History | Events That Changed the World 1

by | Jul 21, 2020 | Miscellaneous | 0 comments

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In this episode, we will talk about events that changed the world, and we will start with the first ten events starting from the discovery of the use of fire to the advent of the iron age.

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Episode Transcript

Disclaimer: I am using an automatic transcript service as it is not possible for me to do it on my own and I cannot afford human transcription at the moment. The service claims to have about 95% accuracy, which means there will still be some mistakes, so my apologies for having a less than perfect transcript, but I hope I can afford human transcription soon and this problem will be solved. However, the service is pretty good and the transcript will prove to be almost perfect.

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[00:01:07] Welcome to our history episode. And in this episode, we will talk about the first 10 events that changed the history of the world. We will start by the discovery of the use of fire all the way to the mans learning, to harness the power of iron. So let’s start with the very first event. And that is when man discovers the use of fire.

[00:01:33] But before we start, let me remind you that you can find a link in the description of this episode that will take you to a post with the full transcript of this episode and a link to a quiz that you can use to check your understanding of the things we’re going to talk about in this episode. So now without are there a dude let’s start with the very first event that changed the history of the world.

[00:01:57] Man discovers the use of fire. It happened about 1.4 million years ago. So while 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 Jessa, one, jock, Kenya, and Swart Krantz, South Africa dating back 1.4 and 1.3 million years ago.

[00:02:32] 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 7,000 BC. Homo sapiens began making their own fires by using sticks or striking Flint against pyrite to set a spark to dried grass that would erupt into flame.

[00:02:58] These 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 injustice through raw meat.

[00:03:22] As time went on, fire became a military tool, Greek and Roman soldiers often use scorched earth tactics in Wars. 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 trolls throughout human history is greatly represented through the flame as a symbol of both love and religion today.

[00:03:51] And now to the second event, we go fast forward to 120,000 years ago to the appearance of the wise man or what science calls homosapiens. 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.

[00:04:18] Homosapiens had larger brains were linguistically adept and capable of reflective thought. By the time homo-sapiens 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.

[00:04:49] And then to Europe, some 40,000 years ago. There they encountered Neanderthals classified, alternatively, as a sub species of homo-sapiens or a separate species descended from homo erectus, whose brains were similar in size, but may not have been as well developed for speech and social skills dependent on speech.

[00:05:11] They died out or were assimilated into the dominant populations of homosapiens some 32,000 years ago. And the next big event that happened was the invention of the bow and arrow. And it happened around 15,000 BC. The development of the bow and arrow was a momentous advancement that allowed early hunters, not only the safety of pursuing prey from afar, but also more accuracy and velocity than before the exact date of its invention is elusive.

[00:05:41] 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 Barb, the harpoon and the boomerang, the oldest specimens found are the home of guard bowls dating to 9,000 BC discovered in a peat bog in Denmark during the neolithic period, which dates from about 7,000 to 2000 BC.

[00:06:10] This early missile was adapted to warfare. In England, the remains of Hill forts dating back 5,000 years. Show evidence of sustained archery attacks, including skeletons with embedded arrowheads. Neolithic cave paintings from Spain show bands of archers shooting at one another. Indeed archery be used in warfare for millennia.

[00:06:35] And after the invention of the bow, the event that happened around 9,000, BC C was the birth of agriculture. Now the warmer climate that game was 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 harvest.

[00:06:59] The areas 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 8,000 BC, Africa and India by 7,000 BC and in East Asia and Europe by 6,000 BC, barley wheat, try send oats.

[00:07:30] We’re the first to be systematically cultivated later, 8,000 to 5,000 years ago. Humans began planting root crops and legumes followed by fruit trees and leafy vegetables. Each area of the world grew regional foods. Those times spread via traders and migrants. Irrigation developed in Mesopotamia around 6,000 BC was critical to agricultural development canals, reservoirs, and embankments allowed fresh water and silt deposits from the Chris and Euphrates rivers to change channel directly into fields.

[00:08:08] This increase made the soil more fertile, made farmers less dependent on rainfall and paved the way for the development of cities. And that is exactly the next thing that happened around 6,000 BC. We have the first city Chatel who you, perhaps not our idea of a metropolis, the settlement at shuttle, who you can Anatolia modern day Turkey is considered by many scholars to be the first city dating back about 9,000 years.

[00:08:40] Shuttle who you meaning? Fort mound in Turkish consists of two dirt mounds near the char Samba river Walter fair service jr. And American archeologists described it as a community at the threshold of civilization in its day. Several people lived in . Dwelling in flat roofed mud brick houses that were packed closely together and ascended the slopes of the mountains.

[00:09:09] I thought who you citizens were shepherds hunters, farmers, and gathers of wild plants from the nearby marshes. They wove cloth made baskets and pottery and tanned leather. They also traded obsidian and naturally occurring volcanic glass. They gathered from volcanoes to the near East and crafted into knives and tools.

[00:09:31] It is clear that shuttle, 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 archeologists Jane malarkey. Chatel who you continues to be excavated today. It’s size and complexity are unparalleled.

[00:09:56] Many rooms include figurines, animal horns, religious Strines, and quite possibly the world’s first known landscape art. So after the first city. What is the next big event that changed the history of the world? It is actually when man makes the round wheel, it happened around 3,500 BC. The wheel has been instrumental to transportation, energy and manufacturing.

[00:10:24] Exactly where the earliest wheel originated is a matter of dispute, but by around 3,500 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, which equipped to a sledge merchants could move large loads over long distances.

