- 30/06/2025
Documentary, Mankind The Story of All of Us S01E11 Speed
Category
๐
LearningTranscript
00:00We are innovators, inventors.
00:16We transform the resources of our planet into new powers.
00:30But as life accelerates, new perils, and mankind's greatest triumphs.
00:54Amidst the chaos of an unforgiving planet, most species will fail.
01:00But for one, all the pieces will fall into place.
01:06And a set of keys will unlock a path for mankind to triumph.
01:13This is our story.
01:16The story of all of us.
01:18Richmond, Virginia.
01:27April, 1865.
01:30The climax of the American Civil War.
01:33Union troops close in on the Confederate capital.
01:46But the Confederates decide not to defend their city.
01:50They're planned.
01:54Evacuate.
01:56Regroup.
01:57Keep fighting.
01:58The orders pass to two young soldiers.
02:13Captain William Herring.
02:16Adjutant, Lyndon Kent.
02:18Without knowing it, they'll help bring the war to a sudden end.
02:27The American Civil War.
02:39The bloodiest war in U.S. history.
02:43600,000 Americans dead.
02:46More than in World Wars I and II combined.
02:51But in the modern age, the key to the success of mankind is mass production.
03:00Wars are now won by harnessing the power of industry.
03:09Giving the Union a massive advantage.
03:15Four out of five factories are in the north.
03:19Making 25 times more weapons.
03:23Six times more ammunition.
03:30Many Southerners still live a rural life.
03:39Based on farming.
03:41Crushed by the industrial might of the north.
03:47They're on the brink of defeat.
03:52Richmond, their last stand.
03:56Abandoned.
04:00Herring and Kent are meant to burn the south's most valued commodity.
04:10Tobacco.
04:13And to destroy food and supplies.
04:16Anything that could be of use to Union troops.
04:30Wait a second.
04:31I was just fighting to protect this city.
04:35And now you want me to burn it to the ground?
04:39Are you insane?
04:45The shock and the horror of this idea must have been the most terrible thing in the world.
04:51And then the question comes.
04:52Do you follow orders and burn what you've defended?
04:56Or do you let it be?
05:05Are we really going to do this?
05:06The Confederates want to destroy the warehouses, but leave Richmond intact, ready for their return.
05:22Richmond is a concept, a belief.
05:23As long as Richmond exists, so does the Confederacy.
05:24The Confederacy is a concept, a belief.
05:25As long as Richmond exists, so does the Confederacy.
05:26The Confederacy is a concept, a belief.
05:27As long as Richmond exists, so does the Confederacy.
05:28But the fire spreads out.
05:29The's not one type of fact, the Confederacyแป
05:46areJeans free in the middle.
05:53But the fire spreads out of control.
06:011,000 buildings burn.
06:08Munition dumps explode.
06:14The Confederates lay waste to their own city.
06:23It's apocalyptic. That's the only way to describe it.
06:26The Confederates are leaving a capital ablaze,
06:29a capital in ruin, an idea in ruin,
06:32a political system in ruin.
06:35It's the end.
06:39Six days later, the South surrenders.
06:45The world's first industrial war ends.
06:53Now, the men and machines that fought the war fight
06:58for a new cause, progress, an explosion of technology.
07:14Man the toolmaker charges into the modern age.
07:18The period immediately following the Civil War
07:23was curiously enough a time of enormous optimism,
07:26a time when people embraced the idea of progress
07:29like they'd never done before.
07:30People believed that everything could be done
07:32faster, bigger, better.
07:37Every other day, there'd be a newspaper article
07:40about some new extraordinary invention,
07:43some new technology, some new breakthrough
07:46that was just on the cusp.
07:49In the U.S. alone,
07:51400,000 patents in 40 years.
07:56New inventions mass-produced.
08:13Identical parts, made separately,
08:18put together on the assembly line.
08:22High volume, low cost.
08:25Around the world, a chain reaction.
08:31Industry expands 700%.
08:35Mass production sweeps through North America and Europe,
08:40then spreads east to Asia.
08:47Japan.
08:49For 200 years, cut off from the rest of the world.
08:57A medieval way of life, isolated from Western progress.
09:01But even here, change is coming.
