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Mankind The Story of All of Us Episode 7/12 New World

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    Narrator: We struggle for new lands, new opportunities.
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    [fighting, yelling]
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    We fight for wealth,
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    and power,
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    but now, mankind embarks on a new journey,
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    risking all,
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    for a new world.
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    Amidst the chaos of an unforgiving planet, most species will fail,
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    but for one, all the pieces will fall into place, and a 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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    [lightning, thunder]
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    Guided by Thor, God of Thunder,
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    the Vikings set out across the world.
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    Their longboats are fast, rugged, designed to navigate the most treacherous waters on earth.
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    Sheridan: The longboats are almost like an all-terrain water vehicle, that allows these Vikings to go further, deeper, and almost anywhere on the planet.
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    Narrator: From Scandinavia, warriors storm through Europe, raiding, settling, founding new cities, connecting the northern world.
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    Now, they head west across the Atlantic Ocean,
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    mankind on a new journey that will connect a divided planet,
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    the first Europeans known to land in the Americas.
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    Thorvald Eriksson,
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    legendary explorer,
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    a hero, whose exploits are remembered in Viking legend.
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    Shipmate speaking: They brought the ship to where they could moor her, and Thorvald walked ashore with his crew.
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    "This is a fine place," he said. "I should like to make it my home."
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    Narrator: Since human beings first walked out of Africa 70,000 years ago, mankind seeks new resources and opportunities,
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    new frontiers to explore and conquer.
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    Williams: There are always resources and wide open spaces beyond the next mountain range,
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    beyond the next ocean. We're never quite satisfied nor is our curiosity ever quite satisfied. We want to know what's over there.
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    Narrator: But this land belongs to the Inuit,
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    descendants of the first pioneers, who came in to America 19,000 years before.
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    90 million Native Americans, a third of the planet's population, cut off from the rest of the world.
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    until now.
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    Lindbergh: It's like aliens coming from outer space, who land on your beach. They were strangers; they looked pale and grizzly.
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    Narrator: The Inuit are expert hunters,
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    armed with stone-tipped arrows,
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    swift, silent, deadly.
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    Loades: The Inuit people who hunted, they hunted caribou and moose and bear.
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    If they could drop a great moose with their arrows, they could certainly drop a Viking.
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    [yelling]
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    [fighting]
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    Narrator: The Viking weapon of choice: the iron broad axe,
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    designed to split a skull in a single blow.
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    Loades: Viking culture was a warrior culture.
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    [screaming]
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    The man's greatest wish was to die in battle, doing a heroic deed.
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    That ensured his seat in Valhalla.
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    [fighting]
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    Narrator: The Viking histories record:
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    Viking speaking: They killed eight Inuit. Exhausted, they made camp.
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    [fire crackling]
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    [ocean waves]
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    [dog barking]
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    Suddenly, they were startled by the sound of a cry above them.
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    [dog howling]
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    [yelling]
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    [fighting]
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    Narrator: Thorvald Erickson, the first European to die on American soil.
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    [continued fighting and yelliing]
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    It would be 500 years before another European sets foot in the New World.
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    In the Americas, no iron tools or horses,
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    no wheeled vehicles,
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    yet America's people engineered great monuments thousands of years before the Egyptians.
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    They mapped the stars with as much accuracy as any astronomer in Europe,
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    and high on a mountain lake in Mexico, they build one of the greatest cities on the planet,
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    Tenochtitlan, capitol of the Aztec Empire,
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    larger than London, Paris, or Rome.
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    At its heart, a stone temple 100 feet high,
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    where sky, earth, and underworld meet,
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    the center of a civilization dedicated to human blood.
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    [music]
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    100 miles from the city,
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    [yelling]
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    Aztec warriors are on a hunt.
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    Their prey, not animal but human.
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    [yelling]
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    They chase down the leader of an enemy tribe.
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    [music]
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    The aim is not to kill,
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    they need to take him alive.
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    [screaming]
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    To keep the universe in balance, the Aztecs believe they owe a debt of blood to their gods.
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    Today, a special offering.
