34.959 that we now know as gunpowder. 00:10:34.959 --> 00:10:36.690 That becomes kind of a big deal in history, 00:10:36.690 --> 00:10:38.079 paving the way, as it does, 00:10:38.079 --> 00:10:41.810 for modern warfare and arena rock pyrotechnics, and— 00:10:41.810 --> 00:10:43.279 ohhhh, THAT’S WHY. 00:10:43.279 --> 00:10:49.160 [Pulls Champagne popper along with a mysterious lady hand from behind chalkboard.] 00:10:49.160 --> 00:10:50.279 Not so dark after all. 00:10:50.279 --> 00:10:53.160 Thanks for watching. We’ll see you next week. 00:10:53.160 --> 00:10:55.240 Crash Course is produced and directed by Stan Muller, 00:10:55.240 --> 00:10:57.019 our script supervisor is Danica Johnson. [bazinga!] 00:10:57.019 --> 00:10:58.680 The graphics team is ThoughtBubble, 00:10:58.680 --> 00:11:02.470 and show is written by my high school history teacher Raoul Meyer and myself. 00:11:02.470 --> 00:11:04.160 Last week’s Phrase of the Week was also good advice: 00:11:04.160 --> 00:11:04.940 Quit Smoking! 00:11:04.940 --> 00:11:08.120 If you want to suggest future Phrases of the Week or guess at this week’s, you can do 00:11:08.120 --> 00:11:08.860 so in comments 00:11:08.860 --> 00:11:12.529 where you can also ask questions about today’s video that will be answered by our team of 00:11:12.529 --> 00:11:13.029 historians. 00:11:13.029 --> 00:11:13.690 If you liked today’s video 00:11:13.690 --> 00:11:14.779 please click the thumb’s up button. 00:11:14.779 --> 00:11:18.139 You can also follow us on Twitter @thecrashcourse or on Facebook. 00:11:18.139 --> 00:11:20.209 There are links in the video info. 00:11:20.209 --> 00:11:21.449 Our writer and historian, Raoul Mayer, 00:11:21.449 --> 00:11:25.829 also tweets awesome Crash Course pop quizzes, so there’s a link to follow him as well, 00:11:25.829 --> 00:11:27.430 and me, you know, 00:11:27.430 --> 00:11:29.399 because I’m a narcissist. 00:11:29.399 --> 00:11:30.389 [music outro] 00:11:30.389 --> 00:11:40.850 We get to be a continent, 00:11:40.850 --> 00:11:54.009 even though we're not a continent... 00:11:54.009 --> 00:11:54.529 [music outro] 00:11:54.529 --> 00:11:56.079 We get to be a continent, 00:11:56.079 --> 00:11:57.630 even though we're not a continent... 00:11:57.630 --> 00:11:58.149 [music outro] 00:11:58.149 --> 00:11:59.699 We get to be a continent, 00:11:59.699 --> 99:59:59.999 even though we're not a continent...