1 00:00:25,122 --> 00:00:26,248 S-R-C-P-B-1-2-B. 2 00:00:26,390 --> 00:00:27,516 Absolutely. 3 00:00:27,657 --> 00:00:30,820 Who wants to know when we're configured? 4 00:00:30,961 --> 00:00:32,929 Copy that. 5 00:00:41,638 --> 00:00:43,731 This program is about something 6 00:00:43,874 --> 00:00:49,176 you wouldn't think you could make a TV program about: One of these. 7 00:01:22,012 --> 00:01:26,540 Funny how we use the word light to mean not heavy, isn't it? 8 00:01:26,683 --> 00:01:29,516 I mean, this flashlight is light. 9 00:01:29,653 --> 00:01:31,416 These programs are light, 10 00:01:31,555 --> 00:01:35,457 even though this kind of light, according to Einstein, 11 00:01:35,592 --> 00:01:37,560 is heavier than you might think. 12 00:01:37,694 --> 00:01:40,993 So if light does have weight as Einstein said, 13 00:01:41,131 --> 00:01:44,259 then it ought to be affected by gravity. 14 00:01:44,401 --> 00:01:47,768 And if that were true, black holes should be possible. 15 00:01:51,341 --> 00:01:55,277 Black holes, dead stars so big their gravity pulls in light... 16 00:01:55,412 --> 00:01:57,175 stops it from bouncing off them. 17 00:01:57,314 --> 00:01:59,782 I mean, that's why you could see me now: 18 00:01:59,916 --> 00:02:01,747 Light bouncing off me. 19 00:02:01,885 --> 00:02:05,719 If it didn't bounce off, you couldn't see me. 20 00:02:05,856 --> 00:02:08,256 That's why you can't see black holes. 21 00:02:10,060 --> 00:02:12,551 But you can see their effect. 22 00:02:12,696 --> 00:02:15,164 This gas jet is streaming out from one. 23 00:02:17,033 --> 00:02:20,662 This cloud of gas is spinning around at such colossal speed, 24 00:02:20,804 --> 00:02:24,035 you know it's being driven by a black hole at its center. 25 00:02:26,676 --> 00:02:30,510 But the weirdest thing about space is that a lot of what you're looking at 26 00:02:30,647 --> 00:02:32,638 isn't really there. 27 00:02:32,782 --> 00:02:34,340 The light from the most distant stars 28 00:02:34,484 --> 00:02:36,975 has taken such a colossal time to get here, 29 00:02:37,120 --> 00:02:39,452 the real stars are long dead. 30 00:02:39,589 --> 00:02:41,853 It's as if the telescope that produced these pictures 31 00:02:41,992 --> 00:02:47,953 were a kind of time machine showing you a view of the universe as it once was 32 00:02:48,098 --> 00:02:50,965 billions and billions of years ago. 33 00:02:59,776 --> 00:03:01,676 But maybe the most spine-tingling 34 00:03:01,811 --> 00:03:04,939 of all these ancient pictures is this one. 35 00:03:08,051 --> 00:03:10,144 This is the outer edge of the universe, 36 00:03:10,287 --> 00:03:16,522 so this light started towards us just after the very beginning. 37 00:03:16,660 --> 00:03:21,893 Thing is, one day will we see past that outer edge, 38 00:03:22,032 --> 00:03:24,193 back to before the bang? 39 00:03:24,334 --> 00:03:29,294 And if we do, what will we see? 40 00:03:29,439 --> 00:03:31,703 This is the time machine that took those pictures, 41 00:03:31,841 --> 00:03:35,538 a model of the Hubble telescope orbiting 400 miles up, 42 00:03:35,679 --> 00:03:38,239 searching for what it looked like out there 43 00:03:38,381 --> 00:03:40,849 before the beginning of time. 44 00:03:45,221 --> 00:03:47,121 Liftoff. 45 00:03:47,257 --> 00:03:50,693 Here's Hubble launching aboard the space shuttle "Discovery" 46 00:03:50,827 --> 00:03:52,920 in 1990, 47 00:03:54,731 --> 00:03:57,700 and then in 1993, 48 00:04:08,511 --> 00:04:11,241 and again in 1997, 49 00:04:11,381 --> 00:04:14,646 two more flights to carry out some of the most spectacular 50 00:04:14,784 --> 00:04:18,083 repair and maintenance jobs you've ever seen. 51 00:04:20,390 --> 00:04:23,188 Hey, good morning, Houston. 52 00:04:23,326 --> 00:04:28,229 Here's $1.5 billion worth of telescope floating in space, 53 00:04:28,365 --> 00:04:30,799 which is why getting close to Hubble like this 54 00:04:30,934 --> 00:04:33,061 with your 78-ton space shuttle 55 00:04:33,203 --> 00:04:37,264 is something nobody wants to do in a hurry. 56 00:04:37,407 --> 00:04:42,674 So when your docking arm reaches out towards the docking target on Hubble, 57 00:04:42,812 --> 00:04:46,304 you're bringing your shuttle in there with all the delicate precision 58 00:04:46,449 --> 00:04:49,907 of a mother reaching out for her baby. 59 00:04:51,955 --> 00:04:55,982 And then, orbiting earth at 17,000 miles an hour: 60 00:04:56,126 --> 00:04:59,618 The scene that still excites people to the core. 61 00:05:13,943 --> 00:05:16,468 This incredible flying fix is all done 62 00:05:16,613 --> 00:05:19,138 to the amazing capabilities of the space shuttle 63 00:05:19,282 --> 00:05:20,749 and the way she flies. 64 00:05:20,884 --> 00:05:23,478 To start with, getting up here to rendezvous with Hubble 65 00:05:23,620 --> 00:05:27,317 involves some very strange rules of orbital dynamics. 66 00:05:27,457 --> 00:05:29,948 Catch up doesn't just mean firing your engines, 67 00:05:30,093 --> 00:05:32,527 because that puts you up into a higher orbit. 68 00:05:32,662 --> 00:05:35,688 Braking drops you into a lower orbit. 69 00:05:35,832 --> 00:05:38,960 So you don't get there in a straight line like this, 70 00:05:39,102 --> 00:05:42,469 but something more like this. 71 00:05:42,605 --> 00:05:45,870 We're ready to go with this GCM on. 72 00:05:46,009 --> 00:05:48,477 Now, you remember that inch-by-inch stuff 73 00:05:48,611 --> 00:05:51,102 as they came into dock with Hubble? 74 00:05:51,247 --> 00:05:54,114 You do that with tiny thrusters all around the shuttle 75 00:05:54,250 --> 00:05:56,184 pointing up, down, and sideways. 76 00:05:56,319 --> 00:05:57,946 Here's two sets of them, see? 77 00:05:58,088 --> 00:06:00,454 There are 44 of them in all 78 00:06:00,590 --> 00:06:03,491 shooting minute puffs of a fuel called hydrazine 79 00:06:03,626 --> 00:06:08,256 that gives you more bang for your buck than anything around. 80 00:06:08,398 --> 00:06:11,834 But shuttle pilots aren't the only people who use hydrazine. 81 00:06:11,968 --> 00:06:13,936 You have too in medication, 82 00:06:14,070 --> 00:06:17,904 plastics, photography, rubber, all kinds of stuff... 83 00:06:18,041 --> 00:06:20,407 and one rather special use. 84 00:06:20,543 --> 00:06:24,946 Because long before hydrazine got used to spin the shuttle in space, 85 00:06:25,081 --> 00:06:28,414 one of the greatest crises in history triggered the need 86 00:06:28,551 --> 00:06:32,385 for that other thing hydrazine can do. 87 00:06:35,925 --> 00:06:39,326 Here we are in the beautiful Medoc wine country 88 00:06:39,462 --> 00:06:41,987 near Bordeaux in the southwest of France. 89 00:06:42,132 --> 00:06:44,362 This is a tough assignment. 90 00:06:44,501 --> 00:06:46,731 Anyway, hydrazine and all that. 91 00:06:49,439 --> 00:06:51,634 Back in the 19th century, 92 00:06:51,775 --> 00:06:54,039 if you live in a bijoux little residence like this 93 00:06:54,177 --> 00:06:56,270 and you get fungus, 94 00:06:56,412 --> 00:06:58,710 you go whatever the French for ape is, right? 95 00:06:58,848 --> 00:07:00,213 But I don't mean fungus in there, 96 00:07:00,350 --> 00:07:03,717 in the ancestral woodwork; I mean out here... 97 00:07:03,853 --> 00:07:07,380 well, out there. 98 00:07:07,524 --> 00:07:09,856 See, this is hydrazine country, 99 00:07:09,993 --> 00:07:12,393 because that's the other thing hydrazine does: 100 00:07:12,529 --> 00:07:16,932 Knocks off the fungus growth that can spoil your agribusiness day. 101 00:07:17,066 --> 00:07:20,729 Which is what happened here over 100 years ago, 102 00:07:20,870 --> 00:07:24,067 when something comes along to spoil their agribusiness day, 103 00:07:24,207 --> 00:07:26,505 something that looks like... how shall I put it? 104 00:07:26,643 --> 00:07:29,806 The end of civilization as we know it. 105 00:07:29,946 --> 00:07:32,073 I mean, of course, a fungus on the vines. 