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    Tlahuicole
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    skilled warrior,
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    bitter rival,
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    the Aztecs' greatest prize,
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    fighting for his life.
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    [yelling]
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    [crowd noise, chanting]
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    Aztec men are trained to fight from puberty.
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    The fiercest become Jaguar Knights,
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    their weapons, not metal
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    but obsidian, volcanic glass,
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    so sharp, some surgeons today favor it over steel.
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    Loades: It is the most superior cutting material known to man, perfectly capable of cutting a man in two.
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    Narrator: Tlahuicole's weapon: a club decorated with feathers.
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    [chanting continues]
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    Machowicz: Not only is it terrifying if you were to imagine yourself in that position,
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    it's also the opportunity to find out what you're made of.
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    Narrator: A fight to the death that will become Aztec legend.
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    [music]
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    Tenochtitlan, Mexico
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    capital of the Aztec Empire.
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    [fighting, yelling]
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    A captive warrior fights for his life.
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    Elite Jaguar Knights slice at his flesh to wear him down.
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    The Aztecs have created one of the most sophisticated civilizations on the planet,
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    a great city with laws against drunkenness, theft, and adultery,
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    compulsory education, three and a half centuries before the United States,
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    a city of philosophers, poets, mathematicians.
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    Hyland: They valued art, literature. They were a very, very great civilized society.
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    [continued fighting, yelling]
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    Narrator: But the Aztecs believed their gods need human blood.
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    Eight men down, and Tlahuicole is still standing,
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    [yelling]
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    [yelling]
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    but his strength is fading.
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    [yelling]
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    [groan]
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    The warrior who cuts him down will get to wear his flayed skin for 20 days.
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    His family will eat his flesh, giving them the status of gods.
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    Aztec priests sacrificed thousands of men, women, and children a year,
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    up to 20,000 in one of their most important ceremonies,
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    one of the greatest acts of human sacrifice in history.
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    Hyland: The Aztecs are very philosophical about death. Death is what gives meaning to life,
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    and that by having the idea of death, it makes the here and now sweeter and more beautiful.
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    [chanting, yelling continues]
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    Tlahuicole's beating heart, offered to the God of Sun and War, Huitzilopochtli, guardian of the universe.
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    In return, the Aztecs believe his blood will guarantee a bountiful harvest,
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    a crop that will become key to mankind's future,
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    corn.
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    6,000 years ago, early farmers in the Americas turn a weed into a cereal that produces more calories per acre than any other,
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    with almost twice as many genes as a human being,
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    found in a quarter of all supermarket products we buy today.
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    [chanting, yelling]
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    Corn is the staple of Aztec life.
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    But while Aztec power reaches its height,
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    events 7,000 miles away are about to change their world forever.
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    Constantinople,
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    the Eastern capitol of the Christian world,
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    founded by Rome's first Christian emperor, Constantine.
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    At the city's heart, an icon of Christian faith,
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    Hagia Sophia, the largest cathedral of its day.
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    [voices]
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    The year is 1453.
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    An epic battle is looming that will shift the balance of power between East and West,
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    and change the story of mankind.
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    Wunderlich: Constantinople is going to change the entire picture of the world that we have with the discovery of new continents.
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    The two events are inextricably linked.
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    Narrator: Constantinople is under siege
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    by the Ottoman Turks, an Islamic army 70,000 strong.
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    Leading the attack, Sultan Memet the 2nd,
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    scholar, warrior, obsessed.
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    Conquering this city has been his dream since the age of 13.
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    Like the Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan, the Turks were once nomads from central Asia.
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    [yelling]
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    If Memet can take Constantinople,
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    he'll control the key trade routes between East and West,
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    and the city's vast trade and spices.
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    Wunderlich: They want to take Constantinople. It's rich. It's the center of a vast trade of spices and other things flowing into Europe.
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    Narrator: One dried berry makes up as much as two-thirds of the spice trade into Europe,
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    pepper,
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    a spice that changes the story of mankind.
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    1,000 tons
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    shipped from southern India every year.
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    The sultan wants Constantinople as the jewel of a new Islamic empire.
