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Documentary, Mankind: The Story of all of us S01E04 Warriors
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00:00From the dust of empires,
00:08new forces rise,
00:14new ideas propel us forward,
00:28new beliefs unite us
00:35and tear us apart.
00:46Amidst the chaos of an unforgiving planet,
00:49most species will fail.
00:52But for one, all the pieces will fall into place.
00:57And a set of keys will unlock a path for mankind to triumph.
01:04This is our story. The story of all of us.
01:13Rome, 455 A.D.
01:18At the gates of the Imperial Palace.
01:24Geyser.
01:28Known as the Spear King.
01:31Chief of a tribe of Germanic warriors.
01:35The Vandals.
01:37Crushed Roman armies in North Africa.
01:40Now, they're after the riches of Rome itself.
01:47Trapped inside the palace.
01:50The Empress, Licinia Eudoxia.
01:57Daughter of a Christian convert.
02:01Widow of a murdered emperor.
02:05She and her children are the last of Rome's ruling family.
02:15The imperial capital is under attack.
02:20Ruling a fifth of the world's population.
02:24Has stretched the empire to breaking point.
02:31Like a supernova, the empires we've seen on this planet have collapsed under their own weight.
02:46A great mass of energy.
02:48There's nothing brighter in the sky.
02:51There was certainly nothing brighter and more powerful than the Roman Empire.
02:58Until it wasn't.
03:01Rome.
03:03The world's first megacity.
03:05Population, one million.
03:12The most modern city in the world.
03:24Now, in ruins.
03:26An empire in meltdown.
03:28When you think about the Roman Empire and the complexity of the system that failed.
03:38It's incredibly frightening.
03:45The system that could create the best army in the world.
03:48That could unite the entire Mediterranean region.
03:51The idea that a system like that can fragment and break apart.
03:56It's apocalyptic.
04:02The Eiseric's men wreak havoc.
04:05The Roman Empire will never recover.
04:10When you see that kind of horror and you're stuck and trapped inside this city, you start running out of options very quick.
04:19You can't run, you can't hide, you can't defeat this force.
04:28They will rape, they will pillage, and they will plunder.
04:31But the Vandals are no savages.
04:40They're educated and skilled in warfare, thanks to the Romans.
04:48By the time the Vandals arrived in Rome, they'd been living in the Roman Empire for a long, long time.
04:58These are people who probably spoke Latin, who had served in armies alongside of Roman soldiers.
05:03They'd been mercenaries, they'd engaged in trade in the Roman Empire.
05:07Geiseric has been fighting the Romans since his teens.
05:12Now, he's in reach of the ultimate prize.
05:16Eudoxia.
05:20Worth more to the Vandal Chief than gold.
05:26Having the Empress as his hostage will bring him prestige.
05:56Whoa!
06:14These are mykilony walk, but someone tried to build up a ti decent circle to them.
06:19Of course, you were cuánta did not tell him this deer.
06:22You were privileged to go back and seek some kind.
06:24I want somebody to know who's beenemet to take them out today.
06:25Eudoxia will spend the next seven years at Geyseric's side.
06:41Her daughter, forced to marry his son, the Empress of Rome, enslaved by a barbarian.
06:55The Roman Empire lasted for five centuries.
07:04At its height, it ruled over 60 million people and 2 million square miles.
07:13As it disintegrates, barbarian tribes seize their opportunity.
07:20Angles and Saxons push into Britain.
07:23Franks sweep across gold, giving their name to modern France.
07:30Visigoths seize what is now Spain.
07:35When power collapses at any time, anywhere, it creates a vacuum.
07:40By definition, others come running in.
07:43Territory gets grabbed up.
07:45Ideas are repudiated.
07:47The Romans learned it.
07:48We don't know who's going to be next.
07:49With the collapse of Rome, Europe reverts to a dark age of war, famine, and savagery.
07:59Many essentials of Roman life, lost for centuries.
08:11The technology to build acronyms.
08:14The use of coins.
08:16In some areas, even writing.
08:18Rome loses 95% of its population.
08:29London is abandoned.
08:31The drama of Rome suggests that civilization does not progress in a straight line towards more prosperity, more order, more law, more technology.
08:44It shows us in a picture of amazing things being achieved by the Greeks and the Romans, and then those things being lost again.
08:54With the fall of Rome, Europe will fragment, and stay divided for 1,500 years.
09:08But two new forces emerge, key to the story of mankind.
