Mankind The Story of All of Us Episode 6/12 Survivors

Narrator: We are survivors.

[yelling]

Mankind brought low by disease, war, devastation,

[music]

but now, we harness new riches and new powers.

We look beyond the world we know,

[music]

and together, rise again.

[music]

Amidst the chaos of a unforgiving planet, most species will fail,

but for one, all the pieces will fall into place, and a set of keys will unlock a path for mankind to try.

This is our story, the Story of All of Us.

[music]

Narrator: 1352. The Sahara, the largest desert on the planet,

a searing wilderness the size of the United States,

the toughest challenge an explorer can face.

Ibn Battuta

He left Morocco at age 21,

vowing never to travel the same road twice.

He's explored over 40 countries, but this is his first time in the Sahara.

Ibn Battuta: We set off into a desert, totally devoid of settlements. There's no road, no track, only sand.

[music]

Narrator: But, at this time, the Sahara holds the key to mankind's survival.

[music, flashes, rodents eating]

Narrator: The Plague rages through Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.

[music]

It's killed up to a fifth of the world's population.

In the Damascus Syria, Ibn Battuta records 2,400 deaths in a single day,

but the Sahara is a barrier against the pandemic.

With temperatures up to 135 degrees, the Plague can't survive the heat of the desert.

[drums sounds]

Few living things can.

Sheridan: The Sahara is vast. It's the definition of a horrible place to be. There's no water, it's incredibly hot, your eyes are playing tricks on you,

your mind starts playing tricks on you. It's an incredible ordeal.

Narrator: The body's cooling system shuts down: heat stroke.

Oz: Then you stop sweating because you have no ability to get rid of fluid to allow you to cool down.

You stop thinking normally, and it's that erratic, bizarre behavior that ultimately leads to death.

Narrator: Ibn Battuta's life, in the hands of his traveling companions

the Tuareg.

[voices]

[waterdrops]

Nomads from North Africa, they've lived in the Sahara for a thousand years,

trading something that we take for granted today, but what was once one of the most valuable commodities on the planet:

salt.

Bourdain: Salt was everything. Salt was literally the difference between life and death.

Narrator: Before refrigeration, salt was the key to preserving food.

It absorbs and stops bacteria from growing.

Salted food can last for a year without spoiling.

Bourdain: Access to salt determined whether you were powerful enough.

I can't send an army across the water or a great distances without provisions, and their provisions are going to go bad if they are not salted.

Narrator: The Tuareg have discovered a rich supply,

under their feet.

Millions of years ago, the Sahara was a sea.

As the water evaporated, it left behind huge salt deposits.

The salt trade is the Tuareg's livelihood.

They mine it at Taghaza in the middle of the Sahara and then trek hundreds of miles south

to the markets in the great cities of the Mali Empire: Jenne, Gao, and Timbuktu.

But it is a dangerous journey in a deadly landscape.

[music]

[wind]

The greatest fear of every traveler:

the sandstorm

[music, yelling]

Whipped up in seconds, by 70 miles per hour winds.

Sheridan: When a sandstorm hits, it fills the air with sand, fills your lungs, fills your eyes and your nose. You can't see.

[voices]

This wind and this sand can strip the paint off a car.

You have to get shelter or you die.

[wind, camel groaning]

[yelling]

Buttata: One of our party was lost in the desert. After that, I never went ahead or never lagged behind again.

[music]

Narrator: After two months in the Sahara, Ibn Battuta's camel train reaches its destination,

the cities of Mali.

[voices]

Battuta: Travelers have nothing to fear. They gave me gifts of food and treated me with the utmost generosity.

May God reward them for their kindness.

Narrator: Tuareg merchants can now trade their precious cargo.

In Mali, salt is so in demand; it's traded for for gold.

Today, most gold in the world has to be mined deep underground.

In Mali, it flows out of the bedrock of the River Niger.

[water]

At this time, as much as two-thirds of the world's known gold preserves are in West Africa

the key that turns Mali's rulers into some of the richest men in the world,

and their cities into centers of learning.

[voices]

Timbuktu University, one of the oldest in the world.