09:09A barber shop in old Tokyo.
09:14One man will help launch Japan into the modern age.
09:19Iwasaki Yotaro.
09:24Visionary, reformer, samurai.
09:27Determined to embrace the future.
09:39He'll cut ties to the past.
09:45The samurai have ruled Japan for 600 years.
09:52A warrior class.
09:54To live and die by the sword.
10:03During the several hundred years
10:05that Japan shut its doors to the world,
10:10the cult of the samurai was elevated
10:13to this mystical status.
10:16And at the heart of it,
10:18the worship of the sword.
10:24The soul of every warrior in his sword.
10:37The soul of every warrior in his sword.
10:40The sword made from hammered steel.
10:5332,000 layers.
10:55Each a hundred thousandth of an inch thick.
11:00Sharp enough to slice through five human bodies at a time.
11:03The samurai's ancient feudal code keeps Japan living in the past.
11:21It was Saki from an old samurai family.
11:46He'll reject the old order by removing his topknot.
12:04Traditionally cut off in defeat.
12:06An act of humiliation.
12:19For Iwasaki, it's liberation.
12:22He enters the barbershop of samurai.
12:36He leaves an entrepreneur.
12:381884.
12:511884.
12:52Iwasaki rents an old shipyard.
12:54The base for his company.
12:56Mitsubishi.
12:58The expertise that made swords
13:00will make ships from steel.
13:04An iron and carbon alloy honed over centuries.
13:08Steel is a man-made super metal.
13:14Up to ten times stronger than pure iron.
13:19Today, we use 1.3 billion tons of it every year.
13:26Enough to build the Empire State Building 20,000 times.
13:34It was Saki recruits Western experts to learn the secrets of modern industry.
13:42By blasting oxygen through pig iron,
13:45it's possible to make steel 10 times faster.
13:52In just over a century,
13:54Mitsubishi becomes the world's largest corporation,
13:58building ships, planes, and cars.
14:01Asia's first industrial nation develops faster than any country on Earth.
14:17Japan learns in a decade what the West developed in a century.
14:25Today, it's the planet's third richest nation.
14:286,000 miles away,
14:35Belfast, Ireland.
14:40Workers build a giant steel structure.
14:45A monument to the ambition of the age.
14:512,000 steel plates.
14:553 million rivets.
14:56900 feet long.
15:0346,000 tons.
15:13The largest moving object on the planet.
15:18And it's unsinkable.
15:191,000 feet long.
15:31April 14th, 1912.
15:34RMS Titanic.
15:36Bound for New York.
15:42Mankind puts its faith in technology.
15:44On board, a Morse code message system, the wireless telegraph.
16:02Operator, Jack Phillips.
16:0525 years old.
16:06A communications expert.
16:08He'll play a part in mankind's most famous disaster.
16:199.40 PM.
16:21A warning from steamship Masiba.
16:23Eight miles ahead.
16:24Saw much heavy pack ice and a great number of large icebergs.
16:31Also field ice.
16:33Weather, good, clear.
16:36An invisible message sent at the speed of light.
16:39Radio waves have been produced by stars and planets for billions of years.
16:47Now, physicists use electric currents to produce them at will.
16:54Morse code.
16:55Morse code.
16:58Where once we communicated face to face, now we can send messages across the planet.
17:08On board the Titanic, 1,316 passengers.
17:18More than half crammed into third class cabins.
17:211,416 passengers.
17:22Now, here again.
17:231,2,2,1.
17:24How's it?
17:26Three.
17:28Three!
17:31Men like Theodore DeMoldo.
17:36A peasant farmer dreaming of a new life in a new world.
17:44He left his wife and children in Europe.