106 00:07:32,215 --> 00:07:35,013 So maybe no more French wine. 107 00:07:35,151 --> 00:07:37,119 The cause of this potential apocalypse 108 00:07:37,253 --> 00:07:39,847 is affectionately known as Downey mildew. 109 00:07:39,989 --> 00:07:45,894 Now, there's one thing guaranteed to galvanize the French into action: 110 00:07:46,029 --> 00:07:48,862 The threat of a national wine shortage. 111 00:07:48,998 --> 00:07:50,966 So in 1882 in the Bordeaux vineyards, 112 00:07:51,100 --> 00:07:54,695 here comes a professor of botany from the local university 113 00:07:54,838 --> 00:07:59,104 worrying about the end of civilization as we know it. 114 00:07:59,242 --> 00:08:02,336 And then he notices something strange 115 00:08:02,478 --> 00:08:05,379 that gets the little gray cells doing overtime. 116 00:08:07,016 --> 00:08:10,577 There is mildew and rotting vines everywhere, 117 00:08:10,720 --> 00:08:13,518 except... sut alors... he discovers some vines 118 00:08:13,656 --> 00:08:17,023 which appear to be painted blue and which appear 119 00:08:17,160 --> 00:08:19,628 not to have ze mildew. 120 00:08:25,802 --> 00:08:31,798 So he pops into the local Chateaux Du Coup Bucayou to ask why. 121 00:08:31,941 --> 00:08:33,499 Well, why not? 122 00:08:33,643 --> 00:08:35,201 And voila, there's the answer. 123 00:08:35,345 --> 00:08:39,111 It's them doing it, painting bright blue stuff on their grapes 124 00:08:39,249 --> 00:08:42,013 to stop tourists from snitching them. 125 00:08:42,151 --> 00:08:45,120 So our professor hightails it back to Bordeaux 126 00:08:45,255 --> 00:08:48,156 and comes up with a modified version, 127 00:08:48,291 --> 00:08:50,225 the first ever fungicide you could spray on, 128 00:08:50,360 --> 00:08:55,059 the ancestor of all fungicides, like hydrazine, in the modern world. 129 00:08:57,567 --> 00:09:03,267 Now, this is not the first French wine crisis but the third. 130 00:09:03,406 --> 00:09:05,931 The Downey mildew fungus, having been brought into France 131 00:09:06,075 --> 00:09:08,942 on American vine shoots to solve the second crisis, 132 00:09:09,078 --> 00:09:11,774 a kind of bug found on American vine shoots 133 00:09:11,915 --> 00:09:14,440 brought into France to solve the third crisis, 134 00:09:14,584 --> 00:09:17,610 another kind of fungus called powdery mildew, 135 00:09:17,754 --> 00:09:19,779 brought into France on American plants. 136 00:09:19,923 --> 00:09:21,117 Had enough? 137 00:09:21,257 --> 00:09:24,590 Point is, the real killer diller was that second crisis 138 00:09:24,727 --> 00:09:28,754 caused by something that still causes French nightmares, 139 00:09:28,898 --> 00:09:33,426 something that could still bring the end of civilization as we know it. 140 00:09:33,569 --> 00:09:38,097 That's why I am telling you this under surveillance, 141 00:09:38,241 --> 00:09:40,471 because I would be instantly in ze handcuffs 142 00:09:40,610 --> 00:09:44,808 if what I am about to show you were alive: 143 00:09:44,948 --> 00:09:50,215 Insects called aphids, causing a disease called phylloxera. 144 00:09:50,353 --> 00:09:52,913 And the last time this got loose in the vineyards, 145 00:09:53,056 --> 00:09:56,856 it was jump-out-of-the-window time, mes amis. 146 00:10:00,730 --> 00:10:03,893 By 1880, half the vines in France are dead from phylloxera, 147 00:10:04,033 --> 00:10:05,261 and panic isn't the word. 148 00:10:05,401 --> 00:10:08,666 They try urine, tobacco juice, buried toads, 149 00:10:08,805 --> 00:10:11,865 magnetism, electricity... nothing works, until, as I said, 150 00:10:12,008 --> 00:10:16,274 imported American vines do the trick and stop all that mayhem. 151 00:10:19,916 --> 00:10:22,908 Turns out it's all because of technology. 152 00:10:23,052 --> 00:10:26,112 The latest steamboats are crossing the Atlantic 153 00:10:26,255 --> 00:10:27,916 to France from America fast enough 154 00:10:28,057 --> 00:10:32,426 for the little aphids to get to their new French home still alive. 155 00:10:32,562 --> 00:10:36,931 Well, guess what wouldn't be crossing any frontiers after that? 156 00:10:41,437 --> 00:10:44,338 The phylloxera epidemic is why, when you fly 157 00:10:44,474 --> 00:10:47,841 into certain very clean places like Switzerland these days, 158 00:10:47,977 --> 00:10:49,808 if you happen to be arriving from somewhere 159 00:10:49,946 --> 00:10:52,471 that the Squeaky clean Swiss authorities 160 00:10:52,615 --> 00:10:56,449 regard as not squeaky clean... that's lots of places... 161 00:10:56,586 --> 00:11:00,579 more is going to happen to your plane than an oil change and a top up. 162 00:11:00,723 --> 00:11:03,988 As everybody knows, hygiene is practically a religion in Switzerland, 163 00:11:04,127 --> 00:11:09,190 so the phrase you're likely to hear next is "let us spray." 164 00:11:13,302 --> 00:11:15,532 This is one result of the International 165 00:11:15,671 --> 00:11:19,107 Plant Quarantine Convention signed here in Switzerland 166 00:11:19,242 --> 00:11:21,676 in 1878 after that wine disaster, 167 00:11:21,811 --> 00:11:26,339 so as to stop those little aphids from traveling at all costs. 168 00:11:30,553 --> 00:11:32,953 One minor consideration, 169 00:11:33,089 --> 00:11:35,216 that the little aphids actually have wings, 170 00:11:35,358 --> 00:11:36,689 seems to pass these guys by. 171 00:11:36,826 --> 00:11:37,850 But no matter. 172 00:11:37,994 --> 00:11:41,430 The idea is basically a good one, and eventually it catches on. 173 00:11:41,564 --> 00:11:43,361 And that is why all over the world today 174 00:11:43,499 --> 00:11:46,366 your plane is often much cleaner than you think it is... 175 00:11:46,502 --> 00:11:52,634 and everything on board, even a letter from your old granny. 176 00:11:52,775 --> 00:11:56,734 Okay, let's hold the mail for a moment and see where we are. 177 00:11:56,879 --> 00:12:00,337 Black holes in space are seen by Hubble, 178 00:12:00,483 --> 00:12:04,749 serviced by the space shuttle, fueled by hydrazine. 179 00:12:04,887 --> 00:12:09,415 That's also a fungicide first invented during the French phylloxera disaster 180 00:12:09,559 --> 00:12:11,754 caused by these little aphids, 181 00:12:11,894 --> 00:12:14,556 the reason for the 1878 Swiss Quarantine Convention, 182 00:12:14,697 --> 00:12:17,427 which is why your plane gets sprayed these days 183 00:12:17,567 --> 00:12:19,125 and everything on it, 184 00:12:19,268 --> 00:12:21,463 including a letter from your old granny, 185 00:12:21,604 --> 00:12:23,834 which is only there at all thanks to something else 186 00:12:23,973 --> 00:12:26,908 to benefit back then from the conventional Swiss: 187 00:12:27,043 --> 00:12:31,070 Yet another convention in 1874, when they sort out 188 00:12:31,214 --> 00:12:33,182 the international mail. 189 00:12:39,021 --> 00:12:43,185 19th-century mail is like 20th-century airline baggage: 190 00:12:43,326 --> 00:12:45,954 Destination uncertain. 191 00:12:46,095 --> 00:12:47,619 So everybody agrees on the big issue: 192 00:12:47,763 --> 00:12:49,594 They can each keep the money they make 193 00:12:49,732 --> 00:12:51,063 from selling their own stamps. 194 00:12:51,200 --> 00:12:53,998 With the money thing settled, that leaves only the money thing: 195 00:12:54,137 --> 00:12:58,039 How to send money through the mail. 196 00:13:02,044 --> 00:13:05,741 Well, in 1874, they standardized that. 197 00:13:05,882 --> 00:13:08,316 And four years later, an American organization 198 00:13:08,451 --> 00:13:12,182 comes up with the first ever crime-proof money order form 199 00:13:12,321 --> 00:13:14,789 that isn't a rip-off because it's a rip-off. 200 00:13:14,924 --> 00:13:16,357 Look. 201 00:13:16,492 --> 00:13:18,392 Here are the amounts you might want to send, 202 00:13:18,528 --> 00:13:26,230 all the way from big sums like $10 down in 5¢ bits to $1.05. 