Episode Transcript
This is your host Danny and this is history plus. In this episode, we will start a new series and this is 100 events that changed the world. In each episode of our 10 episodes from this series, we will talk about 10 events that changed the history of the world. So it’s very exciting to learn about those most important events that really changed the world, starting from the very first beginning of the man discovers the fire and going all the way to our present day. So without further ado, let’s start. First, let me tell you about the 10 events that we’re going to focus on or we’re going to talk about today. The first event we’re going to talk about is how man discovers the use of fire. The second event is the emergence of the wise man or the homosapien. The third event is the invention of bows and arrows. The fourth event is the birth of agriculture. The fifth event is the first city shuttle who you the sixth event is when man makes the round wheel in the seventh event we will talk about the legendary pyramids of Giza. The eighth event is the code of Hammurabi. The ninth event is the creation of the first alphabet, and the 10th event is the birth of the Iron Age. So we have a lot to cover. Let’s start let’s not waste any more time. Let’s start talking about the first event and that is when man discovers the use of fire.
1.4 million years ago, throughout millions of years, humans have evolved from a species largely at the mercy of nature to one that has managed and shaped its destiny. Learning to use fire was key to that process. The two earliest known examples of the deliberate use of fire occurred in today’s chisel Wonga, Kenya and swartkrans South Africa dating back 1.4 and 1.3 million years ago, respectively. When Homo erectus started to migrate from Africa to Asia, they began to use naturally occurring fires in order to adapt to colder climates. Later, around 7000 bc homosapiens began making their own fires by using sticks or striking Flint against pyrite to set a spark to dry grass that would erupt into flame. These traditional methods are still used by traditional peoples in Africa and Australia, as well as campers around the world. Fire served several functions for early man, the first and second being warmth and light. It also changed how humans ate since cooked flesh was easier to digest and prevented diseases ingested through raw meat. As time went on fire became a military tool. Greek and Roman soldiers often use scorched earth tactics and war. Since then, the uses of fire have varied widely, it is even used to shape or into metal, creating the foundation for modern day steel plants. Fire significant role throughout human history is greatly represented through the flame as a symbol of both love and religion today, and now for the second event, the emergence of the wise man.
About 120,000 years ago, the appearance of Homo sapiens anatomically modern humans was a long evolutionary process probably descended from Homo erectus, who had evolved in Africa about 1.7 million years ago, Homo sapiens had larger brains were linguistically adept and capable of reflective thought. By the time homosapiens, meaning wise man emerged from Africa some 120,000 years ago, they were already much the same as today’s humans during the course of 80,000 years. They traveled first to the Middle East around 120,000 years ago, continued on to East Asia by about 50,000 years ago, and then to Europe some 40,000 years ago. There they encountered Neanderthals classified alternatively as sub species of Homo sapiens, or a separate species descended from Homo erectus, whose brains were smaller in size, but may not have been as well developed for speech and social skills dependent on speech. They died out or were assimilated into the dominant populations of Homo sapiens some 32,000 years ago. And now for the third event, the invention of the bow and arrow
Around 15,000 BC, the development of bow and arrow was a momentous advancement that allowed early hunters not only the safety of pursuing pray from afar, but also more accuracy and velocity than before. The exact date of its invention is elusive. Since the earliest examples may have been made of perishable materials such as wood, the bow and arrow likely followed weaponry advances like the spear thrower, the barbed harpoon, and the boomerang. The oldest specimens found are the holmegaard bows dating to 9000 bc discovered in a peat bog in Denmark. During the Neolithic period, which dates from about 7000 to 2000 BC, this early missile was adapted to warfare. In England the remains of hell forts dating back 5400 years show evidence of sustained archery attacks, including skeletons with embedded arrowheads. Neolithic cave paintings from Spain show hands of archers shooting at one another. Indeed, archery would be used in warfare for millennia. And now for the fourth event that changed the history of the world. That’s the birth of agriculture that happened about 9000 BC. The warmer climate that came with the end of the Ice Age roughly 10,000 years ago, favored the transition from hunting and gathering to farming. At that time, the Middle East suffered a dry spell limiting wild grain harvests the area’s communities began to supplement wild crops with their own plantings, storing the access to ensure their food supply, they also began to domesticate wild animals of the region. The practices of agriculture and animal domestication arose quickly in different parts of the world, appearing in the Americas by 8000 BC, Africa and India by 7000 BC, and East Asia and Europe by 6000 BC. Barley, wheat, rice and oats were the first to be systematically cultivated later. 1000 to 5000 years ago, humans began planting root crops and legumes followed by fruit trees and leafy vegetables. Each area of the world grew regional foods, though some spread via traders and migrants, irrigation developed in Mesopotamia around 6000 bc was critical to agricultural development, canals, reservoirs, and embankments, allowed freshwater and silt deposits from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to channel directly into fields. This increase made the soil more fertile, made farmers less dependent on rainfall and paved the way for the development of cities. And here we go to the fifth event that we want to talk about in today’s episode, and that is the first city charter Luke, and that happened about 6000 BC.
