00:00For thousands of years, rulers needed money for one thing more than anything else, war.
00:06Armies needed weapons, soldiers needed food, empires needed ships.
00:11But wars were expensive, so kings borrowed from wealthy merchants and bankers.
00:16And this changed history, because the people who financed wars often became more powerful than the people who fought them.
00:24A king could command an army, but a banker could decide whether that army could be paid.
00:30Power moved from the battlefield to the balance sheet.
00:34The sword still mattered, but the loan decided how long the sword could be held.
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