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From pivotal inventions to world-altering events, history has been shaped by defining moments that changed everything. Join us as we count down the watershed events that transformed human civilization! Our countdown explores how innovation, conflict, discovery and tragedy have collectively written the story of our shared past.
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00:00What is internet anyway?
00:02Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the historical events that
00:07redefine human history after they happen.
00:09However, we won't be including any religious events.
00:12I can't believe I'm here, look at it.
00:16Number 30.
00:17The discovery of fire.
00:18The exact date when humans, or our relatives, learned how to create fire is much debated.
00:23The use of fire in human history is notoriously difficult to study, because fire is ephemeral.
00:29What isn't in question, however, is its importance in our development as a species.
00:33Fire kept back not only the cold during nights, but also predators.
00:37It created the concept of cooking, giving our ancestors more nutritious meals.
00:41The main advantage of cooking is that it breaks down food, making it easier to chew and digest.
00:47Fire led to greater innovations in tool and crafting creation, like pottery or tempering
00:52weapons.
00:53It may have even led to evolutionary changes to our digestive systems and teeth.
00:57But fire, human civilization, simply wouldn't exist as it does today.
01:06Number 29.
01:07Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin.
01:09Cultures all over the world have long used mold to treat disease.
01:12However, it wasn't until the 20th century that someone figured out why it worked.
01:27Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming forgot to clean up his lab before going on vacation.
01:32Upon his return, Fleming found that mold had formed on a sample of bacteria.
01:36However, the mold had killed the bacteria – Fleming named the substance penicillin.
01:41His further research and development led to the world's first true antibiotic.
01:46Before Fleming's discovery, deaths from bacterial infections of minor injuries were
01:50far more common.
01:52Antibiotics have completely revolutionized medicine, and have saved hundreds of millions
01:56of lives in the years since penicillin's creation.
01:58All these mighty weapons against disease stem, in some way, from the forging of the first
02:04one.
02:05Penicillin.
02:06Number 28.
02:07Copernicus publishes De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium.
02:11For much of history, at least in the Western world, the prevailing view was that the sun
02:15and planets orbited the earth.
02:17This concept, popularized by Ptolemy and endorsed by the Catholic Church, was called the
02:22geocentric view.
02:23However, this model was challenged by Nicholas Copernicus with his publication of De Revolutionibus
02:29Orbium Coelestium, or On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres.
02:40The book was not the origin of the idea that the earth orbits the sun, however, it certainly
02:45helped popularize heliocentric theory.
02:47But perhaps more importantly, it arguably acted as the first spark in the scientific revolution.
02:53The massive shifts in scientific understanding across multiple disciplines that followed
02:58would never have happened without Copernicus.
03:00This idea, this book, changed the world?
03:05Yes, because it made the earth a planet, and it fixed the sun in the center.
03:12Number 27.
03:13The Fall of Constantinople.
03:15Despite the Western Roman Empire falling centuries earlier – more on that later – the eastern
03:19half survived, becoming the Byzantine Empire.
03:22Its capital, Constantinople, remained until 1453.
03:27One distinctive feature of the East Roman Empire is that its capital is in Constantinople.
03:31This is a city that was founded by the Emperor Constantine, but it was also named New Rome.
03:35The Ottoman Empire laid siege to the city, and with gunpowder cannons, managed to breach Constantinople's
03:41falls, once thought invincible.
03:44Constantinople's fall marked the ending of the Byzantine Empire's long history, as well
03:47as the conclusion of the medieval period.
03:50The Prophet said, you shall conquer Constantinople.
03:55What a wonderful leader will her leader be!
03:58It also marked the new importance of gunpowder in warfare and the ineffectiveness of castles.
04:03But perhaps most importantly, scholars fleeing the city made their way to Italy, helping reintroduce
04:08classical knowledge from the Greek and Roman eras to Western Europe.
04:12Constantinople's fall effectively started the Renaissance, and its many cultural and scientific
04:17changes.
04:18I gave all I could, so you would succeed.
04:24Number 26.
04:25Civil Rights Act.
04:26The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s in the United States proved a turning point
04:31for race relations in the country, and indeed, the world.
04:34Let freedom ring, and if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
04:39In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed by Congress and President Lyndon B. Johnson.