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    Memet speaking: There must only be one empire, one faith, and one sovereignty in the world.
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    Narrator: But the city has the greatest defensive walls in Europe.
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    Four miles long.
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    Up to 100 feet high.
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    [voices]
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    Loads: Memet's big challenge was to bring down the walls of Constantinople.
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    No one had ever defeated the walls of Constantinople.
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    [voice]
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    Narrator: Now, a devastating new use of weapons: non-stop artillery bombardment, the key to the future of war.
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    Machowicz: Artillery becomes the king of battle,
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    and it's proven at Constantinople.
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    [explosions, screaming]
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    Narrator: The fate of Constantinople will change lives in every corner of the planet.
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    Mankind's destiny can turn on a single battle.
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    If the walls of Constantinople fall under bombardment by the Turks, the world will never be the same again.
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    Sixty-nine canons.
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    Dedicated teams working in shifts.
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    Cool, clean, reload, fire.
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    Each canon packed with up to ten stone balls.
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    [explosions, screaming]
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    Bodette: Those people in Constantinople, they never experienced anything like a canon bombardment.
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    I have been rocketed, I have been mortared before, and it ain't no fun.
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    You know, you never know. You don't know where it's going to land.
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    Narrator: Pounding the city around the clock, for 53 days.
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    Mike Loades: The great canon balls flew over the walls and crashed through the houses of the city, and then as they struck the ground, the stone shattered,
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    and they burst in a shrapnel hail of jagged little splinters that killed and maimed and lacerated for hundreds of yards around.
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    Narrator: Defenders rebuild,
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    but Mehmet breaks through.
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    A new era of warfare. Stonewalls will no longer protect us.
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    Oz: Constantinople had managed to hold out for a century, until my namesake, Mehmet the Conqueror, brought his Turkish tribes and was able to invade Constantinople,
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    and in that one very sleek move, tilted the axis of human history. Took an entire part of the planet that had preserved Christianity and made it Islamic.
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    Narrator: Christian Constantinople becomes Islamic Istanbul.
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    The great cathedral, Hagia Sophia, becomes the largest mosque in the world.
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    The world's most important trade routes now in the hands of a new empire hostile to the West,
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    forcing Europeans to search for a new route to the riches of the East.
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    [thunder]
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    Thirty years after Constantinople, a ship heads into a storm off the coast of southern Africa
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    on a journey that will open a new era of exploration.
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    In command, Portugese explorer Bartolomeu Dias,
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    wealthy nobleman, expert seaman, risk taker.
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    Dias is heading into unchartered waters,
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    searching for a new route to India, around the southern tip of Africa.
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    Meigs: These boats were hard to navigate, and yet people got in ships and sailed across oceans.
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    It's really extraordinary how many of those ships never came back.
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    Narrator: Dias has been using the coast to navigate, but as the storm gets worse, his guide becomes his enemy.
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    Sheridan: You don't want to be near the shore because you don't want to get driven up on the rocks.
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    You are getting blue water over the deck, and things are breaking, and you know, all hell's breaking loose.
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    You are terrified. You are sure this is it. I mean, you are making peace with God and hoping for the best.
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    Narrator: Now, Dias faces a choice that will determine the future for all of us: head out into uncharted waters or risk death on the rocks.
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    [rain, thunder, yelling]
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    A pioneer on a journey that will change the shape of the world,
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    caught in a storm off the coast of Africa,
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    searching for a new sea route to the East.
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    Bartolomeu Dias has two options: risk death on the rocks or head out into the Atlantic Ocean and the unknown.
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    He lowers the ship's square sails and puts his faith in an ancient Roman technology that will become the key to a new age of exploration,
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    the triangular lateen sail.
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    Meigs: The sail acts like a wing almost. It actually develops lift much like an airplane's wing,
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    and if you have a strong rudder able to steer that ship towards the wind, it transmits all that energy into forward motion.
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    Sheridan: If you can at least make a tiny bit of upwind headway, maybe you can claw your way off those rocks
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    and not wreck and smash and destroy your boat.
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    Narrator: Dias turns his ship and heads into the uncharted waters of the South Atlantic,
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    risking everything if he can't find his way back to shore.