203 00:13:26,369 --> 00:13:29,395 Say you wanted to send $2.25. 204 00:13:29,539 --> 00:13:36,103 All you do is tear down to the amount you have expressly bought, 205 00:13:36,245 --> 00:13:39,612 throw the rest away, and that's it... 206 00:13:39,749 --> 00:13:43,549 expressly crook-proof, because it stymies any criminal 207 00:13:43,686 --> 00:13:46,052 at the other end who might have the express intent 208 00:13:46,189 --> 00:13:49,283 of getting more than you had expressly sent. 209 00:13:49,425 --> 00:13:50,653 Good idea, no? 210 00:13:50,793 --> 00:13:53,785 And because right from the start you can expressly 211 00:13:53,930 --> 00:13:56,023 pick one of these up almost anywhere, 212 00:13:56,165 --> 00:13:59,794 it's a raving success for the American organization 213 00:13:59,936 --> 00:14:05,340 that expressly thinks it up: Mmm-hmm, American Express. 214 00:14:10,313 --> 00:14:13,248 American Express starts life as a delivery business 215 00:14:13,382 --> 00:14:19,014 run by a couple of guys you'll know: Henry Wells and William Fargo. 216 00:14:19,155 --> 00:14:21,146 So guess what the original company's called. 217 00:14:21,290 --> 00:14:24,088 Anyway, Henry and William blow away their competitors, 218 00:14:24,227 --> 00:14:26,354 because they invent the cash-on delivery idea 219 00:14:26,495 --> 00:14:28,224 and because they have the fastest route 220 00:14:28,364 --> 00:14:31,128 to the west coast by ship and cutthroat prices. 221 00:14:31,267 --> 00:14:37,263 So by 1859, Wells and Fargo are, so to speak, alone in the field... 222 00:14:37,406 --> 00:14:40,375 in more senses than one. 223 00:14:49,919 --> 00:14:55,824 And you can't get much more alone in America in 1859 224 00:14:55,958 --> 00:14:59,860 anywhere between St. Louis, Missouri, here 225 00:14:59,996 --> 00:15:06,492 and Sacramento, California, here... emptier than which there ain't. 226 00:15:06,636 --> 00:15:10,072 The reason you might be here in the emptiness 227 00:15:10,206 --> 00:15:11,867 is because of the Colorado gold strikes 228 00:15:12,008 --> 00:15:13,669 and because the people here and the guys 229 00:15:13,809 --> 00:15:17,472 in the California gold fields want to hear from back east 230 00:15:17,613 --> 00:15:19,137 more than once every few months. 231 00:15:19,282 --> 00:15:22,217 So the overland route started to look more attractive 232 00:15:22,351 --> 00:15:26,412 to Misters Wells and Fargo, and this is what they do about that. 233 00:15:26,555 --> 00:15:29,991 They go looking for young, skinny, wiry fellows 234 00:15:30,126 --> 00:15:33,584 willing to risk death daily... orphans preferred. 235 00:15:40,436 --> 00:15:43,599 In 1859, they find a few lunatics in bars 236 00:15:43,739 --> 00:15:45,900 in the middle of nowhere happy to ride forever 237 00:15:46,042 --> 00:15:49,011 to some other middle of nowhere... 238 00:15:52,348 --> 00:15:54,339 places like this, right? 239 00:15:54,483 --> 00:15:56,348 All the required orphans need... 240 00:15:56,485 --> 00:15:58,612 besides a touch of insanity and a six-gun... 241 00:15:58,754 --> 00:16:02,121 is a good horse and an undeveloped sense of self-preservation. 242 00:16:02,258 --> 00:16:04,726 Well, they find such people, and all of a sudden 243 00:16:04,860 --> 00:16:09,888 your letters start coming and going all of a sudden. 244 00:16:10,032 --> 00:16:13,399 Snail mail this ain't. 245 00:16:23,479 --> 00:16:26,414 The Pony Express only lasts for 16 months, 246 00:16:26,549 --> 00:16:28,642 but it becomes a legend. 247 00:16:31,387 --> 00:16:35,517 20 riders cover the 2,000 miles to Sacramento and back at full gallop, 248 00:16:35,658 --> 00:16:37,319 risking death every step of the way. 249 00:16:37,460 --> 00:16:42,762 The company mission statement: The mail must go through. 250 00:16:49,238 --> 00:16:51,502 The greatest legend of them all is a 15-year-old kid 251 00:16:51,640 --> 00:16:54,871 who rides the most dangerous stretch. 252 00:16:58,948 --> 00:17:01,075 Coming into Three Crossings, Wyoming, one day, 253 00:17:01,217 --> 00:17:05,176 he hears that the rider for the next stage has been killed. 254 00:17:05,321 --> 00:17:07,221 So he changes his horses the way they did, 255 00:17:07,356 --> 00:17:09,984 hardly touching the ground and rides on... 256 00:17:10,126 --> 00:17:12,959 384 miles nonstop, 257 00:17:13,095 --> 00:17:17,361 the longest Pony Express ride ever recorded. 258 00:17:23,105 --> 00:17:28,270 And then the telegraph comes along and spoils all the fun. 259 00:17:28,411 --> 00:17:30,572 And that's it for the Pony Express. 260 00:17:30,713 --> 00:17:34,376 So that 15-year-old moves on to scout for the army 261 00:17:34,517 --> 00:17:36,917 and then to shoot meat for the Kansas railroad people. 262 00:17:37,052 --> 00:17:39,680 And because he's so good at it... 263 00:17:39,822 --> 00:17:42,723 I mean 5,000 animals in just over a year, 264 00:17:42,858 --> 00:17:44,792 if you're into that kind of thing... 265 00:17:44,927 --> 00:17:49,887 he gets the name you know him by: Buffalo Bill. 266 00:17:54,637 --> 00:17:58,073 In 1883, Bill hits the big-time all around the world 267 00:17:58,207 --> 00:17:59,765 with his all-star wild west show, 268 00:17:59,909 --> 00:18:05,006 bringing the thrills of frontier life to the city slickers. 269 00:18:05,147 --> 00:18:08,378 He features hundreds of Indians playing hundreds of Indians, 270 00:18:08,517 --> 00:18:11,418 buffalo hunts, cavalry attacks on Indian villages, 271 00:18:11,554 --> 00:18:15,615 bucking broncos, even a full-scale rerun of Custer's last stand... 272 00:18:15,758 --> 00:18:19,592 and the greatest sharpshooter of them all: Annie Oakley. 273 00:18:23,132 --> 00:18:25,999 These amazing spectaculars give a whole new meaning 274 00:18:26,135 --> 00:18:27,693 to the idea of Vaudeville. 275 00:18:27,837 --> 00:18:30,533 Mind you, nobody knows the real meaning of Vaudeville anyway. 276 00:18:30,673 --> 00:18:33,767 Not surprising, since it comes from France, 277 00:18:33,909 --> 00:18:37,310 15th-century France: This river valley. 278 00:18:37,446 --> 00:18:39,812 It's called the Vire valley. 279 00:18:39,949 --> 00:18:44,579 In French, that's Vau, Valley, de Vire of the River Vire: 280 00:18:44,720 --> 00:18:46,051 Vaudevire. 281 00:18:46,188 --> 00:18:48,782 Okay, you mispronounce those words, Vau de Vire, 282 00:18:48,924 --> 00:18:50,915 and you get Vaudeville; 283 00:18:51,060 --> 00:18:52,755 the kind of entertainment that starts 284 00:18:52,895 --> 00:18:55,887 here in the 15th century: Drinking songs... 285 00:18:59,034 --> 00:19:02,970 the same kind of naughty stuff that turns up 300 years later 286 00:19:03,105 --> 00:19:07,007 in American Vaudeville acts. 287 00:19:18,287 --> 00:19:21,586 The most famous writer of these numbers is a guy called Olivier Basselin, 288 00:19:21,724 --> 00:19:23,191 who tops the charts 289 00:19:23,325 --> 00:19:26,055 because he writes about the same thing every time: 290 00:19:26,195 --> 00:19:31,861 Wine, women, and song and people having a good time... 291 00:19:32,001 --> 00:19:35,061 unlike Basselin himself, who has a really bad time, 292 00:19:35,204 --> 00:19:38,571 when he comes to a sticky end just down the road from Vire 293 00:19:38,707 --> 00:19:43,940 in this area at a place called Formigny in 1450, 294 00:19:44,079 --> 00:19:46,980 where he gets mixed up with and killed in a battle, 295 00:19:47,116 --> 00:19:49,050 where the French beat the English because, 296 00:19:49,184 --> 00:19:51,652 surprise, surprise, the French have cannon 297 00:19:51,787 --> 00:19:54,483 and the English have bows and arrows. 298 00:19:54,623 --> 00:19:56,420 Here's how it all goes. 299 00:20:01,964 --> 00:20:06,333 Here's the English army patrolling like they've been doing 300 00:20:06,468 --> 00:20:09,631 since they invaded this bit of France 300 years earlier 301 00:20:09,772 --> 00:20:14,072 when a French army suddenly comes out of nowhere. 