04:44The law outlawed discrimination based on race, religion, sex, and nationality, while also
04:50overturning racial segregation and discriminatory hiring practices.
04:54The purpose of this law is simple.
04:57It does not restrict the freedom of any American, so long as he respects the rights of others.
05:03The Civil Rights Act inspired not only further civil rights legislation later in the USA's
05:08history, such as gay marriage, but also similar civil rights legislation internationally.
05:13Although it certainly didn't eliminate prejudice, it was a great step towards a kinder world.
05:18The Civil Rights Act and the Civil Rights Movement transformed America, but it certainly
05:24transformed the lives of many African Americans, and I was one of them.
05:29Number 25.
05:31Invention of the Telephone.
05:32Who actually invented the telephone is a matter of surprising controversy.
05:36The telephone itself was more evolution than revolution, building on the telegraph, a
05:41genius bit of gadgetry that allowed coded messages to be sent through wires as electrical impulses.
05:47Some credit Italian inventor Antonio Meucci or German scientist Johann Philipp Reis.
05:53Others point to Americans Alexander Graham Bell or Alicia Gray, whom Bell allegedly stole
05:58from.
05:59Regardless of its inventor, though, the telephone revolutionized communications on a global scale.
06:04And as the telephone caught on, new developments came thick and fast.
06:07While telegraphs allowed long distance communication already, it was much easier to just say what
06:13you want to say to someone instead of deciphering code.
06:16It's difficult to undersell how big an impact phones had on life and society.
06:21They revolutionized business, culture, and emergency services, among many other things, in ways
06:27that are still relevant today.
06:29Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone.
06:33Number 24.
06:34The Storming of the Bastille.
06:35Every revolution needs a flashpoint, and the French Revolution has generally agreed to begin
06:40with this moment.
06:41To the Bastille!
06:46Roughly 1,000 Parisians attacked and seized the monarchy's political prison, the Bastille.
06:51The ensuring revolution had an enormous ripple effect throughout the world, especially in Europe
06:56in the Americas.
07:03French people displaced by the violence spread French culture to the countries to which they
07:07emigrated.
07:08The French Revolution also arguably gave rise to the spread of political philosophies, including
07:12liberalism, direct democracy, and even nationalism.
07:16If not for the takeover of a single prison, the cultural and political climate of the world
07:20would look very different.
07:22May I have the honor.
07:24Number 23.
07:25Edward Jenner invents the vaccine.
07:28While inoculation and variolation had existed for some time prior, the first true vaccine was
07:33created by Dr. Edward Jenner.
07:35This is Edward Jenner's study, and it was right here that he wrote this book about his
07:42scientific work.
07:44It had been previously observed by others that people who were infected with the far less
07:48deadly cowpox were immune to smallpox.
07:51Jenner theorized that pus from cowpox blisters could be used to immunize people from smallpox.
07:57We do know that before Jenner started vaccinating, smallpox outbreaks were quite common in Berkeley, and they were recorded in the church registers.
08:05And we don't see any records of smallpox outbreaks in the church registers after Jenner.
08:11The successful experiment essentially founded immunology and led to further vaccines being developed.
08:16Vaccines, named for the Latin word for cow, have saved billions of lives in the years since, while also making smallpox the first and so far only human disease to be completely exterminated.
08:27The World Health Organization certified smallpox's eradication in 1979.
08:33Number 22. The Moon Landing
08:35The Apollo 11 mission saw astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin land, walk, and do experiments on the surface of the moon.
08:43That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
08:52The momentousness of the event might feel self-explanatory.
08:55After all, it's the first time humans visited another celestial object.
08:59But our first step into the cosmos had ramifications back on Earth.
09:03So many of the devices invented to get Aldrin and Armstrong there led to revolutionary technologies, like microwaves.
09:10Open the microwave oven door, place it on the grill, shut the door.
09:16Perhaps most dramatically, the Apollo mission's guidance system led to advances in the miniaturization of computers.
09:22If NASA hadn't sent men to the moon, we wouldn't have computers that fit on our desks or in our pockets.
09:28The moon landing inspired scientists of countless disciplines to imagine what was possible and create new wonders.