17:46in Europe his ticket the equivalent of a year's income the amazing thing about
17:56humans is we're never satisfied we're incredible risk takers we're always
17:59exploring no matter how good life is there's always some effort to see sort
18:05of what's past the next mountain around the next corner with mass production
18:11comes mass transportation steamships power the greatest migration in human
18:18history over half a century 1 in 20 people on the planet emigrate the most
18:26popular destination across the Atlantic America a hundred ships a week arrive in
18:36New York 26 million people migrate to the USA they were leaving home coming
18:48probably with very little money in their pocket just a dream a dream that they
18:53could come to America and start their lives over and make something of
18:58themselves and maybe someday become one of those rich people in first class
19:06while passengers sleep Jack Phillips is busy sending personal messages for those in
19:23first class the iceberg warning doesn't reach the bridge
19:30the biggest ship on earth is at 22 and a half knots nearly full speed
19:41this sails at speeds that it shouldn't have been traveling at and it's going through really a
19:46minefield a naturally made minefield of ice mountainous ice
19:50ice boat straight engine full stop
20:01so
20:12so
20:13Third-class cabins flood first.
20:43The iceberg tears rivets off steel plates in the hull, opening six gaps.
21:09The new international distress signal, SOS.
21:16SOS. SOS. Titanic requires immediate assistance. Come at once. We struck an iceberg. Sinking.
21:28Ten miles away, another ship, the Californian, close enough to save lives.
21:35But its wireless operator turned off the telegraph and went to sleep 15 minutes earlier.
21:42Six supposedly watertight compartments flooded. More than 10 million gallons of water pour into the Titanic.
21:57To reach the lifeboats, third-class passengers must pass through first- and second-class decks.
22:09But the doors are locked.
22:16To know that you were trapped there because you were poor, that's when fear would have combined probably with rage.
22:31Less than half those on board will make it to New York.
22:38To know that you were poor, that's when we were trapped in the Ajax.
22:461912 April 1912, 2.28 am.
22:5120.28 am.
22:552.28 am.
22:5614 March 1912 April 1912.
23:0011 June 1912, 2.28 am.
23:0320 January 1912, 2.28 am.
23:07Two and three-quarter hours after hitting an iceberg, Titanic, the unsinkable ship, sinks.
23:37Third-class passenger, Theodore de Mulder, clings to the wreckage.
23:55The water's fatally cold, three degrees below freezing.
24:01Help, please!
24:02He could die of hypothermia in just 15 minutes.
24:21Help!
24:25But de Mulder is one of the lucky ones.
24:32Three days later, he arrives in New York.
24:39He will go on to land a job at the Ford factory in Detroit.
24:45A classic immigrant's tale.
24:581,503 passengers and crew never reached New York.
25:02When the Titanic hit that iceberg, it set off a great period of re-examination of our faith in technology.
25:13And I don't think we've ever had quite the same optimism or trust that technology always serves our interest.
25:21In New York City, one of nature's wonders is about to be tamed.
25:36Inventor Charles Goodyear.
25:37Determined, obsessed, and broke.
25:44From a tenement kitchen, he'll kickstart a transport revolution.
25:50Native Americans in the Amazon have used it for centuries, extracting a white sap from trees.
26:04They call it caoutchou.
26:08Rubber.
26:09Rubber is one of the most underappreciated miracles of nature.
26:17It's up there with coal and steel and bronze.
26:21It's become this kind of secret juice that's allowed us to expand beyond our limits.
26:26In its raw state, rubber isn't very useful.
26:34It melts when hot.
26:37Cracks when cold.
26:42Goodyear tries to change its chemical structure
26:46to make it more resilient and more useful.
26:51Goodyear is one of those interesting kind of eccentrics in America that's absolutely dogged by a single idea.
27:02For five years, nothing.
27:10His debts consign him to jail.
27:14His family relies on handouts.
27:16But Goodyear believes he's divinely inspired.
27:29There's no object so desirable, so important, and so necessary to the human race as making rubber available for man's use.
27:38Then, a breakthrough.
27:45He adds sulfur.
27:56The result? A material tough like leather, but flexible.
28:01He calls the process vulcanization after the Roman god of fire.
28:11He lost his fortune several times, went bankrupt a number of times, but never gave up on the idea this is something that will change the world, and he was absolutely right.
28:26Almost every machine in the industrial revolution relies on rubber fittings and seals.
28:33To withstand the pressure of the steam, hundreds of parts in a Model T-4 are made from rubber.
28:41Freeing mankind to travel further and faster than ever before.
28:50Demand for rubber skyrockets.
28:556,000 miles from Goodyear's tenement.
29:05Africa.
29:07One of the world's great sources of natural resources.
