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Dive into the past with this video, exploring the things you wouldn't recognize and the smells of historical times. Discover how different the world used to be and gain a new perspective on the past.
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00:00If someone finally invents time travel and hop on a trip to the past, you won't recognize
00:06many of the things you know and love today.
00:09The Statue of Liberty and the Egyptian pyramids, some basic gadgets like the remote control
00:14and your laptop, and even the corn you have for lunch have all changed beyond recognition.
00:21When the pyramids were originally built in ancient Egypt and Giza, and other places,
00:26they didn't look sandy brown at all.
00:28All of them were covered with white limestone.
00:31If you had seen them under the hot African sun, you'd have to look away – that's
00:36how smooth and shiny they were.
00:38Builders used around 6 million tons of this material for the Great Pyramid of Giza alone.
00:43It's the largest one you can still see on your trip to Egypt.
00:47The local rules were quite a thrifty crowd, and they reused some of the casing stones for
00:52other construction projects.
00:54A massive earthquake in the 14th century has also loosened some of the stones, so you
01:00won't see a lot of limestone, but some of it is still there, on top of the Pyramid of
01:05Hufrig in Giza.
01:07It looks like it has a second peak on top of the first.
01:10In ancient times, all pyramids used to have capstones called Pyramidians, covered in a mix
01:16of gold and silver.
01:18Most of them have been lost over the centuries, but you can still see a few of them at museums.
01:23They show images of Egyptian deities.
01:26The pyramids were probably modeled after a sacred pointed stone – the Benbe.
01:32It represented the rays of the sun.
01:34Now, lifting heavy rocks wasn't so simple without the tech we have today.
01:38I guess you'll agree with me if you helped your friends move at least once, and they
01:43made you carry the couch.
01:45But those smart Egyptians of the past thought of that and chose the pyramid shape.
01:50It lets the weight distribute evenly throughout the whole thing.
01:54The Statue of Liberty has also had a major makeover since it was first unveiled in 1886.
02:01Believe it or not, it used to be a shiny brown color, just like a penny.
02:06Twenty years later, it changed its color to green.
02:09It wasn't a fashion statement, but a chemical reaction.
02:12The statue is covered with hundreds of thin copper sheets.
02:17When copper reacts with air, it naturally forms a protective layer called vodegrees.
02:23This layer protects what's under it from corrosion, and that's why statues and other things
02:29made of copper, brass, and bronze can last so long.
02:33When Lady Liberty first turned green, people in authority decided it would be a good idea
02:39to paint it all over.
02:41It was way before social media, so you couldn't just drop an angry comment under the post describing
02:47the idea.
02:48But they wrote about it in the local newspapers, and the public didn't love the idea.
02:54Then, the Times interviewed a copper and bronze manufacturer, and he confirmed they shouldn't
02:59repaint it, because removing the protective layer would mean destroying the statue.
03:05Over the years, people have suggested painting Lady Liberty several times, but no one has ever
03:10done it.
03:11I don't know about you, but I can't imagine that lady in any other color, so I guess it's
03:17for the better.
03:19Do you love bananas as much as I do?
03:22Next time you enjoy a juicy, soft one, remember, you gotta thank selective breeding for that texture.
03:30The original wild bananas had many large, hard seeds and not so much delicious pulp.
03:36And hey, who doesn't like a sugary watermelon?
03:39It has a history of over 5,000 years, and it used to have bitter yellowish white flesh and
03:47was really tricky to open.
03:50Selective breeding saved the day again, and watermelons got way sweeter.
03:54Japanese scientists went further and invented the seedless version.
03:59Corin's grandmother is a Mexican grass called Teosinti.
04:04The kernels in this grass were small and hard to get.
04:08Farmers from many thousands of years ago saved the seeds only of those plants that were larger
04:14or tastier, or with kernels that were easier to grind.
04:18Thanks, my friends, for giving us the corn that's edible and even delicious.
04:22And just imagine, wild avocados were so small that they could easily fit in the palm of your hand.
04:30The pit in them was so large, you wouldn't find much edible material inside.
04:35They also had a much harder shell than the ones we're used to.
04:40You probably wouldn't get a lot of work done without your beloved computer today,
04:44but I can't tell you exactly whom to thank for this invention.
04:48The ABC from 1942 is one of the contendents for the title of the first computer.
04:55It's short for the Atanasoff Berry Computer, named after its inventors at Iowa State University.
05:02The ABC weighed over 700 pounds.
05:05Yep, yours must be way lighter than that.
05:08That big boy consisted of around 300 vacuum tubes and had a rotating drum,
05:14a little bigger than a paint can, and had small capacitors on it.
05:18A capacitor is a gadget that can store an electric charge, like a battery.
05:24The ABC could solve problems with up to 29 different variables to help scientists save some time.