09:34It proved that the United States could accomplish tremendous goals if they worked together as a team.
09:43Number 21. The Atomic Bomb
09:45There's no getting around the explosive impact, if you'll pardon the pun, of the atomic bomb.
09:50First developed by the Manhattan Project during World War II, and first tested at Los Alamos with the Trinity Test,
09:59the atomic bomb would shape the rest of the 20th century and beyond.
10:03Its use in warfare, and the threat of its use, defined the conclusion of World War II, and the Cold War that followed.
10:10By holding the line in Korea, we have proved that communism is not invisible.
10:16That free men can stand up against it and win.
10:20The nuclear arms race also fueled countless technological innovations.
10:24The bomb's creation also led to the development and spread of nuclear energy, which currently supplies around 9% of the world's power as of this writing.
10:33For as destructive as the atomic bomb was, it has created an entirely different world after its detonation.
10:39I feel that I have blood on my hands.
10:43Number 20. COVID-19 Outbreak
10:45Cases are now accelerating rapidly.
10:48335 people have died from coronavirus. That's six times more than last week.
10:54In the fall of 2019, rumours began to bubble up in the US and Europe about a new flu-like virus in China.
11:01No one could have predicted the global devastation that followed.
11:04By early 2020, COVID-19 had spread across the planet, leading to widespread lockdowns, crippled economies, and disrupted daily life.
11:13In a further effort to contain the spread of the virus, the government also increased testing capacity.
11:19Germany didn't want to make the same mistakes as France or Italy.
11:22Businesses closed, millions lost jobs, and supply chains faltered.
11:27Worse was the human suffering.
11:29The pandemic claimed over 1 million lives in the US, and at least 7 million globally, with some citing 15 million deaths.
11:36The psychological impact was also profound.
11:39Fear, isolation, and uncertainty took a heavy toll on mental health.
11:43The world was forever changed, as the virus reshaped how people work, connect, and view public health.
11:49Don't delude yourself into thinking only the old will die, or will get it. They're all ages.
11:56Number 19. Newton publishes Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica.
12:02What makes this copy of the Principia unique is the handwritten notes of the famous scientist himself,
12:08as well as the notes of other scholars Newton shared the book with.
12:12Isaac Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica represents one of the greatest leaps forward in the history of human knowledge.
12:19The Principia is the foundation of classical mechanics.
12:22Newton revolutionized science, all but inventing modern physics, by introducing the laws of motion and universal gravitation.
12:30For the first time, we had a comprehensive mathematical framework to describe the natural world.
12:35He discovered differential calculus, universal theory of gravitation, and also the heterogeneity of light.
12:42Newton's work unified the heavens and Earth under the same laws.
12:46He could explain planetary motion, tides, and the behavior of physical objects on Earth.
12:52It fueled centuries of scientific inquiry in the pursuit of knowledge, from engineering to space exploration.
12:58Its impact can be found everywhere, even beyond science.
13:01Newton championed evidence-based empiricism, further influencing everything from philosophy to finance.
13:081687.
13:10Do you know how many of these still exist?
13:14Couple of hundred, maybe.
13:16Number 18.
13:17The Treaty of Versailles.
13:18The Great War started 1,797 days ago.
13:23In a few hours, it will be over.
13:26The Treaty of Versailles will be signed.
13:29The 20th century was the first that, from the very beginning, saw the rise of globalized
13:35international relations.
13:36The Treaty of Versailles ended World War I, utterly re-sculpting the world order.
13:41That single document would have profound impacts for the next hundred years.
13:45The treaty dismantled entire empires, redrawing borders in Europe and the Middle East.
13:50It imposed punitively harsh reparations on Germany, leading to decades of economic hardship
13:56and political instability.
13:57In their desperation, resentment turned to rage and bigotry as they sought comfort in the
14:02arms of autocracy under Adolf Hitler.
14:05On the 30th of January 1933, Hitler became the head of the government.
14:11His aim, establish a pan-German racial state and abolish the unjust diktat.
14:18While intended to secure lasting peace, the treaty instead laid the groundwork for a second,
14:23more costly world war.
14:25The treaty's lasting legacy profoundly reshaped the global political landscape well into the 21st century.