29:14The Congo.
29:16900,000 square miles.
29:20Over 2 billion rubber plants.
29:22Under brutal colonial rule.
29:34The heart of darkness.
29:41But one man will make a stand and change Africa's fate.
29:46Insala.
29:47Rubber tapper.
29:48Husband.
29:49Family man.
29:50Alice Harris.
29:51Activist.
29:52Reformer.
29:53A Baptist missionary from Britain.
29:56Insala doesn't know her, but has nowhere else to turn.
29:57He wants the world to know what he's carrying.
29:58Insala doesn't know her, but has nowhere else to turn.
29:59He wants the world to know what he's carrying.
30:00Insala doesn't know what he's carrying.
30:01Insala doesn't know her, but has nowhere else to turn.
30:03He wants the world to know what he's carrying.
30:06Insala.
30:07Insala.
30:09Insala doesn't know there's nothing.
30:12and Sala doesn't know her but has nowhere else to turn he wants the world to know what he's
30:23carrying the severed hand and foot of his daughter
30:53the previous day his village was attacked his wife and daughter slaughtered
31:01for 19 years Belgium's King Leopold has run the Congo as his own private
31:23estate millions forced to tap rubber
31:29the profits line his pockets
31:33since there was nobody looking over his shoulder
31:37he exploited it and exploited the people as well
31:43almost anything could happen and anything did
31:50unfortunately
31:51when workers don't make their quota
31:56the chicago
31:58a whip made from hippopotamus hide
32:0410 million Congolese died in 15 years of Leopold's rule
32:12an African genocide
32:19just move that one hand a little bit closer
32:23Alice Harris will expose the brutality of Leopold's regime
32:27and shift world opinion
32:32a photograph that will change mankind
32:43Baringa province northeastern Congo
32:49a land controlled by Belgium's King Leopold
32:54British missionary Alice Harris will harness the power of mass communication
33:02to reveal a terrible truth
33:04a catalogue of horror
33:11our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers
33:15beaten and murdered for rubber
33:18no matter how hard we work
33:22we suffer
33:23every day
33:26we suffer
33:27it's a story repeated through the ages
33:36colonial forces attack native populations
33:41and plunder the planet's riches
33:43atrocities committed far from prying eyes
33:54Harris wants to change that
34:05she'll tell the world what is happening in the Congo
34:12that children are routinely maimed
34:16as a warning to villagers
34:18her weapon
34:20the camera
34:22for the first time
34:26mankind can capture images of our world
34:30reproduce and share them
34:32the first cameras weighed 110 pounds
34:37by 1900
34:42they're smaller
34:43portable
34:44and in the hands of 2 million amateurs
34:47the invention of photography
34:55and the means to get them in front of people
34:58held more power than its inventors ever dreamed
35:02photos don't blink
35:08and they don't go away
35:10once you've seen that image
35:14you can't rewind
35:16Harris takes hundreds of photos in the Congo
35:22they're published in newspapers across the world
35:29shocking millions of readers
35:31including Mark Twain
35:34if only we could bring home that picture to the minds of the American people
35:41how they would rise to destroy that age brutal trafficking in human flesh
35:47Twain joins the Congo Reform Association
35:54to campaign against the atrocities
35:56he writes pamphlets
36:02illustrated with Harris's photographs
36:05just one look at what had happened to these people in the Congo
36:11from these photographs she took
36:13was able to communicate
36:15so broadly
36:17and so horrifically
36:19that it transformed world opinion
36:23and it changed society
36:26the campaign forces King Leopold to quit the Congo
36:31and the rubber trade
36:34mass media
36:37a new power
36:39in a modern world
36:40key to illuminating the planet's darkest corners
36:45the expression
36:47a picture is worth a thousand words
36:49that's a lowball estimate
36:51a picture
36:53a good picture
36:54is worth so much more than that
36:57while in Africa
37:05people challenge colonial rule
37:08in Europe
37:09the great powers
37:11are at war
37:12mass production means new weapons
37:16more lethal than ever
37:18the howitzer shoots 2,000 pound shells
37:25over 10 miles