302 00:20:14,209 --> 00:20:18,145 Now, English bowmen have the laser weapons of the period, 303 00:20:18,280 --> 00:20:20,214 so this is going to be a pushover... 304 00:20:20,349 --> 00:20:23,318 when suddenly the French produce a couple of the very latest cannon 305 00:20:23,452 --> 00:20:29,288 and start pounding the Brits. 306 00:20:29,425 --> 00:20:32,519 The English send out their Green Beret types to grab the cannon. 307 00:20:32,661 --> 00:20:36,791 They're on their way back with them when French reinforcements turn up. 308 00:20:36,932 --> 00:20:40,129 The English archers can't open fire, because they'd hit their own guys, 309 00:20:40,269 --> 00:20:46,367 so the French attack and massacre nearly 3,000 English troops. 310 00:20:46,508 --> 00:20:48,669 It's a bloodbath. 311 00:20:52,314 --> 00:20:55,647 Mind you, by this time, the English are through in France anyway. 312 00:20:55,784 --> 00:20:57,342 They just won't give up and move out. 313 00:20:57,486 --> 00:21:03,152 But like it or not, Formigny turns out to be one step from final defeat. 314 00:21:03,292 --> 00:21:05,817 And then it's adieu, English. 315 00:21:08,964 --> 00:21:10,829 Okay, where are we? 316 00:21:10,966 --> 00:21:14,732 The Swiss postal convention helps to kick off American Express, 317 00:21:14,870 --> 00:21:16,735 who in their early years as Wells Fargo 318 00:21:16,872 --> 00:21:19,670 start the Pony Express, starring a 15-year-old 319 00:21:19,808 --> 00:21:22,299 who becomes known as Buffalo Bill, 320 00:21:22,444 --> 00:21:25,072 whose showbiz life starts in Vaudeville 321 00:21:25,214 --> 00:21:27,705 that really begins back in medieval France 322 00:21:27,850 --> 00:21:30,785 with drinking songs written by that guy who gets killed in a battle 323 00:21:30,919 --> 00:21:35,447 between the French and the English, okay? 324 00:21:35,591 --> 00:21:38,116 Now, the French finally chuck the English out of France, 325 00:21:38,260 --> 00:21:42,253 because they're led to victory by a crazy woman. 326 00:21:42,398 --> 00:21:44,958 Nobody's ever successfully diagnosed her condition, 327 00:21:45,100 --> 00:21:49,059 but one thing's certain: She was hearing things. 328 00:22:03,118 --> 00:22:06,019 This is a particularly unusual case. 329 00:22:06,155 --> 00:22:08,487 Hmm, the file on her says, 330 00:22:08,624 --> 00:22:11,718 "IIliterate peasant girl turns up out of the blue 331 00:22:11,860 --> 00:22:13,794 "and convinces a bunch of sophisticated, 332 00:22:13,929 --> 00:22:16,955 "backstabbing, highly political French aristocrats 333 00:22:17,099 --> 00:22:22,366 to stop their infighting and follow her and kick out the English." 334 00:22:25,174 --> 00:22:27,506 Interesting. 335 00:22:27,643 --> 00:22:29,907 She's having visions 336 00:22:30,045 --> 00:22:37,178 and hearing the voices of what she describes as saints. 337 00:22:37,319 --> 00:22:39,184 There is one version of that condition 338 00:22:39,321 --> 00:22:43,052 that would produce hallucinatory symptoms of this type. 339 00:22:43,192 --> 00:22:46,218 She's also fanatically religious. 340 00:22:49,665 --> 00:22:52,634 Well, you'd expect that, really. 341 00:22:52,768 --> 00:22:54,929 They're a superstitious lot back then, 342 00:22:55,070 --> 00:22:58,164 burning witches pretty much every afternoon. 343 00:22:58,307 --> 00:23:04,268 There have also been prophecies about a young girl saving the country. 344 00:23:08,684 --> 00:23:13,417 She's also apparently a virgin. 345 00:23:13,555 --> 00:23:17,252 Well, that's pretty mystical back then, for a start. 346 00:23:17,392 --> 00:23:21,123 Background, hmm, political situation. 347 00:23:21,263 --> 00:23:23,026 France is in a total mess. 348 00:23:23,165 --> 00:23:25,531 They're at each other's throats. 349 00:23:25,667 --> 00:23:30,434 She dresses like a man and is hot stuff with a sword. 350 00:23:30,572 --> 00:23:35,669 And the would-be king of France is a knock-kneed, yellow-bellied wimp. 351 00:23:35,811 --> 00:23:39,303 And this girl turns up saying things like, 352 00:23:39,448 --> 00:23:42,246 "I will lead you to victory," 353 00:23:42,384 --> 00:23:45,979 and "My voices are telling me what to do." 354 00:23:46,121 --> 00:23:49,682 Well, nobody talks like that unless they're nuts. 355 00:23:49,825 --> 00:23:51,725 So, they think, "Why not? 356 00:23:51,860 --> 00:23:53,327 "Nothing else is working. 357 00:23:53,462 --> 00:23:55,760 Let's give it a go." 358 00:23:55,898 --> 00:23:59,265 Well, she wins all the battles and puts the wimp on the throne. 359 00:23:59,401 --> 00:24:04,634 And the backstabbers sell her down the river to the English. 360 00:24:04,773 --> 00:24:07,435 History isn't like Hollywood every time. 361 00:24:07,576 --> 00:24:11,012 And, of course, who fingers her but the church? 362 00:24:11,146 --> 00:24:14,206 Because all that person-to-person communication 363 00:24:14,349 --> 00:24:16,010 with the saint stuff she's up to 364 00:24:16,151 --> 00:24:20,451 is giving French peasants ideas about their station, isn't it? 365 00:24:20,589 --> 00:24:25,617 So instead of a psychoanalyst, she gets the Inquisition. 366 00:24:25,761 --> 00:24:29,197 They make mincemeat of her at what we would call a mistrial. 367 00:24:29,331 --> 00:24:34,496 So she goes to the stake and is burned to death in 1431. 368 00:24:41,176 --> 00:24:43,007 And that's it for Joan of Arc. 369 00:24:43,145 --> 00:24:46,672 Of course, true to the loony psychology of the time, 370 00:24:46,815 --> 00:24:51,548 as a servant of the devil, she's better off dead, right? 371 00:24:51,687 --> 00:24:55,248 For the Inquisition, it's just another "case closed, 372 00:24:55,390 --> 00:24:57,950 questions answered." 373 00:25:08,804 --> 00:25:12,797 The reason the Inquisition are so good at getting answers out of people 374 00:25:12,941 --> 00:25:18,675 is because the way they ask questions is straight out of a museum of horrors. 375 00:25:22,484 --> 00:25:28,753 Top of the league in this kind of friendly persuasion are the Spanish. 376 00:25:28,891 --> 00:25:31,291 Of course, they've had a lot of practice 377 00:25:31,426 --> 00:25:33,690 on the well-to-do Jewish community. 378 00:25:33,829 --> 00:25:37,629 See, back in 1492, the uptight northern Spanish Christians 379 00:25:37,766 --> 00:25:39,131 take over southern Spain 380 00:25:39,268 --> 00:25:42,169 from the laid-back southern Spanish Muslims. 381 00:25:42,304 --> 00:25:45,740 Now, the new Christian rulers prevented Jews 382 00:25:45,874 --> 00:25:48,468 from working in anything but finance, so guess what? 383 00:25:48,610 --> 00:25:51,602 Jews make money like what else would they make, 384 00:25:51,747 --> 00:25:54,113 which the Christians then borrowed... 385 00:25:54,249 --> 00:25:57,946 but don't pay back, because all you have to do 386 00:25:58,086 --> 00:26:01,522 is tell the Inquisition a Jew is eating meat on a Friday, 387 00:26:01,657 --> 00:26:05,491 and he and his family get torched or worse. 388 00:26:05,627 --> 00:26:08,596 And your debts go up in smoke. 389 00:26:11,833 --> 00:26:15,826 By 1490, Tomas Torquemada is top Spanish torturer. 390 00:26:15,971 --> 00:26:19,600 When he's on a winning streak, he can burn 13,000 in one year... 391 00:26:19,741 --> 00:26:22,642 not houses, you understand, but people. 392 00:26:22,778 --> 00:26:25,611 Well, if you're Jewish, what do you do? 393 00:26:25,747 --> 00:26:27,715 Get out. 394 00:26:45,100 --> 00:26:47,898 A lot of the Jews head up into northern Europe. 395 00:26:48,036 --> 00:26:50,004 But the vast majority of them come here, 396 00:26:50,138 --> 00:26:52,538 where they know they'll be treated like human beings, 397 00:26:52,674 --> 00:26:56,110 even like talented and valuable human beings. 