The first in sub-Saharan Africa, up to 25,000 people, a quarter of the population, students.

Over 300,000 scrolls

one of the greatest libraries in the Islamic world

Gates: Scholars from lots and lots of places went there to study the scrolls. It was the world-wide web. It was the place where information was known.

Narrator: This is Africa's Golden Age.

In the south, great Zimbabwe, gleaming city of stone, legendary site of King Solomon's mines

In the highlands of Ethiopia, an ancient Christian empire, claiming to descend from the Queen of Sheba

and on the east coast, Kilwa, one of Africa's busiest ports.

Ibn Battuta will return to Morocco and write the oldest surviving account of Timbuktu

and the wealth of Africa.

The Tuareg will carry their gold back across the Sahara.

Its destination, across the Mediterranean to Europe.

African gold will be key to the greatest explosion of ideas the Western World has ever known.

It will make some men rich and others, reckless.

Venice: 117 mud islands joined together

become a thriving center of commerce.

Silk from the Middle East

spices from India,

and the key to its wealth:

gold from Africa.

A young Venetian, Pietro Venier,

hoping to get rich as a partner in a bank,

the Priuli Brothers.

70 years earlier, the Plague wiped out half the population of Venice.

But in the story of mankind, disaster creates opportunity.

Hejeebu: Venice is the nursery of modern banking and finance.

It is the cradle of capitalism.

In the 15th and 16th centuries, it is the place to be. It's absolutely the place to be.

[voices]

Narrator: In Venice, African gold is minted into ducats, an international currency.

Merchants bank their ducats with men like Pierre Trogannier.

[voices, laughing]

Modern banking begins in Italy.

at the benches, the banca, where money changes hands.

Hejeebu: They would go to banks to borrow for personal loans, and they would go to banks to borrow for commercial loans,

many of the same reasons we go to banks today.

Narrator: But Venice is a magnet for the disadvantaged, lured by its wealth.

Enrico, an unemployed migrant,

hungry and tempted.

[yelling]

340 ducats, over two pounds of gold

Petro Veniere has no choice. He must capture him.

[music]

Hejeebu: When the trust in your banker disappears, the banker's future has disappeared.

His word doesn't count for anything. His promises don't count, and if your promises don't count, you're out of business.

[groans]

Narrator: The authorities hang Enrico. There's no mercy for thieves in Venice.

It's men like Pietro Veniere, who will finance the Renaissance

the greatest flourishing of learning and culture mankind has ever known.

[music]

After the devastation of the Plague, a rebirth.

Hejeebu: We have works of art, works of architecture, palaces, schools, academies.

All of the human arts flourish when banking flourishes.

They were buying collections for themselves, but they were meant for eternity.

Narrator: 5,000 miles away, China is on the brink of its own rebirth,

the key, a deadly new invention.

[gunshots]

For a century and a half, the Mongols have ruled China.

[fighting]

but the Plague has killed millions, loosening their grip on power.

[yelling, sword strikes]

1356, outside Nanjing,

a gang of three plots a revolution.

their leader Zhu Yuanzhang

born dirt poor, orphaned by the plague.

Narrator Agnes: Zhu Yuanzhang was a peasant.

he was a ordinary man but he had extraordinary drive.

[sounds of voices]

Narrator: His men called themselves the red turban's.

[sounds of men fighting]

Peasant's turned rebels.

Narrator: People have nothing to eat. And when a rebel leader comes along and says drive out the Mongols there's universal enthusiasm.

Narrator: By his side his young wife Ma.

[loud sounds]

daughter of a warlord, partner in the revolution.

[music]

Narrator: Ma and Zhu were a match made in heaven: and together they were perfect partners in this rebellion.

Narrator: Third member of the gang, Jiao Yu.

[loud sounds]

Master craftsman, weapons expert.

[sounds of swords swiping]

Narrator: Jiao Yu was not just a soldier, but one of the great brains behind this operation.

[horses galloping]

Narrator: Mongols soldiers are trained to use a bow and arrow, with deadly accuracy.

[sound of bow being shot]

[Music]