14:31It would take another world war, another 40 million dead, for the world to start to learn how to make peace.
14:40Number 17.
14:41The Neolithic Revolution
14:43Agriculture provided us with a surplus of grains, vegetables and livestock.
14:49And the population of the planet went from 5 million people 10,000 years ago to more than 7 billion today.
14:58For thousands of years, the early progenitors of modern humanity were nomadic hunter-gatherers.
15:03They lived in small tribes, moving with the resources needed to sustain them.
15:08All that changed around 10,000 BCE in the Neolithic Revolution.
15:13Our ancestors discovered agriculture, settling for the first time into agrarian farming communities.
15:19We had to come up with better tools, better ways to build our houses, to protect our land, to make our clothing and so forth.
15:28This change allowed for the domestication of plants and animals.
15:31Instead of desperate hungry animals, humans had food surpluses.
15:35No longer struggling just to survive, the human population exploded and people began to establish permanent settlements.
15:42Those were the first building blocks to creating systems of language, culture, commerce and government.
15:48In other words, the Neolithic Revolution is what made civilization as we know it, possible.
15:53It is the seed from which everything grows.
15:57From the first crop to the notion of property.
16:01Number 16, a possible Anthropocene.
16:04Many scientists claim we're now living in a new geological epoch.
16:08Because long after we're extinct, the scar of our existence will be visible in the sedimentary rocks that form the foundations of a new world.
16:18Scientists in the late 20th century first began to discuss the possibility that human activity was changing the Earth's geology and ecosystems in empirically measurable ways.
16:29They proposed that the scientific community universally adopt that the Earth has entered a new geological era.
16:34In 2024, the International Commission on Stratigraphy shot down the idea.
16:39Still, its discussion has helped scientists around the world recognize human impact.
16:52From altering atmospheric composition through greenhouse gas emissions to widespread biodiversity loss, human actions have changed the planet in ways unprecedented in geological history.
17:03The Anthropocene's acknowledgment has also galvanized global efforts in environmental conservation, sustainability, and climate policy.
17:11The scale of what humans have done is sometimes so big, you have to freeze a moment in time to really see it and really understand it.
17:20Number 15, invention of the assembly line.
17:23The assembly line was arguably first invented in 1901, but most famously implemented by Henry Ford in 1913.
17:41It sparked a global revolution in manufacturing by streamlining production processes.
17:46This drastically reduced both the time and cost of making goods.
17:50By the middle of the 20th century, the assembly line was the cornerstone of the efficient mass production of standardized products.
17:57Prices plummeted, allowing a wider pool of consumers to access goods.
18:02In 1910, Ford opened the 60-acre Highland Park plant and set up the machinery on the shop floor in the actual sequence of automobile production.
18:11It reshaped labor practices, creating specialized roles and repetitive tasks.
18:16The assembly line played a crucial role in creating a global marketplace, enabling economies of scale.
18:22This shift in production laid the foundation for modern consumer culture.
18:26Today, virtually every consumer product, from cars to electronics, was likely created on an assembly line.
18:33It saved enormous amounts of wasted motions, and it brought an enormous reduction in the cost of making Model T.
18:41Number 14, the Black Death.
18:43For six months, the Black Death had traveled rapidly through southern England.
18:48Thousands of people were infected with a deadly bacteria, spread by rat fleas and body lice.
18:55The Black Death was a devastating pandemic, laying low large swaths of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
19:02It began in Central Asia, spreading westward via trade routes and thanks to Mongol conquests.
19:08Rats and fleas spread the disease, decimating entire nations.
19:12The massive death toll led to severe labor shortages and, ultimately, the demise of the feudal system.
19:18Peasants now had leverage in negotiations with their lords.
19:21Revolts spread, wages increased, and more people had access to land.
19:26Nobles get a good laugh from the saying, kick a peasant and he'll bless you.
19:31Bless a peasant and he'll stab you in the back.
19:34They're not nice words to use about ordinary God-fearing men.
19:37They're as good as them any day.
19:39Internationally, weakened states shifted power dynamics and realigned trade routes and alliances.
19:46The collapse of established orders created the conditions for future Renaissance transformations.
19:51Globally, the Black Death is estimated to have killed 75 to 200 million people, leaving an indelible mark on history.