398 00:26:56,244 --> 00:26:59,680 Because although in here this place is Jewish, 399 00:26:59,815 --> 00:27:05,151 out there this place is Islamic... and tolerant 400 00:27:05,287 --> 00:27:07,255 and in deep trouble. 401 00:27:15,230 --> 00:27:18,893 The economy in Turkey is so bad they've been advertising for help. 402 00:27:19,034 --> 00:27:23,994 So in the 16th century, 1/4 of a million exiled Jews turn up here. 403 00:27:26,842 --> 00:27:30,107 One of these guys is a fellow called Joseph Nasi, 404 00:27:30,245 --> 00:27:31,769 born in Portugal, chucked out, 405 00:27:31,913 --> 00:27:34,541 spent some time in Holland in the family plank. 406 00:27:34,683 --> 00:27:36,207 In 1554, he comes here to Istanbul, 407 00:27:36,351 --> 00:27:40,811 meets up with his Aunt Grace, who is a financial hotshot... 408 00:27:40,956 --> 00:27:43,049 and already well in with the Turkish sultan, 409 00:27:43,191 --> 00:27:44,453 Suleiman the magnificent... 410 00:27:44,593 --> 00:27:49,257 and more important with his influential favorite wife, Roxelane. 411 00:27:59,307 --> 00:28:04,711 So with Aunt Grace's help, Joseph Nasi is in like Flynn. 412 00:28:04,846 --> 00:28:08,373 See, Suleiman is running the biggest empire since Rome 413 00:28:08,517 --> 00:28:09,814 on three continents. 414 00:28:09,951 --> 00:28:13,250 And the problem is, his bureaucrats are "A:" corrupt 415 00:28:13,388 --> 00:28:16,789 and " B:" wouldn't know a balance sheet if they fill in one. 416 00:28:16,925 --> 00:28:22,886 So what Suleiman needs is the 16th-century equivalent of an MBA. 417 00:28:23,031 --> 00:28:24,658 Enter Joe Nasi. 418 00:28:26,701 --> 00:28:30,660 By 1560, Joe is virtually Suleiman's foreign minister 419 00:28:30,806 --> 00:28:32,933 living in a posh palace here on the Bosporus 420 00:28:33,075 --> 00:28:36,772 and with his eye on greater things, 421 00:28:36,912 --> 00:28:41,042 like being King of Cyprus, where the best wine comes from 422 00:28:41,183 --> 00:28:45,142 and where he wants the booze export monopoly. 423 00:28:45,287 --> 00:28:51,522 In 1566, Suleiman kicks the bucket, and his wimpy son, Salim, takes over, 424 00:28:51,660 --> 00:28:55,289 which means that Joe Nasi's really running the entire show. 425 00:28:55,430 --> 00:29:00,060 So four years later, he's got his wine deal, 426 00:29:00,202 --> 00:29:02,397 and he's calling himself King of Cyprus, 427 00:29:02,537 --> 00:29:05,472 because he's persuaded the Turks to take the place over 428 00:29:05,607 --> 00:29:08,974 and living in an even bigger palace. 429 00:29:09,111 --> 00:29:12,911 Not bad for a guy who started with nothing, right? 430 00:29:13,048 --> 00:29:16,745 Mind you, if you can survive the intrigue here 431 00:29:16,885 --> 00:29:20,514 at the sultan's top-copy palace, you can survive anything. 432 00:29:20,655 --> 00:29:24,853 So by this time, Joe Nasi is flavor of the month. 433 00:29:24,993 --> 00:29:27,052 His only mistake is that business 434 00:29:27,195 --> 00:29:29,686 about persuading the Turks to grab Cyprus, 435 00:29:29,831 --> 00:29:31,765 because that gets the Europeans so ticked off 436 00:29:31,900 --> 00:29:33,891 they set up a league to do something about it. 437 00:29:34,035 --> 00:29:37,027 And basically what that means is, 438 00:29:37,172 --> 00:29:41,506 any minute now everything for the Turks is about to hit the fan, 439 00:29:41,643 --> 00:29:44,168 because one of the European allies 440 00:29:44,312 --> 00:29:47,042 is a bunch you wouldn't want to meet on a dark night. 441 00:29:47,182 --> 00:29:49,207 The Turks have already had a run-in with them. 442 00:29:49,351 --> 00:29:52,809 That time the Turks won and threw them off the island of Rhodes here, 443 00:29:52,954 --> 00:29:55,445 where these guys were headquartered at the time. 444 00:29:55,590 --> 00:29:59,390 So now they're holed up in Malta, here. 445 00:29:59,528 --> 00:30:04,898 And militarily speaking, these people are top-gun stuff. 446 00:30:10,505 --> 00:30:13,201 Meet the knights of Malta and their new home, 447 00:30:13,341 --> 00:30:15,400 the island of Malta. 448 00:30:15,544 --> 00:30:19,446 By 1565, these guys have made so much trouble for the Turks 449 00:30:19,581 --> 00:30:21,446 that they decide enough is enough 450 00:30:21,583 --> 00:30:24,882 and send in a humungous military force to wipe them out 451 00:30:25,020 --> 00:30:27,250 and fail, because the knights have nothing to lose 452 00:30:27,389 --> 00:30:28,481 and nowhere to go. 453 00:30:28,623 --> 00:30:33,856 And besides, they're sitting inside the last word in defense technology. 454 00:30:33,995 --> 00:30:35,485 See these walls? 455 00:30:35,630 --> 00:30:38,690 So eventually, the Turks give up and go home, 456 00:30:38,833 --> 00:30:42,200 leaving the knights to enjoy their posh new grid pattern city 457 00:30:42,337 --> 00:30:45,898 and look after their wounded in the 16th-century equivalent 458 00:30:46,041 --> 00:30:48,908 of a high-tech emergency clinic. 459 00:30:51,379 --> 00:30:55,076 This knights of Malta hospital is way out on the cutting edge. 460 00:30:55,217 --> 00:30:58,482 I mean, they have separate wards for separate diseases 461 00:30:58,620 --> 00:31:00,713 and one patient per bed. 462 00:31:00,855 --> 00:31:03,289 They even use anesthesia. 463 00:31:03,425 --> 00:31:04,949 Useful stuff to know 464 00:31:05,093 --> 00:31:07,994 if you spend the other half of your time slicing people up. 465 00:31:08,129 --> 00:31:09,824 Ironic that, because the knights 466 00:31:09,965 --> 00:31:11,933 get their medical know-how from somebody else 467 00:31:12,067 --> 00:31:16,026 who makes a specialty of slicing people up. 468 00:31:21,009 --> 00:31:23,341 His name is Andreas Vesalius. 469 00:31:23,478 --> 00:31:25,810 And in 1527, he's professor of surgery 470 00:31:25,947 --> 00:31:29,781 here at the University of Padua in northern Italy, 471 00:31:29,918 --> 00:31:31,681 which, if you want to be a doctor, 472 00:31:31,820 --> 00:31:34,015 is where you want to be for two reasons: 473 00:31:34,155 --> 00:31:37,647 One, Vesalius is the best anatomy wiz there is; 474 00:31:37,792 --> 00:31:40,693 and two, the university is about to build 475 00:31:40,829 --> 00:31:45,289 the amazing Padua anatomy theater. 476 00:31:50,205 --> 00:31:52,730 All the students stand around up there in the galleries 477 00:31:52,874 --> 00:31:55,968 while down here in the well at the bottom 478 00:31:56,111 --> 00:32:02,141 the lecturer does interestingly new things to corpses. 479 00:32:02,284 --> 00:32:06,687 See, up to the time of Vesalius, anatomy is pretty much anybody's guess. 480 00:32:06,821 --> 00:32:08,686 You can't operate without killing people, 481 00:32:08,823 --> 00:32:14,056 so there hasn't been much interest in how your body actually works. 482 00:32:14,195 --> 00:32:17,392 So the new anatomy they're about to teach here, 483 00:32:17,532 --> 00:32:21,059 thanks to Vesalius, is a much bigger deal than you might think. 484 00:32:21,202 --> 00:32:23,534 See, up till now, about all they've been able to teach 485 00:32:23,672 --> 00:32:27,130 is what the Greeks and Romans knew, which wasn't much. 486 00:32:27,275 --> 00:32:30,938 That's why 16th-century doctors are still into cures 487 00:32:31,079 --> 00:32:35,448 like boiled poppy, lily oil, and minced earthworms. 488 00:32:35,583 --> 00:32:38,108 So the recovery rate is not too high. 489 00:32:38,253 --> 00:32:40,744 So in 1543, when Vesalius comes out 490 00:32:40,889 --> 00:32:44,689 with what is effectively a multimedia show-and-tell 491 00:32:44,826 --> 00:32:48,125 all about the insides of sliced humans, 492 00:32:48,263 --> 00:32:51,596 well, it's the biggest thing to hit medicine since sliced bread. 493 00:32:51,733 --> 00:32:56,932 Vesalius dealt with every little bit: Brain, blood vessels, muscle, bone. 494 00:32:57,072 --> 00:32:59,199 He's read anything he can get his hands on 495 00:32:59,341 --> 00:33:01,036 and then found out for himself... 