05:31Like modern computers, it used binary digits, ones and zeros, to represent all numbers and data.
05:38Because of that, it was possible to do the calculations electronically.
05:43And now, my favorite part, the ABC finished one operation about every 15 seconds.
05:50Just for you to compare, it's millions of operations per second now.
05:55Unlike the tech we use today, the ABC did not have a changeable stored program.
06:02So, the program could only do a single task at a time.
06:05An operator had to write down the intermediate answer and then dial that back into the computer.
06:12Sounds like another reason to be happy we live in the 21st century.
06:17That remote control you use for all sorts of appliances has gone a long way too.
06:24Nikola Tesla, who gave us alternating current, designed one of the first wireless remote controls
06:30back in 1898.
06:32He named his invention tele-automation and demonstrated it on a miniature boat controlled by radio waves.
06:39The boat had a little metal antenna attached to it.
06:43Tesla sent signals to the boat using a box with a lever and a telegraph key,
06:48which was his version of a remote control.
06:51Those signals set electrical contacts on the boat into motion and moved the rudder and the propeller,
06:57and Tesla was controlling the boat.
07:00The concept of the remote control soon spread to other gadgets.
07:04The first television remote control followed in 1950.
07:08It was designed by the Zenith Radio Corporation called Lazy Bone.
07:13Don't take it personally, please.
07:15This Lazy Bone had a massive cable that was attached to the TV set,
07:20and those who tried it didn't fall in love with the invention because they tripped over that cord.
07:25I feel your pain, my friends.
07:28If you live or work on one of the top floors, you gotta love this one.
07:34Meet the first passenger elevator.
07:36It traveled at the speed of 40 feet per minute.
07:40Not the fastest, I know, compared to today's record, which is 40 feet per second.
07:45But hey, it was built back in 1857 in New York and was more of a tourist attraction than a
07:51necessity.
07:52The elevator had a steam engine hidden in the basement of a five-story building.
07:57Three years later, they shut it down because the public didn't appreciate it.
08:03Otis Tufts filed the first patent for a vertical railway around the same time.
08:08His invention included an actual car with a bench inside for people to sit on.
08:13Sounds like a great spot to hang out with friends to me. What do you say?
08:17Then they started adding elevators to luxurious hotels around the world.
08:22They were entire rooms with a rich design, upholstered seats and mirrors on the walls,
08:28and sometimes even a small chandelier.
08:31There was an obligatory operator who'd close the door and the car would start its super slow ascent.
08:37It was still more about style than about speed, so I guess I'd choose the stairs.
08:44Imagine you're an archaeologist on vacation in Spain.
08:48Your days are packed with hot sunshine, delicious peaches, and rest.
08:53That is, until your next-door neighbors decide they want to build a swimming pool in their backyard.
08:58One morning, you wake up with people chatting too loudly.
09:02They sound excited about something, so you go to check what it's all about.
09:06It turns out, your vacation neighbors dug a hole deep enough to find a Roman ruin
09:12that looked like the final resting place of ancient Romans.
09:17Your inner archaeologists forget you're on vacation and head straight to work.
09:22And believe me, you've found gold.
09:24Well, not literally, but something like that.
09:28Inside the Roman ruin, there was a beautiful quartz vessel.
09:31Archaeologists before you have found similar artifacts.
09:35What nobody has ever found before was a vessel with perfume inside of it.
09:40So far, scientists never had clear proof of what the ancient past smelled like.
09:46We know that lemon and rose are perfume notes that are really popular today.
09:50But what did our ancestors like to use to make themselves smell better?
09:55This shocking discovery you happened upon showed that ancient Romans used patchouli as perfume.
10:02You know, that musky plant that people either love or extremely dislike?
10:06Yeah, that's the one.
10:08These Romans were probably very wealthy people, since patchouli was only found in India around that time.
10:14And quartz vessels were considered a luxurious piece of decor.
10:19We're talking about the 1st century CE.
10:21Yup, a long, long time ago.
10:24The period of history when the Roman Empire expanded a lot.
10:28And that Pompeii was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.
10:33This might not have happened to you in real life.
10:35But a similar story happened to archaeologist Juan Manuel Roman.
10:40Residents from a little town called Carmona called him to investigate
10:45whence they hit a Roman antiquity while digging to build a pool.
10:49Researchers already knew that Romans were big perfume enthusiasts.
10:53They were the first civilization to bring perfume to the liquid form we see today.
10:58Before them, records show that the Egyptian civilization also used scent quite a bit.
11:03But they used it differently.
11:05For ancient Egyptians, the scent came in incense form.
11:09They would burn myrrh, frankincense, and other herbs during religious ceremonies.
11:13Then after the ruling class started to democratize this practice to the population, things started to change.
