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Baked or fried,

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boiled or roasted,

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as chips or fries.

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At some point in your life,
you've probably eaten a potato.

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Delicious, for sure,

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but the fact is potatoes have played a
much more significant role in our history

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than just that of the dietary staple
we have come to know and love today.

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Without the potato,

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our modern civilization 
might not exist at all.

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8,000 years ago in South America,
high atop the Andes,

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ancient Peruvians were the first
to cultivate the potato.

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Containing high levels of proteins
and carbohydrates,

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as well as essential fats, vitamins
and minerals,

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potatoes were the perfect food source
to fuel a large Incan working class

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as they built and farmed 
their terraced fields,

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mined the Rocky Mountains,

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and created the sophisticated civilization
of the great Incan Empire.

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But considering how vital they were
to the Incan people,

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when Spanish sailors 
returning from the Andes

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first brought potatoes to Europe,

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the spuds were duds.

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Europeans simply didn't want to eat

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what they considered dull and tasteless
oddities from a strange new land,

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too closely related to the deadly
nightshade plant belladonna for comfort.

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So instead of consuming them,

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they used potatoes 
as decorative garden plants.

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More than 200 years would pass
before the potato caught on

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as a major food source throughout Europe,

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though even then,

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it was predominantly eaten 
by the lower classes.

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However, beginning around 1750,

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and thanks at least in part

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to the wide availability
of inexpensive and nutritious potatoes,

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European peasants 
with greater food security

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no longer found themselves

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at the mercy of the regularly 
occurring grain famines of the time,

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and so their populations steadily grew.

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As a result, the British, Dutch
and German Empires

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rose on the backs of the growing groups
of farmers, laborers, and soldiers,

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thus lifting the West to its place
of world dominion.

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However, not all European countries
sprouted empires.

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After the Irish adopted the potato,

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their population dramatically increased,

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as did their dependence on the tuber
as a major food staple.

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But then disaster struck.

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From 1845 to 1852,

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potato blight disease ravaged 
the majority of Ireland's potato crop,

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leading to the Irish Potato Famine,

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one of the deadliest famines
in world history.

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Over a million Irish citizens 
starved to death,

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and 2 million more 
left their homes behind.

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But of course, this wasn't the end
for the potato.

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The crop eventually recovered,

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and Europe's population,
especially the working classes,

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continued to increase.

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Aided by the influx of Irish migrants,

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Europe now had a large, sustainable,
and well-fed population

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who were capable of manning
the emerging factories

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that would bring about our modern world
via the Industrial Revolution.

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So it's almost impossible to imagine
a world without the potato.

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Would the Industrial Revolution 
ever have happened?

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Would World War II have been lost
by the Allies

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without this easy-to-grow crop
that fed the Allied troops?

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Would it even have started?

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When you think about it like this,

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many major milestones in world history
can all be at least partially attributed

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to the simple spud 
from the Peruvian hilltops.