496 00:33:01,176 --> 00:33:05,237 thanks to a helpful judge here in town who executes criminals 497 00:33:05,380 --> 00:33:10,113 just in time for Vesalius' lectures on how to dissect. 498 00:33:10,251 --> 00:33:12,981 And this copiously illustrated can't-put-it-down 499 00:33:13,121 --> 00:33:17,057 give-it-to-your-doctor-friends book is the result. 500 00:33:17,192 --> 00:33:21,891 This, centuries before the computer, is what-you-see-is-what-you-get. 501 00:33:22,030 --> 00:33:23,258 No wonder medical students 502 00:33:23,398 --> 00:33:26,458 kick off a wave of body snatching to check him out. 503 00:33:26,601 --> 00:33:30,594 Because in Vesalius' great book on the structure of the human body, 504 00:33:30,739 --> 00:33:37,303 it's all there in glorious graphics... drawings of every little gory detail. 505 00:33:39,814 --> 00:33:42,339 And the reason why you couldn't buy the original book today 506 00:33:42,484 --> 00:33:45,419 for a million bucks is because back then 507 00:33:45,553 --> 00:33:48,386 Vesalius gets his illustrations done at the studio 508 00:33:48,523 --> 00:33:49,820 of an an unknown young painter, 509 00:33:49,958 --> 00:33:57,797 a guy who is so good at flesh tones, he'd turn on a mortician: Titian. 510 00:34:00,568 --> 00:34:03,935 Okay, time for another catch-up. 511 00:34:04,072 --> 00:34:07,007 Joan of Arc leads the French to victory 512 00:34:07,142 --> 00:34:09,440 and is then burnt by the Inquisition, 513 00:34:09,577 --> 00:34:12,569 who make life in Spain so difficult for the Jews 514 00:34:12,714 --> 00:34:15,148 that most of them run away to Turkey, 515 00:34:15,283 --> 00:34:17,342 where one of them, Joe Nasi, 516 00:34:17,485 --> 00:34:19,646 persuades them to attack the knights of Malta, 517 00:34:19,788 --> 00:34:24,851 who look after their wounded in the best hospital around at the time 518 00:34:24,993 --> 00:34:27,359 because of the know-how that Vesalius comes up with 519 00:34:27,495 --> 00:34:30,396 in his great anatomy book illustrated by Titian, 520 00:34:30,532 --> 00:34:32,591 who's coming up next. 521 00:34:35,403 --> 00:34:40,932 This is Titian, and he lives here in 16th-century Venice, 522 00:34:41,075 --> 00:34:47,036 a knockout city with more liquid assets than it has water. 523 00:34:47,182 --> 00:34:49,047 Now, the thing about having lots of money 524 00:34:49,184 --> 00:34:52,676 is that Venice is so rich and powerful 525 00:34:52,821 --> 00:34:55,722 it doesn't really give a rat's ass about what the pope thinks. 526 00:34:55,857 --> 00:34:58,690 So Venetian wanna-bes commissioned people like Titian 527 00:34:58,827 --> 00:35:02,024 to come up with portraits that will make them good-Iooking. 528 00:35:02,163 --> 00:35:06,532 That's why Titian's portraits are a totally new kind of thing. 529 00:35:06,668 --> 00:35:08,966 Because what he does is dump 530 00:35:09,103 --> 00:35:12,129 the old medieval dead-body style the church recommends 531 00:35:12,273 --> 00:35:16,403 in favor of a new touchy-feely approach. 532 00:35:18,446 --> 00:35:21,847 This is what got Vesalius... that surgeon, remember... 533 00:35:21,983 --> 00:35:23,314 so hot for Titian, 534 00:35:23,451 --> 00:35:26,818 because this is real flesh-and-blood stuff, isn't it? 535 00:35:26,955 --> 00:35:28,479 And take a look at something else new 536 00:35:28,623 --> 00:35:30,682 Titian springs on everybody. 537 00:35:30,825 --> 00:35:35,125 His backgrounds are 16th-century virtual reality. 538 00:35:39,000 --> 00:35:42,936 Now, back then, this kind of stuff makes Titian instantly famous. 539 00:35:43,071 --> 00:35:46,837 And in no time at all, he's graduated from naked models 540 00:35:46,975 --> 00:35:49,102 to the real movers and shakers. 541 00:35:49,244 --> 00:35:51,712 His portrait of Pope Paul III 542 00:35:51,846 --> 00:35:54,838 makes it a cinch that he's going to do the ultimate biggie: 543 00:35:54,983 --> 00:36:00,250 Holy Roman emperor Charles V, who invites Titian to come visit. 544 00:36:09,597 --> 00:36:13,693 1548, and we're in Augsburg, Germany. 545 00:36:13,835 --> 00:36:17,293 And so is Charles V, who's here for a shindig 546 00:36:17,438 --> 00:36:18,905 with fellow Catholic royals 547 00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:22,840 after they've beaten a bunch of Protestant royals at a battle. 548 00:36:22,977 --> 00:36:26,174 Now, as they say in the tourist brochures, 549 00:36:26,314 --> 00:36:30,045 Augsburg is in the mineral-rich mountains of southern Germany. 550 00:36:30,184 --> 00:36:31,947 So they've got all the metal they need 551 00:36:32,086 --> 00:36:35,055 for people like Charles V to go to war with, 552 00:36:35,189 --> 00:36:42,425 including, strangely enough, metal to make armor with. 553 00:36:42,564 --> 00:36:45,863 I say "strangely enough," because what would you be doing 554 00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:48,127 on a battlefield wearing armor when, by this time, 555 00:36:48,269 --> 00:36:50,829 the name of the game is shooting people with guns? 556 00:36:50,972 --> 00:36:55,773 Answer: You don't wear armor, well, not to fight, anyway: 557 00:36:55,910 --> 00:36:57,775 To watch. 558 00:36:57,912 --> 00:37:00,039 Top people like the Emperor Charles V 559 00:37:00,181 --> 00:37:05,016 get to wear posh, tailor-made metal suits called parade armor 560 00:37:05,153 --> 00:37:07,451 while enjoying the show... sorry, bloody massacre... 561 00:37:07,589 --> 00:37:09,648 from the crest of some nearby hill. 562 00:37:09,791 --> 00:37:12,954 So Titian, the painter... remember him... 563 00:37:13,094 --> 00:37:16,461 does Charles' portrait after the battle, 564 00:37:16,598 --> 00:37:19,465 kind of come-as-you-are, like this. 565 00:37:22,003 --> 00:37:24,164 And as you can see from Charles V here, 566 00:37:24,305 --> 00:37:26,739 he would never make it to battle in parade armor. 567 00:37:26,874 --> 00:37:30,401 I mean, they screw you into it, 568 00:37:30,545 --> 00:37:33,013 which is another reason why we're here, 569 00:37:33,147 --> 00:37:36,878 because it is another little-known tourist fact about Augsburg: 570 00:37:37,018 --> 00:37:41,887 That it is the home of the metal screw, in places like this. 571 00:37:46,260 --> 00:37:48,660 They're tiny jewelry screws originally, 572 00:37:48,796 --> 00:37:51,856 because the other thing that Augsburg is full of besides iron 573 00:37:52,000 --> 00:37:54,093 is precious metal. 574 00:37:54,235 --> 00:37:56,066 So the other thing you come to Augsburg for, 575 00:37:56,204 --> 00:38:00,504 besides a portrait, is jewelry... or both. 576 00:38:09,751 --> 00:38:13,778 In 1550, one of Augsburg's famous goldsmith shops 577 00:38:13,921 --> 00:38:16,446 gets a commission from King Henry of France 578 00:38:16,591 --> 00:38:19,719 to send somebody to Paris to help with a little monetary scam 579 00:38:19,861 --> 00:38:21,226 Henry's dreamed up, 580 00:38:21,362 --> 00:38:23,660 the idea being that the shop also sends along 581 00:38:23,798 --> 00:38:27,495 one of their new screw-operated coin-making machines as well 582 00:38:27,635 --> 00:38:31,298 so that Henry can turn out new coins of the realm 583 00:38:31,439 --> 00:38:36,376 that are not what they appear to be, called Henrys. 584 00:38:36,511 --> 00:38:37,944 This is one. 585 00:38:38,079 --> 00:38:41,048 The scam I mentioned is that these coins 586 00:38:41,182 --> 00:38:44,379 have less gold and silver in them than they're supposed to. 587 00:38:44,519 --> 00:38:45,816 But who will know? 588 00:38:45,953 --> 00:38:47,250 And the king will save a bundle. 589 00:38:47,388 --> 00:38:50,186 Point being, he's in serious hock. 590 00:38:50,324 --> 00:38:51,757 Well, it works. 591 00:38:51,893 --> 00:38:54,862 Nobody notices the new Henrys are only half Henrys. 