WEBVTT

00:00:04.938 --> 00:00:05.188
Baked or fried,

00:00:08.088 --> 00:00:08.851
boiled or roasted,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as chips or fries.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
At some point in your life,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
you've probably eaten a potato.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Delicious, for sure,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
but the fact is potatoes have played a
much more significant role in our history

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
than just that of the dietary staple
we have come to know and love today.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Without the potato,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
our modern civilization 
might not exist at all.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
8,000 years ago in South America,
high atop the Andes,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Ancient Peruvians were the first
to cultivate the potato.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Containing high levels of proteins
and carbohydrates,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as well as essential fats, vitamins
and minerals,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
potatoes were the perfect food source
to fuel a large Incan working class

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as they built and farmed 
their terraced fields,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
mined the Rocky Mountains,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and created the sophisticated civilization
of the great Incan Empire.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But considering how vital they were
to the Incan people,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
when Spanish sailors 
returning from the Andes

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
first brought potatoes to Europe,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
the spuds were duds.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Europeans simply didn't want to eat

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
what they considered dull and tasteless
oddities from a strange new land.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Too closely related to the deadly
nightshade plant, Belladonna, for comfort.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So instead of consuming them,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
they used potatoes 
as decorative garden plants.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
More than 200 years would pass
before the potato caught on

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as a major food source throughout Europe,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
though even then,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
it was predominantly eaten 
by the lower classes.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
However, beginning around 1750,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and thanks at least in part

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to the wide availability
of inexpensive and nutritious potatoes,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
European peasants 
with greater food security

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
no longer found themselves

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
at the mercy of the regularly 
occurring grain famines of the time,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and so their populations steadily grew.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
As a result, the British, Dutch
and German Empires

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
rose on the backs of the growing groups
of farmers, laborers, and soldiers,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
thus lifting the West to its place
of world dominion.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
However, not all European countries
sprouted empires.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
After the Irish adopted the potato,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
their population dramatically increased,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
as did their dependence on the tuber
as a major food staple.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But then disaster struck.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
From 1845 to 1852,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
potato blight disease ravaged 
the majority of Ireland's potato crop,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
leading to the Irish Potato Famine,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
one of the deadliest famines
in world history.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Over a million Irish citizens 
starved to death,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and 2 million more 
left their homes behind.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
But of course, this wasn't the end
for the potato.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
The crop eventually recovered,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
and Europe's population,
especially the working classes,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
continued to increase.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Aided by the influx of Irish migrants,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Europe now had a large, sustainable,
and well-fed population

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
who were capable of manning
the emerging factories

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
that would bring about our modern world
via the Industrial Revolution.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
So it's almost impossible to imagine
a world without the potato.

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Would the Industrial Revolution 
ever have happened?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Would World War II have been lost
by the Allies

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
without this easy-to-grow crop
that fed the Allied troops?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
Would it even have started?

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
When you think about it like this,

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
many major milestones in world history
can all be at least partially contributed

99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999
to the simple spud 
from the Peruvian hilltops