11:21Commoners would use essential oils to perfume their baths, doing this out of sheer pleasure.
11:27You remember Cleopatra, right?
11:30The beautiful and powerful queen of Egypt?
11:32There's a Shakespearean passage that says she arrived to greet Mark Antony, her future husband, in a boat with perfumed
11:40sails.
11:41As you can imagine, essential oils were really expensive back then.
11:45Well, they are still pretty expensive nowadays.
11:48But in 50 BCE, they were a rare commodity.
11:52So, for someone to soak their sails in them, that someone might as well be Cleopatra.
11:58Now, many of us can count and rely on the five senses throughout our lives.
12:03And even if we tend to think that sight is one of the most important senses, the sense of smell
12:08holds quite a bit of surprise.
12:10Have you ever walked by someone, smelled their perfume, and was completely transported in time?
12:17Maybe to your grandma's house or to the memory of an ex?
12:21Smell has the power to make us time travel emotionally.
12:24This is called olfactory bonding.
12:27You see, other kinds of sensory information, like sight, touch, and hearing, have to pass through the thalamus before they
12:34reach our cerebrum.
12:35But odor goes directly from our nose to our limbic system, which is part of our brain connected to emotion,
12:42creativity, and memory.
12:44In terms of evolution, the sense of smell was really important for hunter-gatherers to find food to eat, especially
12:51fruits.
12:52Imagine you're a cave person walking by a mango tree.
12:55If their smell is taking up the whole block of forest, then you know it's time to eat it.
13:01You heard the phrase, the nose knows, right?
13:03Well, that's what it's all about.
13:06Now, how about we follow the scent down history lane and see how different periods might have smelled like, shall
13:13we?
13:15We've discovered that ancient Rome smelled like patchouli, or at least a part of it did.
13:19But if we fast forward in time and land in the early years of New York City, the odor changes
13:26completely.
13:27Around the 18th century came the so-called Industrial Revolution.
13:31That's when humans became expert at building machines that automated a lot of our work for us.
13:37Not having to rely solely on agriculture, humanity started to grow more and more.
13:42So cities also grew more and more.
13:45And guess what?
13:46They didn't smell too nice.
13:48Accounts of early days New York City said that the town was like an open-air dumpster left baking in
13:54the sun for too long.
13:56People threw their garbage on the streets, and it didn't help that the town didn't have a proper sewage system.
14:02It's safe to say that New York City stank.
14:05But people back then didn't have aroma diffusers or essential oil sprays.
14:10They just had to deal with it.
14:12It's easy to understand why, when perfume came along, people were excited to hide the horrendous smell of the town.
14:19But that's not all.
14:21Bad odors started to become associated with diseases.
14:25In France, scientists and doctors were extremely worried that people would get sick just by inhaling the bad-smelling air
14:32in cities.
14:33So, a belief started to circle around that perfume was a way to protect people from the city's bad odors.
14:40Still, only rich folks could afford perfume.
14:43As far as the story goes, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, every single public place had to be
14:50scented with perfume,
14:51because the Queen couldn't tolerate bad smells.
14:55Initially, most perfumes were done in a natural way, mixing essential oils with a carrier liquid.
15:01One of the first perfumes ever to be made was by an Italian barber in the German city of Cologne.
15:08And yes, that's why it's called an Eau de Cologne until this day.
15:13By the way, this guy's fragrance, which translates to admirable water, was used by the great Napoleon and is the
15:20world's continuously produced fragrance.
15:23As time passed and processes evolved, the brand Chanel came up with a new mode.
15:30They were the first brand ever to use synthetic material to make their world-famous fragrance, Chanel No. 5.
15:37Today, fragrance companies are responsible for a multi-million dollar industry.
15:42It remains a luxurious good since its origins in Roman times have shown us.
15:47But each perfume brand and type comes with its own special promise.
15:52You see, certain perfumes can make you feel more empowered, while others can prep you for a night of romance
15:58with your beloved.
15:59Sure, there is some marketing involved in this, but the basis for these assumptions is scientific, and it's called aromatherapy.
16:08The emotional effects of aromas in our bodies have to do with that science we explained earlier, remember?
16:14The smell goes directly into our limbic system, which is part of our brain that dictates our emotions.
16:20And we can trace aromatherapy practices all the way back to ancient times.
16:26Perhaps even more than today, the scent was used for medicinal use.
16:30Perfumes and essential oils were kept in jeweled rings and necklaces that the bearer could easily bring to the nose
16:37whenever they felt like it.
16:39Today, some branded perfumes have dived into the aromatherapy side of fragrance making,
16:44and have created scents they say help to make you happier and more energized.
16:50If you've ever noticed a difference in your mood by smelling roses or even using perfume, do tell us all
16:56about it.
16:56We're all about that olfactory bonding, after all.
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