592 00:38:54,996 --> 00:38:59,262 So the real Henry makes enough from this sneaky little devaluation 593 00:38:59,400 --> 00:39:02,426 to keep his new queen in the gastronomic style 594 00:39:02,570 --> 00:39:04,800 to which she is rapidly making France accustomed, 595 00:39:04,939 --> 00:39:08,466 because the lady in question, Catherine De'Medici, 596 00:39:08,609 --> 00:39:10,042 is the person who kind of invents 597 00:39:10,178 --> 00:39:13,238 the reason every woman needs jewelry. 598 00:39:24,726 --> 00:39:27,126 Catherine D'Medici is the woman who thinks up 599 00:39:27,261 --> 00:39:29,286 the modern dinner party. 600 00:39:29,430 --> 00:39:31,898 When she marries King Henry in 1533, 601 00:39:32,033 --> 00:39:35,127 she turns France into the food capital of the world it is today, 602 00:39:35,269 --> 00:39:37,134 with rave new ideas like forks, 603 00:39:37,271 --> 00:39:44,336 table settings, good wine, pasta, and fancy sauces. 604 00:39:44,479 --> 00:39:48,279 Then when dinner is over, another amazing new indulgence 605 00:39:48,416 --> 00:39:51,146 of which Catherine is also probably the first user: 606 00:39:51,285 --> 00:39:55,153 Tobacco, because Catherine has always suffered from migraines. 607 00:39:55,289 --> 00:40:00,226 And in one form, tobacco is supposed to be good for migraines. 608 00:40:00,361 --> 00:40:01,692 Snuff. 609 00:40:01,829 --> 00:40:03,296 Anyway, in no time at all, 610 00:40:03,431 --> 00:40:06,093 smoking tobacco is the cure for everything: 611 00:40:06,234 --> 00:40:10,432 Toothache, flatulence, sores, pregnancy pains, 612 00:40:10,571 --> 00:40:16,976 itching, halitosis, tetanus, and, believe it or not, a bad cough. 613 00:40:17,111 --> 00:40:21,707 Now, the great news for the governments of Europe 614 00:40:21,849 --> 00:40:25,751 is that the new commodity is apparently addictive. 615 00:40:25,887 --> 00:40:28,082 You just know what's going to happen next: 616 00:40:28,222 --> 00:40:30,850 Colonies, where you can grow the stuff, 617 00:40:30,992 --> 00:40:35,656 ship it back as a state monopoly and watch the money roll in. 618 00:40:35,797 --> 00:40:37,662 By the 17th century, the English have found 619 00:40:37,799 --> 00:40:42,168 just the place to grow their new drug: America... 620 00:40:42,303 --> 00:40:46,399 and in particular, Maryland, America. 621 00:40:56,717 --> 00:40:59,811 Most of the immigrants getting off the boat in America 622 00:40:59,954 --> 00:41:02,980 in the 17th century are single young men 623 00:41:03,124 --> 00:41:07,185 with no jobs back home in England, where life has been real fun. 624 00:41:07,328 --> 00:41:11,958 I mean, you mention out loud words like "freedom of movement, 625 00:41:12,099 --> 00:41:17,059 religious tolerance, justice for all, a chance to get ahead in life," 626 00:41:17,205 --> 00:41:19,400 and you can find yourself getting taken seriously... 627 00:41:19,540 --> 00:41:21,906 and hanged. 628 00:41:22,043 --> 00:41:25,638 So the next word that floats to your mind is "transatlantic." 629 00:41:25,780 --> 00:41:26,838 But where? 630 00:41:26,981 --> 00:41:28,744 New England is posting no vacancies. 631 00:41:28,883 --> 00:41:32,751 The Barbados plantation owners only want slaves, 632 00:41:32,887 --> 00:41:36,516 which leaves places like this. 633 00:41:39,126 --> 00:41:41,993 Historic St. Mary's City in Maryland, 634 00:41:42,129 --> 00:41:46,930 the only place for a fellow with no resume to make a buck. 635 00:41:47,068 --> 00:41:50,128 All you need is a case of severe desperation... 636 00:41:50,271 --> 00:41:53,900 and a hoe to clear the weeds, a few seeds, 637 00:41:54,041 --> 00:41:56,475 a lot of luck, and 18-hour days. 638 00:41:56,611 --> 00:42:00,012 All you do is plant and crop and move on, 639 00:42:00,147 --> 00:42:02,809 living in one-room wooden huts. 640 00:42:02,950 --> 00:42:06,750 You sleep on the floor, eat meat and vegetable stew and corn bread, 641 00:42:06,888 --> 00:42:09,686 and drink booze. 642 00:42:12,059 --> 00:42:15,517 And that's all you do, night and day, summer and winter, 643 00:42:15,663 --> 00:42:19,656 till you die at around age 45. 644 00:42:19,800 --> 00:42:22,633 So where are we? 645 00:42:22,770 --> 00:42:26,467 Titian, great portrait painter, goes to Augsburg, 646 00:42:26,607 --> 00:42:27,938 home of great jewelry, 647 00:42:28,075 --> 00:42:30,043 where a goldsmith helps King Henry of France 648 00:42:30,177 --> 00:42:32,577 make enough money to pay for his wife's dinner parties, 649 00:42:32,713 --> 00:42:34,544 where they first smoked tobacco 650 00:42:34,682 --> 00:42:37,276 that the English eventually get from Maryland, 651 00:42:37,418 --> 00:42:39,545 where they set up a tobacco-growing colony, 652 00:42:39,687 --> 00:42:43,248 where colonists get to work themselves into an early grave. 653 00:42:43,391 --> 00:42:47,691 Well, back then, life is pretty nasty, 654 00:42:47,828 --> 00:42:50,092 except for the people at the other end 655 00:42:50,231 --> 00:42:53,667 of this economic process making a million: 656 00:42:53,801 --> 00:42:55,860 The internal revenue, 657 00:42:56,003 --> 00:42:58,870 once somebody makes the math to work out the taxes as easy 658 00:42:59,006 --> 00:43:02,942 as falling off a log... dead easy. 659 00:43:03,077 --> 00:43:06,240 Okay, look at the bottom of the screen. 660 00:43:06,380 --> 00:43:11,682 2 times 2 times 2 five times gives you 32, right? 661 00:43:13,955 --> 00:43:19,518 Do the same thing four times, and you get 16. 662 00:43:19,660 --> 00:43:24,154 Okay, to multiply 32 by 16, add the little numbers, 663 00:43:24,298 --> 00:43:27,199 and look this up in your log tables. 664 00:43:27,335 --> 00:43:31,465 To do division, you do the same but subtract the little numbers. 665 00:43:38,412 --> 00:43:42,508 In 1618, this is automated by the amazing new slide rule 666 00:43:42,650 --> 00:43:44,015 invented by William Oughtred. 667 00:43:44,151 --> 00:43:47,951 Find your numbers by swiveling the pointers like this, 668 00:43:48,089 --> 00:43:52,788 and bottom right is the result. 669 00:43:52,927 --> 00:43:54,724 Oughtred's slide rule is made for him 670 00:43:54,862 --> 00:43:58,025 by one of the hottest instrument makers of the 17th century. 671 00:43:58,165 --> 00:44:01,896 His name is Elias Allen, and he also happens, at one time, 672 00:44:02,036 --> 00:44:03,503 to be a mover and shaker 673 00:44:03,637 --> 00:44:06,333 in the clock maker's company of London, 674 00:44:06,474 --> 00:44:09,841 who never get around to building their own banqueting hall, 675 00:44:09,977 --> 00:44:14,311 so they have their little annual dinners in the lord mayor of London's. 676 00:44:14,448 --> 00:44:17,679 Now, the clock makers start up just when the timekeeping business 677 00:44:17,818 --> 00:44:19,615 is really getting into the swing of things, 678 00:44:19,754 --> 00:44:22,723 with the amazing new high-tech wonder machine from Holland 679 00:44:22,857 --> 00:44:26,486 invented by that swinging genius, Christian Huygens, 680 00:44:26,627 --> 00:44:28,219 the pendulum clock. 681 00:44:28,362 --> 00:44:29,761 The thing about this is, 682 00:44:29,897 --> 00:44:33,264 the pendulum swing lasts the same time every swing. 683 00:44:33,401 --> 00:44:35,062 See? 684 00:44:35,202 --> 00:44:38,467 So it's an extremely accurate way to control the clock. 685 00:44:42,109 --> 00:44:47,513 So now you can time anything to the second, like your cooking. 686 00:44:47,648 --> 00:44:50,139 Just as well, given the way Huygens' assistant 687 00:44:50,284 --> 00:44:52,479 puts any chef under pressure. 688 00:44:56,457 --> 00:44:59,255 Huygens' assistant is called Dennis Papin, 689 00:44:59,393 --> 00:45:00,792 and he's French. 690 00:45:00,928 --> 00:45:04,694 So being French, he turns his genius to vitally important matters like food 691 00:45:04,832 --> 00:45:10,031 and comes up with a gizmo you'll love if you love steamed potatoes. 