Perhaps not our idea of a metropolis, the settlement of chattel who yoke in Anatolia modern day Turkey is considered by many scholars to be the first city dating back about 9000 years. Shout out who you meaning fork mound in Turkish consists of two dirt mounds near their char Samba river Walter fair service Jr. was an American archeologists described it as a community at the threshold of civilization. In its day, several 1000 people lived in chattel who you dwelling in flat roofed mud brick houses that were packed closely together and ascended the slopes of the mounds. chattel, who used citizens were shepherds, hunters, farmers and gatherers of wild plants from the nearby marshes. They will have cloth made baskets and pottery and tanned leather. They also traded obsidian a naturally occurring volcanic glass they gathered from volcanoes to the north east and crafted into knives and tools. It is clear that chattel who you had many of the trappings of urban life, including a barter economy, division of labor, social hierarchy and private ownership of land, brought to worldwide attention in 1961 by British archaeologist James Maillard chattel, who continues to be excavated today. Its size and complexity are unparallel. Many rooms include figurines, animal horns, religious shrines, and quite possibly the world’s first known landscape Park. And now for our sixth event. The round wheel man makes the round wheel that happened about 3500 BC. transportation, energy and manufacturing the wheel has been instrumental to all exactly where the earliest wheel origin donated is a matter of dispute, but by around 3500 bc they were being used in Mesopotamia in two important ways. The first was as a turntable or potter’s wheel, which enabled craftsmen to produce large numbers of containers. The second was as a means of transport. When equipped to a sledge merchants could move large loads over long distances around 2000 BC. With the introduction of spokes and coupled with the strength of the domesticated horse, the wheel became a powerful tool of warfare via the chariot. the Hittites, whose Empire was in parts of what are now Turkey, Syria and Lebanon, were the first to use chariots in their military. As early as the second century BC waterwheels played a significant role in civilizations from ancient China to Rome, constructed of paddles around the wheel. The simple devices utilize the force of flowing water to rotate the wheels, rotation powered grain Mills, textile machines, and wells. As one of the first innovations that replaced human power with machines, water wheels became crucial in the East which lacked slave labor. A Chinese text from the first century AD reports that waterpower has harnessed to cast iron for agricultural tools and advanced grinding systems were developed would not be seen in the west for several centuries. We still use descendents of these early wheels today, rubber tires on cars and bicycles and water wheels that generate electricity. The spinning wheel, which replaced hand spinning with a spindle may have emerged in the 11th century in the Islamic world and China, but it has spread to Europe. By the end of the 13th century, it was used for hundreds of yours to create thread or yarn from wool or flax. In 1764. James Hargreaves, a British Weaver and Carpenter invented the spinning jenny, which turned an ordinary spinning wheel into a multiple spool wheel that allowed the work of eight people to be done by 115 years later, British inventor Samuel Crumpton improved the Jenny with its spinning mule, making it possible for one person to operate more than 1000 spindles. At the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. The spinning jenny ushered in the era of replacing workers with more technologically advanced equipment, a trend that continues today with all that started with the round wheel. And now let’s talk about our seventh event for today the legendary pyramids at Giza, and that happened about 2528 BC.
The pyramids at Giza still stand as perhaps the most remarkable feat of construction, engineering, and sheer organization of labor from the ancient world. The monuments which required the energies of 1000s of masons, craftsmen, laborers and slaves were constructed using simple tools of copper stone, wood and rope. The largest of all the Egyptian pyramids the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza erected between 2551 and 2528 BC, originally Rose 481 feet above the desert sand because of erosion, it now stands at 455 feet. It is composed of some 2,300,000 blocks of limestone, some weighing up to 15 tons with perfectly sloped size oriented to the cardinal directions. The Great Pyramid of Khufu is a marvel of precision intended to stand for eternity. Ancient Egyptian cultures was characterized by an obsession with the afterlife. They believed in reincarnation as long as the body was prepared correctly. When an important person died, embalmers quickly rendered the corpse as a mummy, which was then placed in a coffin and buried in one of the tombs rooms full of treasures to be used in the afterlife. The walls were painted with prayers and spells for protection, showing the deceased being received by important gods and goddesses. If judged worthy, the diseased would be reborn the next morning with the sun god Ra, and now for the eighth event of this episode, the code of Hammurabi and that happened around 1792 BC.