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    Out of sight of land for 13 days,
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    no idea what lies ahead.
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    His maps are useless.
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    Lost at sea.
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    His fate now turns on a powerful force of nature, beneath the waves,
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    an ocean gyre, a vast circular current caused by prevailing winds working against the rotation of the Earth,
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    creating a conveyor belt of water, 4,000x more powerful than the Mississippi River,
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    Sheridan: So, if you are sitting in the calm of an ocean gyre, it feels like you're, you know,
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    a painted ship on a painted ocean; nothing's happening,
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    but what's really going on is you're covering ground, but the whole sea is moving in this arc.
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    Narrator: The discovery of ocean gyres will revolutionize seafaring.
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    Dias has no idea of the forces that slingshot his ship,
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    from an empty ocean toward the southern tip of Africa.
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    Sheridan: He really had everything going for him. He had the prevailing winds with him,
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    he had the current with him, and he was on a ride that he may not have fully understood.
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    [waves crashing]
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    Dias claims the land in the name of God and country.
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    It will become known as the Cape of Good Hope.
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    [voices]
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    The key to a new sea route to the East, bypassing Constantinople,
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    a direct passage to India.
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    Within 50 years, it becomes one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.
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    44,000 tons of goods shipped around the Cape each year,
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    building new empires, new connections, and a new future.
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    The race to profit from the riches of the East is on.
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    October 12th, 1492.
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    a date seared on to the hard drive of humanity.
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    Spanish sailors discover land, leading them an Italian, Christopher Columbus.
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    maverick, hustler,
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    with his own dream to find a shortcut to the East.
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    His plan, to sail west to China.
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    He calculates the journey from Spain will take him just 21 days.
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    He underestimates the distance by 7,000 miles.
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    Mann: What was striking about this is that any educated person at the time would know that Columbus was wrong.
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    Narrator: Undaunted, convinced he's right, Columbus has been all over Europe, begging for support for his journey.
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    Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, throw some money his way.
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    [clapping]
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    barely enough to fund the expedition.
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    Mann: It's kinda the way that a wealthy person might bet a hundred bucks on poker,
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    you know, without much expectation, but you could afford it.
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    [music]
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    [waves]
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    [wind]
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    Narrator: After five weeks at sea, close to starvation, thousands of miles from his target, he reaches land,
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    which he believes is Japan. In fact, it's the Bahamas
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    off the coast of a vast new world:
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    the Americas.
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    Two worlds isolated from each other for 10,000 years.
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    Mann: It's not only a huge event in history, but it's a huge event in the history of life.
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    [voice]
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    Narrator: The Bahamas are home to the Taino people.
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    Mann: He sees these people, for the most part by European standards,
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    very tall, very healthy, very good-looking,
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    you know, living in a state of abundance.
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    Narrator: Columbus records their first encounter.
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    Columbus: The people kept calling to us and giving thanks to God, as if we'd come from Heaven.
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    I presented them with some red caps, some beads.
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    They were much delighted and became wonderfully attached to us.
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    Narrator: Living in a different ecosystem for thousands of years, the people of the Americas have no immunity to a deadly threat,
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    disease.
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    Mann: Europeans are sort of swimming in this bacterial and viral soup, that was utterly unlike anything over there.
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    Narrator: First contact with an invisible killer that will one day change the destiny of the New World,
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    but Columbus is on a search for treasure.
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    Columbus: I kept my eyes open and tried to find if there was any gold.
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    Then, I saw some of them had a little piece hanging from a hole in their nose.
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    I gathered that by, going further, I'd find a king, who possessed in great quantities of gold.
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    Columbus returned to Spain a hero. His journeys opened the floodgates.
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    [voices calling]
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    [Heave!]
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    All of Europe wants a piece of the Americas.
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    The Old World and the New
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    are on a collision course.
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    [fighting, gunshot]
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    Tenochtitlan, Mexico,
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    heart of the Aztec Empire.