19:59As soon as the Sikhs start, coughing and spitting blood, death comes quickly.
20:05But not only for them, but for all those close by.
20:09Number 13.
20:10The End of the Western Roman Empire.
20:12This was the beginning of the fall of the Roman Empire.
20:17A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.
20:26By 476, Rome had been severely weakened by internal decay, economic troubles, and relentless invasions by Germanic tribes like the Visigoths and Vandals.
20:37Sustaining the empire's territory was impossible.
20:40It collapsed, marking the end of ancient Rome's centuries-long dominance over Europe.
20:45We have not yet properly written the post-imperialist history of Rome that will come and realise that this whole thing, great though it was, has its negative side.
20:58Rome's fall led to the fragmentation of Western Europe into smaller, warring kingdoms, plunging the region into what is often called the Dark Ages.
21:07This power vacuum also gave rise to the feudal system and the increasing influence of the Christian Church.
21:12Both were the primary engines driving medieval European politics.
21:16The fall of Rome reverberated for centuries, profoundly impacting law, culture, governance, trade, and warfare.
21:24Local Roman nobles soon felt they were better off without it.
21:28They came to see themselves as free agents, fortifying their estates, making their own deals with the barbarians, even intermarrying with them.
21:38Number 12. The fall of the Berlin Wall.
21:41Elsewhere they were swarming over the wall, hacking at it with hammers, picks, and chisels, clawing at it with bare hands.
21:49In retrospect, the collapse of the Soviet Union was likely all but inevitable after the death of Leonid Brezhnev.
21:55Still, the fall of the Berlin Wall seven years later was the symbol of that collapse.
22:00It represented an end to Cold War divisions between East and West.
22:04For nearly three decades, the wall had stood as a physical and ideological barrier between communist East Berlin and capitalist West Berlin.
22:12Its demolition accelerated the inexorable dissolution of the Soviet Union and the collapse of communist regimes across Eastern Europe.
22:33In the wake of this change, a new world order was established, dominated by liberal democracies and free market economies.
22:40But later, authoritarianism from China and Russia also gained footholds in developing nations and economies.
22:48They were at the door shouting, the wall is open, we walk through the wall.
22:52The day the wall came down will be the most joyful days of my life.
22:58Number 11. The asteroid that changed everything.
23:01The multi-million-year reign of the dinosaurs came to a sudden and violent end around 66 million years ago.
23:19The consensus theory is that a catastrophic asteroid impacted near modern-day Yucatan, Mexico.
23:25It caused massive wildfires, tsunamis, and a nuclear winter effect, blocking sunlight and drastically altering the climate.
23:33The resulting mass extinction is estimated to have wiped out nearly 75% of Earth's animal species.
23:39It begins to rain. Not water, but scorching hot rock.
23:48This completely changed the nature of life on Earth, triggering a new era of biodiversity.
23:53The end of the dinosaurs opened ecological niches that allowed mammals to flourish and eventually dominate.
23:59Primates would evolve from those early mammals.
24:01Human beings would then ultimately evolve from those early primates, becoming the dominant form of life on Earth.
24:07Only 1% of the force traveled down into the ground, but it's enough to ring the planet like a bell.
24:15Number 10. September 11th Attacks.
24:17The unthinkable happened today. The World Trade Center, both towers, gone.
24:22The September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon radically shifted geopolitics forever.
24:28In the wake of the end of the Cold War, the West had shifted into the complacency of a 90s boom.
24:33One renowned philosopher even called the era, quote, the end of history.
24:37Yeah, not so much. The U.S. and its allies soon invaded Afghanistan.
24:41By liberating Donna, we free the local populace from the influence of the Taliban.
24:46They're able to go about their daily lives.
24:48A smaller coalition followed up with another invasion into Iraq, and decades of conflict and turmoil ensued.
24:54And are still ongoing. 9-11 had so many repercussions on both individual lives and collective world history.
25:01The job of a president is to protect the American people from harm. And some presidents don't need to worry about that, and some do. And it turns out I was one that did.
25:12Number 9. The Holocaust. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
25:17I saw the word Auschwitz. The doors opened. Terror hit us immediately.