Hammurabi who lived between 1810 and 1750 BC, is best known for the administrative and moral reforms he enacted when he took this throne of the Babylonian Empire around 1792 BC. Do not actually the earliest code of law from ancient Mesopotamia, it is the most extensive more than 3500 lines are inscribed. On a slab of basil stone, standing almost seven and a half feet tall. It can be seen today at the Louvre in Paris, France. The code covers criminal and civil matters from murder to marriage, and from trade deals to slavery disputes. Hammurabi is well known law of retaliation An eye for an eye later echoed in the Old Testament is actually an exception in a legal code mostly devoid of primitive retributive customs. The code empowered only men as heads of households, they represented their families to the outside world. The code allowed them to sell their wives and children to pay debts. men could engage in sexual relations with concubines, slaves or prostitutes while their wives would be condemned for adultery by drowning. The code of Hammurabi was one of the first written works to promulgate behavioral Moore’s for an entire Empire and despite the inequalities it contains, it influenced lawmakers for centuries. Indeed, Hammurabi is one of 23 law givers depicted in bar relief in the chamber of the US House of Representatives. And now for the ninth event that changed the history of the world, the creation of the first alphabet, about 1700 BC.
Humans began recording events long before there was a written alphabet. Initially, records were in the form of pictures like the cave paintings in the lasco grotto in France made about 15,000 years ago, drawings later became more symbolic rather than drawing sun for example, a circle could represent both sun and daytime, your earliest known writing hieroglyphic was used in Egypt starting in 3100 BC. hieroglyphic writing employed images to denote sounds and objects, Egyptian scribes wrote on papayas with read bends. At about the same time, a symbolic cuneiform script incised on clay tablets evolved in Mesopotamia. It wasn’t until 1700 BC, that the development of the first alphabet or system of writing based on letters that represented individual sounds develop on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. The earliest known alphabetic inscriptions were carved on bowls and wares in the ancient Canaanites territory. similar efforts likely occurred in Syria, Palestine, Phoenicia and senai. The early alphabetic script still undeciphered today is a precursor to the north Semitic script of finisher consisting of 22 letters written right to left the Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, Arabians Indians and their modern cultural successors adapted the Phoenician script, making it the probable ancestor of almost all 46 alphabets use today. And now for our last event for today’s episode, obviously, we still have 100 events, right? We talked about the first nine, we have 10 now and we still have 90, so don’t go away, stick around and you will learn about all these events in the series. But now we have the last event for today’s episode, and that is the 10th event. And that is about the Iron Age the birth of the Iron Age. Now that is about 1200 BC.
Metals were used in a number of ways in the ancient world. By about 5000 BC, the Egyptians were making copper weapons and tools. Bronze was produced in the Middle East around 3200 BC, and cast iron production began in India at about 2000 BC. Gold and Silver were reserved for ceremonial and decorated objects. Around 1400 bc the Hittites, whose kingdom stretched over parts of modern Turkey, Syria and Lebanon discovered how to manufacture wrought iron on a large scale. This process involved eating iron ore, hammering out impurities and then cooling it in water, which made the iron strong and durable. When their empire collapsed in the 12th century BC, after falling under the rising power of the Assyrian Empire. He died craftsmen dispersed spreading iron metallurgy practices, and starting what is known as the Iron Age. The technology reached Europe by 1000 bc arose in Africa by 900 BC, and spread to China around 700 BC, the advent of iron metallurgy had many repercussions. It made the war chariot obsolete in the Middle East because soldiers were equipped with stronger weapons. It revolutionized farming and the social order in China where the masses previously toiled with tools made of stone, wood and bone. It also allowed greater migration in Europe, Africa, and India since land could be cleared for planting more rapidly producing a surplus and population growth. Now with that being said, these will be the first 10 events that change the history of the world. I hope you found the information interesting, I hope you learn something new. Remember, English plus is not just about learning the English language. The English language is just a tool that you can use to talk about many different things. And to help you talk about those many different things, we are going to be focusing on many things and because English is not English, only it’s English plus, remember, that’s the plus part. That’s the educational the cultural part. And we hope that you enjoy that as part of our premium offering. Now I will remind you that this is the first episode of a series of 10 episodes. Each episode we will talk about 10 events like we did today. So stick around and listen to the nine episodes to come to know about the 90 more events to go that changed the world. This is your host Danny, thank you very much for listening. I will see you next time.
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