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    28 years after Columbus, the lust for gold is about the change the destiny of the New World,
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    through the ambitions of one man,
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    Hernan Cortes,
  • 39:21 - 39:25
    devious, charming, and ruthless,
  • 39:26 - 39:30
    leading a band of just 500 European adventurers.
  • 39:35 - 39:39
    Camarillo: Cortes was quite a manipulator and quite savvy.
  • 39:39 - 39:48
    He knows how to motivate the people, and the objective is gold, and that's what of course was the prime motivation.
  • 39:55 - 39:58
    Narrator: Aztec Emperor Montezuma,
  • 40:01 - 40:05
    the richest, most powerful man in the Americas,
  • 40:06 - 40:09
    ruler of 25 million people.
  • 40:10 - 40:15
    He's welcomed Cortes and his men into his palace,
  • 40:15 - 40:18
    a mistake that will change the fate of a continent.
  • 40:20 - 40:24
    Camarillo: Their numbers were small. How could they constitute a threat when you have an army
  • 40:24 - 40:30
    that's 1000x, 10,000x, larger than the few hundred souls that they brought, right?
  • 40:35 - 40:42
    Narrator: Cortes's plan: kidnap the Emperor.
  • 40:50 - 40:57
    Camarillo: Part of his calculation was, if we can show that we can take over at this level,
  • 40:57 - 41:05
    you know, incarcerate the head of the Empire, maybe the rest of the dominoes will fall.
  • 41:08 - 41:17
    Narrator: Montezuma's treasuries are filled with gold. The Spanish lust for plunder astonishes the Aztecs.
  • 41:17 - 41:26
    An eyewitness reports: They snatched up the gold like monkeys. They were swollen with greed.
  • 41:26 - 41:29
    They hungered for that gold like wild pigs.
  • 41:30 - 41:34
    Narrator: The people dubbed their captive Emperor, Cortes's Whore,
  • 41:35 - 41:36
    and revolt.
  • 41:37 - 41:44
    [fighting]
  • 41:44 - 41:54
    [swords, screaming]
  • 41:56 - 42:01
    Trapped inside the palace, Cortes receives word from his men:
  • 42:02 - 42:08
    We are in eminent danger. We'll all perish unless Montezuma commands the hostilities to stop.
  • 42:17 - 42:19
    [Cortes speaking Spanish]
  • 42:29 - 42:48
    [crowd yelling and chanting]
  • 42:48 - 42:56
    [yelling to the crowd]
  • 42:56 - 43:03
    Montezuma: These strangers are my guests. Lay down your arms.
  • 43:03 - 43:23
    [crowd continues to yell]
  • 43:34 - 43:41
    Narrator: The most powerful ruler in the Americas murdered by his own people.
  • 43:44 - 43:57
    [fighting continues]
  • 43:57 - 44:05
    Fighting for their lives, Cortes and his men barely escape with a fortune in Aztec gold and silver
  • 44:08 - 44:11
    and leave behind a lethal time bomb.
  • 44:15 - 44:18
    Oz: The conquistadors are going to war with the Aztecs,
  • 44:20 - 44:25
    but their biggest weapons aren't the ones they're carrying in their hands; it's the virus in their bodies,
  • 44:25 - 44:28
    smallpox. Unbeknownst to them, they bring it to battle.
  • 44:30 - 44:35
    Narrator: Six months later, half the city is dead from smallpox.
  • 44:46 - 44:50
    Eleven months after his escape, Cortes returns,
  • 44:55 - 44:57
    his victory complete.
  • 45:02 - 45:06
    He's hijacked the mighty Aztec Empire,
  • 45:12 - 45:18
    an empire of 25 million, brought down by just 500 men.
  • 45:23 - 45:30
    The quest for luxuries and power sends pioneers across oceans
  • 45:31 - 45:33
    in search of opportunity.
  • 45:43 - 45:47
    Now, a new world brings new beginnings.
  • 45:48 - 45:54
    The riches of a continent flood out across the planet,
  • 45:54 - 45:58
    changing lives in every corner of the globe.
Title:
Mankind The Story of All of Us Episode 7/12 New World
Video Language:
English
Duration:
46:05

English subtitles

Incomplete

Revisions