25:22In the modern era, where an estimated one in five young Americans don't believe the Holocaust happened, this statement still rings true.
25:29We've seen entertainers like Kanye West share anti-Semitic tropes. Even former President Trump had dinner with a prominent Holocaust denier.
25:37The Holocaust during World War II was Germany's monstrous, systematic, state-sponsored persecution and mass murder of millions of Jewish people, as well as other groups the Nazis targeted.
25:49Hitler ordered a rounding up of Jews, as well as other groups he hated, including gay people, Roma gypsies, and people with disabilities.
25:56It taught the world that turning a blind eye to human rights abuses has horrific consequences.
26:02The UN passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, after the war.
26:09Number 8. The Great Depression. In 1929, a stock market crash on Wall Street spread economic contagion around the world.
26:17Wherever you looked, boys and girls, men and women, were wondering what was ever going to happen to them.
26:25The Great Depression was a moment of great change for the world.
26:28Widespread economic suffering and hunger led people to rethink the role of government in their lives.
26:34I remember looking behind the markets, the garbage cans, looking for a head of lettuce.
26:43Some, like the US, with the New Deal, turned to a variety of governmental social welfare systems.
26:49Governments were acknowledged to have responsibility to create a social safety net.
26:54Other countries turned to the laws of totalitarianism and fascism.
26:58They used force and terror to rebuild their empires.
27:01This tension between authoritarianism and egalitarianism still defines geopolitics in the 21st century.
27:09Number 7. The American Revolution.
27:12All of a sudden you have this group of people who are going, no, we're not part of some great chain of being with the king at the top of it.
27:19We are free people. We can vote for who we want to have in charge.
27:23When Britain's colonies in the New World rebelled and achieved independence,
27:27it was one of the first instances of a colonial nation defeating their mother country.
27:31A new time for humankind, which is that we can be free and that we can make decisions for ourselves.
27:39More importantly, the newly formed United States brought an ancient form of governance back to life.
27:45As a democratic republic in a world of empires, the United States represented a major blow to the mystique of aristocrats, emperors, kings, and despots.
27:55Though America's democracy was and is deeply flawed, it was one of the first modern instances of government by and for the people.
28:03If you review our Declaration of Independence, it has those beautiful words about all men are created equal and governments are formed among men to represent the people.
28:12It was a good statement of what we were all about.
28:14It inspired a similar revolution in France and represented a beacon of hope for oppressed peoples.
28:20Today, civilizations around the world have turned to republican and parliamentary democracies.
28:26Number 6. Assassination of Archduke Ferdinand II.
28:36It's hard to imagine that the death of a single man could reshape an entire century.
28:41That's exactly what happened, however, when Serbian nationalists assassinated the heir to their Austro-Hungarian throne.
28:48The killing triggered a series of alliances and dragged the world into war.
28:52Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia.
28:54Russia, Serbia's ally, mobilizes its forces and, as a result, Germany declares war on Russia.
28:58Russia's ally, France, then mobilizes its forces, which causes Germany to declare war on France.
29:03The Great War changed the map of Europe and the world in innumerable ways.
29:07The aftermath of World War I over the decades also contributed enormously to World War II,
29:13which battered the planet and led to tens of millions of deaths.
29:17Essentially what happened is that you create such an unstable economy and so much animosity between nations
29:24that you're just seeding the field of war to rise and grow again.
29:29In the aftermath of the Second Great War, European empires fell.
29:33For the first time in centuries, the world entered a period of decolonization and self-rule.
29:39Number 5. Columbus discovers America.
29:42August 1492.
29:44Italian mariner Christopher Columbus prepares to sail west from southern Spain.
29:49The age of exploration began with the invention of ships that could traverse oceans and circumnavigate the globe.
29:55In 1492, Christopher Columbus, an Italian commissioned by the Spanish, quote-unquote, discovered the New World.
30:02There were already people living here for millennia, and he wasn't even the first European to visit.
30:08The Norse had settled Newfoundland almost 500 years before.
30:11The European discovery of two new western continents dramatically changed the course of human history.
30:17Dozens of indigenous civilizations eventually fell from European diseases, wars of conquest, and persecution.
30:24They were replaced by French, English, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies.