09:14From the sun-baked south, the Arabs, the Arabian desert, 1,400 years ago.
09:35Buried deep beneath, gold.
09:40It will help build a new civilization.
09:44Founded on a new religion.
09:47Islam.
09:52The Mahabil al-Dahhab mine.
09:55Worked by a thousand slaves.
10:01Owned by Al-Hajj al-Bihizi.
10:04from the same tribe as the prophet Muhammad
10:10already a mining tycoon
10:15soon worth his weight in gold
10:18gold is an amazing metal it's easy to work with
10:25it doesn't tarnish and it's so beautiful that it
10:28seems to symbolize wealth and royalty by its very existence
10:32all the gold ever mined comes from outer space
10:43from a time almost 4 billion years ago
10:47known as the heavy bombardment
10:52asteroids carrying traces of gold rain down on the earth
11:0214 million times rarer than iron all the gold ever mined would fill just three olympic swimming pools
11:13extracting gold in seventh century arabia is dangerous work
11:24tunnels propped up by simple wooden struts
11:31with each blow
11:36a worker can strike it rich
11:47or dig his own grave
11:57a
11:58a
12:04a
12:08a
12:10a
12:11a
12:14a
12:16A cave-in at a goldmine in the Arabian desert.
12:39Owner al-Hijaj al-Bahizi risks his life to save his men and his investment.
13:05This mine will produce fifty tons of gold, worth two billion dollars today.
13:35A gold rush sparks a boom in trade and a new chapter for mankind.
13:42From the trading center of Mecca, a charismatic leader emerges, the Prophet Muhammad and a new religion.
13:49In twenty years, Islam unites the warring tribes of Arabia.
14:26To create a new kind of empire, a distinctly Islamic empire.
14:33From Mecca, in modern day Saudi Arabia, Islam spreads across North Africa and into Europe, dominating lands once controlled by the Romans.
14:45A new civilization reaches into Spain and builds a new city.
14:55Cordoba.
15:00Home to a remarkable inventor.
15:08Abbas Ibn Furness.
15:12Astronomer, engineer, inventor.
15:18He's invented a water clock, a planetarium, a magnifying glass.
15:25Now, he'll risk his life for a new invention.
15:30A thousand years before the Wright brothers, he wants to fly.
15:35An extraordinary experiment in an extraordinary city.
15:48Cordoba is home to half a million Muslims, Christians and Jews.
15:57In Europe's dark ages, a beacon of tolerance and learning.
16:03Thirty-seven libraries, the knowledge of mankind,
16:08much of it rescued from ancient Greece and Rome.
16:12What one wonders about is if Islamic scientists
16:16had not played this role of nursemaid to science,
16:20how would we have gotten here?
16:22Because in the West, we had lost that with our dark ages.
16:26How would science have survived in the West
16:29if it had not been for the Islamic scholars?
16:33Arabs take a great leap forward in astronomy, engineering, medicine.
16:39They create algebra and simplify math with the numbers zero to nine,
16:51still known as Arabic numerals.
16:57Ibn Furness is fascinated by the laws of flight and has built his own flying machine.
17:12What an extraordinary thing to try to do.
17:15This crazy guy was willing to jump off a building to improve the state of human knowledge.
17:24By guiding these wings up and down, I will fly.
17:31If all goes well after soaring for a time, I will return safely.
17:47Accounts of the time report.
17:50He attached a couple of wings to his body,
17:54and from a great height flung himself into the air.
17:59He flew a considerable distance, as if he had been a bird.
18:05But without a tail, he can't control his descent.
18:10He'll suffer back pain for the rest of his life.
18:35But he enters the historical records.
18:38The first human to fly.
18:51This willingness to risk life and limb for knowledge
18:55is one of the things that has really brought humans to where we are today.
18:58We wouldn't be here if people weren't constantly willing to push and experiment
19:03and really risk everything just for a hunch.
19:07Fifty years later, two and a half thousand miles away,
19:12another Arab pushing the boundaries of knowledge.
19:16Ahmed Ibn Fadlan.
19:18Diplomat. Chronicler. Devout Muslim.
19:25His mission? To seek out new trade routes.
19:32In Russia, he makes contact with people who will dominate northern Europe.
19:38The Vikings.
19:40He records.
19:41I have never seen more perfect physical specimens.
19:52They are big men with white bodies, tall as palm trees.
19:57But they're also the filthiest of God's creatures.
20:15They drink alcohol night and day.
20:20Everyone carries an axe.