[00:10:52] Around 2000 BC with the introduction of spokes and coupled with the strength of the DMX gated horse, the wheel became a powerful tool of warfare via the chariot, the Hittites whose empire was in parts of it. What are now Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon were the first to use chariots in their military. As early as the second century, BC water wheels played a significant role in civilizations from ancient China to Rome constructed of battles around a wheel.

[00:11:25] 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 slacked slave labor, the Chinese texts from the first century Ady reports that water power was harnessed to cast iron for agricultural tools and advanced grinding systems were developed that would not be seen in the West for several centuries.

[00:12:00] We still use descendants 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 had spread to Europe by the end of the 13th century.

[00:12:23] It was used for hundreds of years 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 one 15 years later, British inventor, Samuel Crompton improved the Jenni with his spinning mule, making it possible for one person to operate more than 1000 spindles.

[00:12:57] 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. And the next event after making the wheel happened at 25, 28 BC. And that was the building of the legendary pyramid at visa. 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 thousands of masons, craftsmen, laborers, and slaves were constructed using simple tools of copper stone, wood and rope.

[00:13:45] The largest of all the Egyptian pyramids, the great pyramid of who Fu at Giza erected between 25 51 and 25 28 BC originally Rose 481 feet above the desert sand because of erosion. It now stands at 455 feet. It is composed of some, 2 million, 300,000 blocks of limestone. Some weighing up to 15 tons. With perfectly slope size oriented to the Cardinal directions.

[00:14:19] The great pyramid of Khufu is a Marvel of precision intended to stand for eternity. Ancient Egyptian culture was characterized by an obsession with the afterlife. They believed in me incarnation. As long as the body was prepared correctly, when an important person died in blamers quickly rendered the corpse as a mummy.

[00:14:43] Which was then placed in a coffin and buried in one of the tunes 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 a sun God RA.

[00:15:06] So from a great feat of construction to a great feed of lawmaking. And that is the next event that changed the history of the world, which is the code of Hammurabi. It happened around 1792, BC Hammurabi is best known for the administrative and moral reforms he enacted when he took the throne of the Babylonian empire around 1792 BC.

[00:15:34] They’ll not actually the earliest court of law from ancient Mesopotamia. It is the most extensive more than 3,500 lines are inscribed on a slab of Bazell old 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 three deals to slavery disputes.

[00:16:02] Hammurabi’s 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 retribute of 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 be debts.

[00:16:28] Men could engage in sexual relations with concubine slaves or prostitutes while their wives would be condemned for adult three. 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.

[00:16:52] Indeed. Hammurabi is one of 23 law givers depicted in bar relief in the chamber of the U S house of representatives. And now we move to the next event that changed the history of the world. And that is the creation of the first alphabet. It happened around 1700 BC humans began recording events long before there was a written alphabet.

[00:17:17] Initially records were in the form of pictures. Like the cave paintings in the Lascaux grotto in France made about 15,000 years ago. Drawings later became more symbolic rather than drawing a sun. For example, a circle could represent both sun and daytime. The earliest known writing hieroglyphic was used in Egypt, starting in 3,100 BC.

[00:17:43] Hieroglyphic writing employed images to denote sounds and objects. Egyptian scribes wrote on papyruses with read pens at about the same time, a symbolic unit forms, grip and sized on clay tablets evolved in Mesopotamia. It wasn’t until 1700 BC. The development of the first alphabet. Or system of writing based on letters that represented individual sounds developed on the Eastern shores of the Mediterranean.

[00:18:15] 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 Sinai. The early alphabetic script still undecipherable today is a precursor to the North. Some medics script of Phoenicia 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 used today.

[00:18:54] And now we come to the last event for this episode. Of course, we will have more events to come in the next episode. So stay tuned. But the last event we will talk about in today’s episode is the forging of iron. And the beginning of the iron age, this happened around 1200 BC metal. We’re used in a number of ways in the ancient world by about 5,000 BC.

[00:19:19] The Egyptians were making copper weapons and tools. Bronze was produced in the middle East around 3,200 BC and cast iron production began in India at about 2000 BC gold and silver were reserved for ceremonial and decorative objects. Around 1400 BC, the Hittites whose kingdom stretched over parts of modern Turkey, Syria, and Lebanon discovered how to manufacture rod iron on a large scale.

[00:19:51] This process involved heating iron or 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 under the rising power of the Assyrian empire, Hittite craftsmen dispersed spreading iron metallurgic practices and starting what is known as the iron age, the techniques we reached Europe by 1000 BC arose in Africa by 900 and spread to China around 700 BC.

[00:20:27] The advent of iron metallurgy had many repercussions it war chariot obsolete in the middle East because soldiers were equipped with strong or weapons. It revolutionized farming and the social order in China, where the masses obviously 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.

[00:21:01] So these were the first 10 events that changed the history of the world. Just to remind you with a 10 events quickly, the first one was the discovery of fire or. To be specific. The discovery of the use of fire. The second event was the emergence of the wise man or homosapiens. The third event was the invention of bow and arrow.

[00:21:23] The fourth event was the birth of agriculture. The fifth event was the first city of . The sixth event was the making of the round wheel. The seventh event was the construction of the great pyramids at Giza. The eighth event was the code of Hammurabi. The ninth event was the creation of the first alphabet and the 10th event was learning to forge an iron and the advent of the RNH.

[00:21:53] So these were our first 10 events that changed the history of the world. We will have more to talk about in the coming episodes. So I want you to stay tuned and follow us in the coming weeks where we will continue talking about other events that had great impact on the history of the world. Oh, don’t forget to check the transcript of this episode and a link to a short quiz. [00:22:18] You can find the link to take you there in the description of the episode. This is your host, Danny. Thank you very much for listening to us today and I will see you next time.

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