37:27the machine gun fires 500 rounds per minute
37:32the tank
37:36a 40 ton metal horse
37:38in world war one
37:50eight and a half million people die
37:52but a third of those deaths
38:04are not from man-made weapons
38:06what's your name
38:09they're from disease
38:14there's an age-old tussle
38:18between microbes and man
38:20this war has been an invisible war
38:26we don't see them
38:27they're too small
38:29but collectively
38:33they're quite intelligent
38:34and quite crafty
38:35now one man wages war on bacteria
38:44at stake
38:48millions of lives
38:50world war one
38:58northern france
39:00life expectancy on the front line
39:04six weeks
39:06but from the worst of times
39:15comes the best of mankind
39:17comes the best of mankind
39:17Alexander Fleming
39:23Alexander Fleming
39:24a Scottish army doctor
39:30commended for bravery
39:32neither surgeon nor medic
39:36but a new kind of doctor
39:38but a new kind of doctor
39:39a bacteriologist
39:43on a quest to treat
39:48not the symptoms of a disease
39:50but its root cause
39:54it was through his absolutely obsessive need
40:00to understand what was happening
40:02in his laboratory
40:02that he wandered into the greatest advance
40:05ever among human scientists
40:07Fleming sees thousands die needlessly
40:11not from bullets and shrapnel
40:13but from wounds infected by bacteria
40:17100 trillion bacteria inhabit the human body
40:2610 times the number of human cells
40:30microorganisms that feed on living tissue
40:34most are harmless
40:39but a few species release toxins
40:43they cripple the immune system
40:45and spread disease
40:46bacteria have killed more people
40:54than all the wars in history
40:56combined
40:57by world war one
41:15doctors realize there's a link
41:17between bacteria and disease
41:20but can't stop infection spreading
41:23the tried and tested cure
41:34cut away tissue
41:36douse it in an antiseptic
41:40carbolic acid
41:42a deadly trade-off
41:49the acid disinfects wounds
41:55but also attacks white blood cells
41:59the body's natural defense against bacteria
42:03imagine being at the side of a soldier
42:16with a small flesh wound
42:18easily treatable
42:19yet watching the gangrene
42:21climb up the leg
42:22most did not survive
42:26very survivable wounds
42:27because of the resulting infections
42:29Fleming face to face
42:35with the enemy
42:36he knows bacteria are killing millions
42:43now he begins a 10-year battle
42:47to stop them
42:48I was consumed by a desire to discover
42:53after all this struggling
42:54something which will kill those microbes
42:57london 1928
43:06the war is over
43:19and Fleming is a civilian doctor
43:21working in a hospital laboratory
43:22working in a hospital laboratory
43:24testing samples of infected tissue
43:27and after so many dead ends
43:37the ultimate chance discovery
43:39a sample
43:49a sample left open for two weeks
43:52is contaminated
43:54inside a fungus is growing
43:59producing a substance
44:02which stops bacteria
44:04which stops bacteria in their tracks
44:06instead of multiplying
44:08microbes rupture and die
44:11that substance
44:14penicillin
44:16when I woke up just after dawn
44:20I didn't plan to revolutionize all medicine
44:23but I suppose that's exactly what I've done
44:27within 15 years
44:30penicillin saves 1 million lives a year
44:33a miracle drug
44:35the world's first antibiotic
44:38today we make 45,000 tons of it every year
44:44imagine a world before antibiotics
44:48before Fleming's invention
44:49a world where moms feared for their child's lives
44:52because so many were lost
44:54one out of every three people
44:59who could hear my voice right now
45:00and see my face
45:01would be dead
45:02if it wasn't for the antibiotics
45:04that Fleming first invented
45:05medicine for millions
45:10in a world shaped
45:12by mass production
45:13from the first industrial war
45:22mankind exploded
45:24into the modern world
45:25innovation in overdrive
45:31life and death
45:36at unprecedented scale and speed
45:38but now
45:43we have the power
45:45to obliterate our species
45:46or change it forever
45:53to go
46:07to normal
46:07animation
46:09in a world
46:10that
46:11is
46:13ะy
46:17what is
Recommended
46:03
|
Up next
46:04
46:04
46:05
46:03
46:04
46:04
46:04
46:03
1:00
47:31
51:46