20:25They are like wild asses.
20:28The appearance to Ibn Fadlan must have been shocking because they were so unabashed
20:44and promiscuous and completely unaware of the sense of privacy and properness that Ibn Fadlan would have carried with him.
20:57From their native Scandinavia, these Vikings have journeyed 1,200 miles by sea and river before settling in western Russia.
21:10This country will be named after them.
21:13The Vikings call themselves the Russ, men who row.
21:18We tend to think of the Vikings as these brutal and frightening people, but they helped open up the world.
21:28They helped connect the world in ways that had not been connected before.
21:31And we do owe a debt to them for that.
21:37The Viking trade network stretches across central and northern Asia.
21:42What they offer their visitor is a rare luxury in Arabia.
21:47Fur.
21:48An exchange.
21:51Arabian gold.
21:57Imagine two people who cannot communicate verbally,
22:01and yet they both come with something that is of value in their culture.
22:06The exchange is made, and this is what has created trade across every culture in every part of the world.
22:15Ibn Fadlan has arrived at a momentous time for these Vikings.
22:22Their chief has died.
22:26It's time for a funeral.
22:28They told me, before cremating their chieftain, they place him in a grave for ten days, while they make his funeral garments.
22:40Surprisingly, he had not yet begun to stink.
22:44The dead Viking is destined for Valhalla, the legendary resting place of chiefs and warriors.
22:51He will not go alone.
22:54He will not go alone.
23:02The chief's son asked his father's slave girls, who will die with him.
23:11One step forward, once she had done this, there was no backing down.
23:16The dead chief's favorite slave girl chooses to join her master, believing that in Valhalla, she'll become his wife.
23:33But first, she must die.
23:35On the banks of Russia's Volga River, a pagan people, who will dominate much of Christian Europe.
23:50Vikings prepare their chief for the afterlife.
23:53One of his slave girls has volunteered to be cremated with him, so she can enter Valhalla with her master.
24:07Ibn Fadlan, an Arab chronicler, writes the first surviving account of a Viking funeral.
24:14They took the dead man and carried him onto the ship where they laid him on a quilt.
24:25A woman issued instructions.
24:28They called her the Angel of Death.
24:30The Slave Girl was given an intoxicating drink.
24:47The Angel of Death placed a rope around her neck.
24:58Then, she took a broad-bladed dagger and thrust it in and out between the girl's ribs, while two men throttled her until she died.
25:15Now she died.
25:28The Viking chief takes his final journey on his prized possession.
25:36His longship.
25:37We tend to think of these guys as barbarians, but Vikings were extraordinary explorers.
25:50The Vikings were on the cutting edge of human exploration at the beginning of the medieval world.
26:08The key to Viking exploration.
26:15Their longships.
26:23Built with overlapping oak planks, riveted along the keel.
26:27They are strong, but quick.
26:35Powered by sail and oars.
26:38Some can reach 20 knots.
26:40A good speed for a modern racing yard.
26:42The Viking longship was an incredible piece of military technology.
26:49It could cross vast open ocean, but then navigate a tiny inlet or river.
26:55And when the Vikings came to attack, the longship was fast, it was stealthy.
27:02It could sneak up unseen, unheard, and make their attack with incredibly devastating force.
27:08The Vikings launch raids along the coasts of Britain, Ireland, France, and Spain.
27:2530,000 Vikings settle in Iceland in 60 years.
27:32And they set up colonies in Greenland.
27:35The big crisis in the Viking civilization was farmland.
27:40So the Vikings would set off to go to find new farmland.
27:44And Greenland was one of the big, you know, real estate promotions.
27:47They called it Greenland to get people to move there.
27:50It's not actually green.
27:54From Greenland, they'll push on to North America.
27:57The first Europeans, 500 years before Columbus.
28:01By 1000 AD, Vikings settle among many of the communities they once attacked.
28:16Novgorod in Russia.
28:18Kiev in the Ukraine.
28:20Rouen in France.
28:22York in England.
28:24Dublin in Ireland.
28:25All transformed into cities by the Vikings.
28:35They convert to Christianity.
28:37Replacing pagan shrines with great churches.
28:43Reinventing themselves as European knights.
28:46In Russia, they form a dynasty of princes.
28:52In France, they're known as Norsemen and rule Normandy.
28:57The most famous of them, William the Conqueror, invades Britain and becomes king of England.
29:06As rulers of Christian Europe, the Vikings will be on the front line in a clash of civilizations.
