Mankind decoded. Arms race. Season 1, Episode 2

Description

Episode Two: The Arms Race About 10,000 years ago we discover farming. We now the means of providing ourselves with a stable supply of food. But when crops fail, early farming communities face a new threat. War. It's the birth of the arms race. In these early battles over resources, hunting weapons like bows and arrows are strengthened and repurposed for warfare. They allow people to kill from a safer distance than hand-to-hand combat. At Megiddo, in 1500BC, the world's greatest civilization prepares to do battle with a powerful coalition of Middle Eastern warlords. It's the world's first recorded war. To win the battle, the Egyptians conscript tens of thousands of citizens, and employ professional soldiers. They also pioneer hi-tech new weaponry, the chariot, and the composite bow. This allows them to shoot at even greater distances, and at speed. In 300 BC, a handful of states battle for supremacy in China. One emperor unites them all through force. Emperor Qin's craftsmen and engineers develop cast iron and mass production. Able to manufacture identical metal mechanisms in quantity, they take the traditional bow and turn it into the crossbow, which they then produce by the thousands. They also invent gunpowder. The first guns are primitive but effective, allowing the Chinese to throw the powerful Mongols out of China. Gunpowder makes its way down the Silk Road, and the Turkish Sultan Mehmed uses it to conquer the ancient city state of Constantinople. No army has successfully breached its massive city walls for over a thousand years. Mehmed's heavy cannons unleash a barrage of destruction. Gunpowder shows that city walls are now useless. It completely changes the way we defend ourselves. We develop military airplanes, which deliver death and destruction from even greater distances. Mankind is about to have a huge wake-up-call. Military aircraft lead to the delivery of the most destructive weapon in history. The atomic bomb. The Americans use it against Japan to end the biggest war of all time: WW2. The arms race has reached its apex.

Runtime

22 minutes

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Database

Alexander Street

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