30:29Wealth was extracted, and over the centuries, countries like Mexico, the United States, Canada, and Brazil formed and grew.
30:37Number 4. The Launch of Sputnik.
30:39A man-made celestial body for the first time in history overcame terrestrial gravity and flew into space.
30:47Less than half a century after the Wright brothers invented the airplane, humanity began sending objects into space.
30:53When the Soviet Union launched their Sputnik satellite into orbit, the eyes of the world were lifted upwards to the stars.
31:00Sputnik's technology was primitive. A rudimentary sphere with a simple radio transmitter that beeped.
31:08The space race began, as the US and Russia competed to develop newer and better spacefaring technology.
31:14More importantly, Sputnik was just the first of thousands of satellites sent into orbit.
31:19Global positioning, cell phones, television, and the internet are just a few of the ways satellites are integrated into the 21st century.
31:27Satellite surveillance and positioning are key parts of intelligence gathering and military campaigns.
31:32Accurate weather forecasting relies on satellite surveillance.
31:36Data from satellites are even used for crop management.
31:39Today, the global satellite industry is a $208 billion business.
31:44But that relatively small number belies how rapidly our dependence on satellite technology continues to expand.
31:52Number 3. The Gutenberg Printing Press.
31:55Everything that our culture and our civilization depends on starts with Gutenberg's invention.
32:02The printing press was a game-changer in the evolution of human technology and thought.
32:07For most of human history, the written word was a luxury for the elite.
32:11The printing press and mass production leveled the playing field.
32:15Glittering proof that a new information age was dawning in Europe.
32:19It spread the availability of knowledge, allowing commoners access to education.
32:24The bourgeoisie, a new class of educated tradesmen, came into being.
32:28Commerce, knowledge, and talent could, for the first time in human history, be as important as one's status at birth.
32:35It was a necessary precursor to the age of enlightenment, which sparked a transition to a modern, relatively more egalitarian world.
32:42For the next 500 years, his method of printing was used to make books everywhere.
32:49His was the machine that made us.
32:52Number 2. The Invention of the Internet.
32:55The internet, and the information age it sparked, has created a seismic shift that completely changed how we live and communicate.
33:03Human civilization is now in its second generation of the internet age.
33:07Young people today may have difficulty fully understanding just how much the internet has changed the planet.
33:13People in India can video chat in real time with someone in London.
33:17Students in South Africa can connect with counterparts in China on social media.
33:22The world is smaller and faster than it was 50 years ago.
33:26International business now happens at the speed of thought.
33:29Political movements have become global.
33:31Though it has become completely ubiquitous, few saw the internet coming, and no one could have predicted its impact.
33:38Unfortunately, dangers have spread like wildfire, too.
33:41Misinformation, propaganda, and conspiracies can now circle the world before the truth wakes up in the morning.
33:48Love it, hate it, or both, there can be no doubt.
33:51The 21st century is the century of the internet.
33:54All while connection speeds ramp up exponentially.
33:58The question now becomes, what could possibly be next?
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34:17Number 1. Understanding Electricity.
34:20After explaining the similarities he saw between electricity and lightning, including the color, crooked formation, and crackling sound, he was the first to suggest an experiment to prove a connection.
34:31As every American student learned as a kid, Ben Franklin was a scientist in addition to being a founding father.
34:38In 1752, he flew a kite during a storm, and proved that lightning was made of electricity.
34:44The resulting electricity in the air charged the metal key that he had tied to the end of the string.
34:48Franklin touched his knuckles to the key, and sparks jumped from the key to his hand.
34:53Despite common misconceptions, Franklin didn't actually technically discover electricity in 1752.
34:59It had already been a part of scientific experiments for thousands of years.
35:03His experiment, however, was central to understanding the nature of electricity and harnessing its power.
35:09News spread quickly of Franklin's electrical amusements, as he called his experiments, making him the most celebrated man of science in the world.
35:16By the end of the 19th century, the light bulb and electric power spread throughout everyday life.
35:22Today, electricity is the driver of modern society.
35:26Is there a dramatically impactful historical moment we forgot?
35:29Give us a ring with your picks in the comments.
35:40I'm sorry, my son is here, and I'm sorry.