29:16The Crusades.
29:18As the Vikings help lift Europe from its dark age, other explorers create an entirely new civilization.
29:31On an island in the Pacific Ocean, mankind is ever restless.
29:41The urge to create, indeed the urge to glorify, no matter where we are in the world, no matter what our resources are, no matter even what tools are available.
29:53That urge is universal.
29:58Living in total isolation, these people will build some of the most iconic statues in the world.
30:13Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean.
30:15Polynesians carve statues from rock with stone-age tools.
30:22Mankind.
30:24The building.
30:26It's extraordinary because they were made so many centuries ago and yet they capture the imagination.
30:34They startle us because they're so mysterious.
30:38With all our technology, the statues of Easter Island still awe us.
30:42A monument to an ancestral chief.
30:47Like the man who first led them here.
30:51Hotu Matua.
30:56Pioneer.
30:58Savior.
30:59Founder of a civilization.
31:00Driven from his native land by tribal warfare, he's taken a few dozen of his people on an epic journey.
31:14Hotu Matua must have been an incredible leader to convince this group of people to follow him into the unknown.
31:32He must have had this great sense of hope and optimism, which fortunately for him turned out to be well founded.
31:47Without charts or compasses, he has traveled two and a half thousand miles to one of the remotest places on earth.
31:53A volcanic island, half the size of Detroit, in the vast emptiness of the Pacific Ocean.
32:06I've sailed across the Pacific, and I know how big that ocean is. It's huge.
32:13You're down in the canoe, you can only see four, five, maybe six miles.
32:20You know, you can't see that far.
32:21So you're on the sea level.
32:23If you sail past an atoll, it's only tree high.
32:26If you're ten miles away, you've missed it.
32:28So actually putting a real needle in a haystack, you're going to find that needle before you're going to find Eastern Island.
32:39The key to crossing the ocean, an instinct for navigation.
32:44The Polynesians were so amazing. Their ability to navigate, their understanding of the stars, of celestial navigation, was unparalleled.
32:56And they used it to spread over almost the entire Pacific, all the way to New Zealand.
33:04On Easter Island, entirely alone, they'll create a unique civilization.
33:09Surrounded by statues of their ancestral gods.
33:17If you think about it, virtually all of the great monuments of the past were built for a spiritual purpose.
33:24As if satisfying the human need to reach out to the afterlife.
33:29And Easter Island reveals the urge to celebrate, to commemorate.
33:33Epic monuments that are still impressive thousands of years later, and will be thousands of years from now.
33:45Known as Moai.
33:48The tallest is 33 feet high, and weighs 82 tons.
33:54As heavy as the space shark.
33:58Humans work so hard.
34:00We never just settle down and happily farm and live.
34:07We're always building something, exploring something, doing something that's a challenge that's bigger than ourselves.
34:19Legend says the statues walk magically into place.
34:23In reality, they are dragged over land.
34:24The forests provide all the building materials the islanders need.
34:37Palm trees 80 feet tall become canoes and huts.
34:42And rollers to transport the Moai.
34:47To lift them into place, wooden levers and ropes made from tree fire.
34:54To lift them into place, wooden levers and ropes made from tree fire.
34:59The
35:13The
35:25There is nothing like these statues, and they were made with such primitive technology.
35:35We're fascinated by them, with these beautiful eyes staring out at you.
35:40It captures something, I think, in our hearts.
35:43The Easter Islanders build 900 Moai, protecting their isolated community.
35:48But, in doing so, they hastened their own downfall.
36:06Unfortunately, their protection didn't last.
36:15Once the forests were cut down, you had an ecological disaster on East Drive.
36:20Once the last trees were gone, and they couldn't make canoes anymore, their paradise became a
36:29prison.
36:32Religion, the most potent force in the story of mankind.
36:39It has built civilizations and destroyed them.
36:48As the Easter Islanders pay homage to their ancestral gods.
36:57On the other side of the planet, holy warriors destroy those of a different faith.
37:06In the Middle East, Jerusalem, a city under siege.
37:14Inside its walls, pandemonium.
37:20Outside, 12,000 men.
37:26Intent on butchering.
37:29Crusaders.
37:30Crusaders.
37:36Spearheading the attack, Tancred de Oatville.
37:45A Norman knight, descended from Vikings, filled with bloodlust.
37:50So many people have died in the name of religion.
38:05Wars fought over religious belief have spilled so much blood.
38:11I think of all the wars fought over religion.
38:16The Crusades belong in their own category.
38:18The Crusades belong in their own category.
38:23The slaughter here resonates to this day.
38:30Tancred de Oatville.
38:43Tancred de Oatville.
38:45A Christian knight on a mission from God.
38:49What!
38:50In the Holy Land.
38:54Waging war on Islam.
39:00By the end of the 11th century, 600 years after the fall of Rome,
39:06the two religions are great rivals.
39:09Christianity dominates in the west and north,
39:13Islam in the east and south.
39:19Determined to curb the advance of Islam,
39:22the Pope calls on Christians to take up arms.
39:29Their target, the holy city of Jerusalem.
39:36On the eve of the Crusades, Jerusalem under Muslim rule
39:40was actually a hotbed of creativity and inter-religious dialogue.
39:46There were Jews, there were Christians, there were Muslims.
39:49For the most part, they lived in relative harmony.
39:52But each lays claim to the city.
39:56Jews revere it as their ancient capital.
40:00Muslims know it as Al-Quds, the holy.
40:04From here, the prophet Muhammad journeyed to heaven.
40:08And for Christians, Christ was crucified here.
40:15It's amazing when you go to Jerusalem,
40:19if you just stop for a second,
40:22you'll see that these people actually have more in common
40:28than they have that are differences.
40:31They are the sons and daughters of Abraham.
40:38To all who join the Crusade,
40:43Pope Urban offers eternal salvation,
40:46declaring,
40:48The Lord beseeches you to destroy that vile race
40:52from the lands of our friends.
40:55All who die by the way shall have immediate remission of sins.
41:00A knight could sin as much as he liked.
41:03And simply by going to the Holy Land,
41:06he had been given forgiveness by the Pope.
41:09He had been given his passport to heaven.
41:12He could win fame, he could win glory,
41:15and he could come back with booty.
41:19It is one of the most shameful undertakings
41:23ever embarked upon by our species.
41:26With absolution assured,
41:29nothing holds back the Crusaders.
41:33One records joyfully.
41:38Piles of heads, hands and feet
41:42were to be seen in the streets of the city.
41:44It was a just and splendid judgment of God
41:47that this place should be filled with the blood of the unbelievers.
42:04If I have a belief system that literally says,
42:07God tells me that I must slaughter anyone
42:11who wants to stop me from being here,
42:14it would allow you to justify any horrific act
42:17you take at that point.
42:29Tancred hesitates.
42:44Tancred hesitates.
42:46Tancred hesitates.
42:47Tancred hesitates.
42:48Tancred hesitates.
42:49Tancred hesitates.
42:50Tancred hesitates.
42:51Tancred hesitates.
42:52Tancred hesitates.
42:53Tancred hesitates.
42:54Tancred hesitates.
42:55Tancred hesitates.
42:56Tancred hesitates.
42:57Tancred hesitates.
42:58Tancred hesitates.
42:59Tancred hesitates.
43:00Tancred hesitates.
43:01Tancred hesitates.
43:02Tancred hesitates.
43:03Tancred hesitates.
43:04Tancred hesitates.
43:05Tancred hesitates.
43:06Tancred hesitates.
43:07He decides to ransom the Muslims and stop killing them.
43:26He gives them his standard.
43:30A signal to others that they're under his protection.
43:37At the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, he prays.
43:53Having a singular belief system where I've deferred responsibility to God
43:57can allow me to do brutal things on a battlefield.
44:01But I think when it gets quiet,
44:07when the images come back into the mind,
44:11that has effect on a human being.
44:17Amen.
44:23Returning, he finds his captive slaughtered behind his back by other crusaders.
44:30The Crusades were as bad as it gets.
44:40Remember that these guys embraced the same God,
44:43many of the same beliefs, the same prophets,
44:47and yet the streets ran deep with their blood and their brothers.
44:51It shows the extraordinary power of ideas to take hold of people's minds
44:55and drive them to commit acts of great sacrifice and love on the one hand,
45:02but also acts of tremendous barbarity and hatred on the other.
45:06It's the double-edged sword of religious belief.
45:19The Crusades will continue for two centuries
45:23and cost more than a million lives.
45:29But mankind's greatest hours to come.
45:34We harness new riches and new powers.
45:41Build new civilizations in Europe and Asia.
45:45Rich in invention, culture, and art.
45:55A new chapter
45:56in the story of mankind.
46:00of mankind.
46:01of mankind.
46:03I write a new pen to book on
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