692 00:45:10,171 --> 00:45:13,402 Papin previously fooled around with steam engines, 693 00:45:13,541 --> 00:45:18,638 so he knows all about stuff like air pressure and steam, right? 694 00:45:18,779 --> 00:45:20,770 All right, Marla, let's have the vegetables. 695 00:45:20,915 --> 00:45:22,246 Okay, here's the deal. 696 00:45:22,383 --> 00:45:25,443 You're going to boil the water, and you're going to boil the food. 697 00:45:25,586 --> 00:45:28,783 But you're going to do it with the lid screwed down 698 00:45:28,923 --> 00:45:31,824 tight under pressure with a pressure escape valve. 699 00:45:31,959 --> 00:45:34,291 Food cooks twice as fast. 700 00:45:34,428 --> 00:45:38,592 Things called a pressure cooker makes boring food... 701 00:45:38,732 --> 00:45:40,199 and 200 years later 702 00:45:40,334 --> 00:45:43,326 solves another French crisis about drink, 703 00:45:43,471 --> 00:45:44,836 in this case, beer. 704 00:45:44,972 --> 00:45:48,203 And why isn't French beer as good as German beer? 705 00:45:51,112 --> 00:45:53,444 This national disaster becomes an obsession 706 00:45:53,581 --> 00:45:58,018 for the paranoid French chemist, Louis Pasteur, who, back in 1864, 707 00:45:58,152 --> 00:46:02,555 is doing what Frenchmen usually do, drinking wine, 708 00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:09,657 which he discovers to be bad... well, gone bad. 709 00:46:09,797 --> 00:46:11,788 So since he's been doing tests in his lab 710 00:46:11,932 --> 00:46:16,926 on why food goes moldy and is seeing many little bugs down his microscope, 711 00:46:17,071 --> 00:46:18,629 he decides that these little bugs... 712 00:46:18,772 --> 00:46:21,866 he calls them germs... get into the food from the air, 713 00:46:22,009 --> 00:46:25,638 this after he's done tests leaving food lying around. 714 00:46:30,551 --> 00:46:34,578 Pasteur takes his bugs and submits them to every known torture: 715 00:46:34,722 --> 00:46:37,247 Boiling up, chilling down, sealing in jars. 716 00:46:37,391 --> 00:46:39,086 You name it. 717 00:46:39,226 --> 00:46:41,922 One approach to killing the little bugs 718 00:46:42,062 --> 00:46:44,155 seems to work best of all: Heat. 719 00:46:44,298 --> 00:46:46,232 So he tries the same trick with the wine. 720 00:46:46,367 --> 00:46:48,460 He cooks it at 55 degrees centigrade. 721 00:46:48,602 --> 00:46:51,469 You can hear the wine buffs all over France harrumphing. 722 00:46:51,605 --> 00:46:52,799 " Boiled wine? 723 00:46:52,940 --> 00:46:54,202 Mon dieu." 724 00:46:54,341 --> 00:46:57,333 However, at a later wine tasting, 725 00:46:57,478 --> 00:46:59,241 they can't tell which one has been boiled 726 00:46:59,380 --> 00:47:00,870 and which hasn't. 727 00:47:01,015 --> 00:47:02,880 So that's okay, and it solves the problem. 728 00:47:03,017 --> 00:47:05,485 No more bad wine. 729 00:47:08,088 --> 00:47:13,025 In 1870, France has a war with Germany and loses. 730 00:47:13,160 --> 00:47:15,060 And Pasteur's idea of revenge 731 00:47:15,196 --> 00:47:18,290 is to make French beer better than German beer. 732 00:47:18,432 --> 00:47:20,662 As part of the process, he's looking at 733 00:47:20,801 --> 00:47:22,996 why beer goes bad in summer... and guess what... 734 00:47:23,137 --> 00:47:26,300 discovers the little bugs again. 735 00:47:26,440 --> 00:47:28,670 So he tries the same boiling trick 736 00:47:28,809 --> 00:47:31,437 and does to beer what he previously did to wine. 737 00:47:31,579 --> 00:47:33,809 Why didn't he think of it the first time around? 738 00:47:33,948 --> 00:47:35,745 Don't ask me. 739 00:47:35,883 --> 00:47:37,942 Anyway, we call what he did pasteurizing. 740 00:47:38,085 --> 00:47:39,882 And today we do it to milk products... 741 00:47:40,020 --> 00:47:42,989 and in hospitals to surgical instruments, 742 00:47:43,123 --> 00:47:46,286 in machines not a million miles away from that thing Papin invented. 743 00:47:46,427 --> 00:47:48,361 Remember the pressure cooker, 744 00:47:48,495 --> 00:47:51,328 in medical circles known as an autoclave. 745 00:47:51,465 --> 00:47:55,629 Now, Pasteur's work doesn't owe to the fact 746 00:47:55,769 --> 00:47:59,330 that in summer dairy products and pretty much anything 747 00:47:59,473 --> 00:48:01,202 go bad in the heat. 748 00:48:01,342 --> 00:48:04,311 So can science fix summer? 749 00:48:11,352 --> 00:48:17,291 Well, it can make virtual winter and give me this delicious frosted glass 750 00:48:17,424 --> 00:48:19,722 of the amber nectar in high summer. 751 00:48:19,860 --> 00:48:21,327 Makes a job bearable. 752 00:48:23,364 --> 00:48:27,357 And my beer is cold, thanks to beer. 753 00:48:27,501 --> 00:48:30,197 Because back in Germany, 754 00:48:30,337 --> 00:48:33,272 the brewers ask an engineer called Karl von Linde 755 00:48:33,407 --> 00:48:35,705 if he can come up with something to keep their vats cold 756 00:48:35,843 --> 00:48:37,708 during fermentation. 757 00:48:37,845 --> 00:48:41,906 And he invents one of those, a refrigerator. 758 00:48:42,049 --> 00:48:46,645 See, if you compress air or ammonia gas or ether, 759 00:48:46,787 --> 00:48:48,118 they get hot. 760 00:48:48,255 --> 00:48:51,418 Release the pressure, and they get colder than before, 761 00:48:51,558 --> 00:48:53,321 so they'll chill down any liquid. 762 00:48:53,460 --> 00:48:54,825 So there's your coolant: 763 00:48:54,962 --> 00:48:59,422 In tubes running through the back of the fridge... 764 00:48:59,566 --> 00:49:00,692 or an air conditioner, 765 00:49:00,834 --> 00:49:03,632 which is why this bar is nice and chilly. 766 00:49:08,142 --> 00:49:12,078 Just what you need when you're working in the steamy tropics. 767 00:49:12,212 --> 00:49:14,146 And the reason I am telling you all this 768 00:49:14,281 --> 00:49:15,646 in the steamy tropics is because 769 00:49:15,783 --> 00:49:20,277 when the Australian sheep farmers first get their hands on refrigeration 770 00:49:20,421 --> 00:49:22,480 at the end of the 19th century, 771 00:49:22,623 --> 00:49:27,560 the first place they send their frozen cold meat to is hot countries, 772 00:49:27,695 --> 00:49:29,560 Because now it'll keep, thanks to the fridge. 773 00:49:29,697 --> 00:49:32,860 Now, the biggie Australian meat exporter 774 00:49:33,000 --> 00:49:34,627 is a fellow called Harrison, 775 00:49:34,768 --> 00:49:37,828 who repeats that German guy von Linde's freezing trick... 776 00:49:37,971 --> 00:49:41,031 but this time on a much bigger scale. 777 00:49:41,175 --> 00:49:44,838 And you can see what he comes up with here. 778 00:49:47,081 --> 00:49:50,107 Harrison's freezing machines also get used 779 00:49:50,250 --> 00:49:51,717 to chill down paraffin oil. 780 00:49:51,852 --> 00:49:55,754 If you get the temperature low enough, some of the paraffin goes solid. 781 00:49:55,889 --> 00:49:58,858 It produces stuff called paraffin wax, 782 00:49:58,992 --> 00:50:04,157 a product ideal for making what this bar is full of: Candles... 783 00:50:04,298 --> 00:50:06,528 and my sandwiches for tonight's beach party. 784 00:50:06,667 --> 00:50:08,464 See this? 785 00:50:08,602 --> 00:50:12,971 Paraffin wax paper does great things to the early food packaging industry 786 00:50:13,107 --> 00:50:16,235 at the beginning of this century. 787 00:50:16,377 --> 00:50:18,345 And what that does is make possible 788 00:50:18,479 --> 00:50:21,141 something so commonplace that you probably 789 00:50:21,281 --> 00:50:24,045 don't consciously see it even when you use it. 790 00:50:24,184 --> 00:50:27,415 So here we are about to end the show 791 00:50:27,554 --> 00:50:29,146 with an invisible object. 792 00:50:31,592 --> 00:50:33,184 So how did it go? 793 00:50:33,327 --> 00:50:36,160 Black holes in space, hydrazine fuel, 794 00:50:36,296 --> 00:50:38,287 fungicidal French vines, 795 00:50:38,432 --> 00:50:40,559 quarantine conventions and money orders, 796 00:50:40,701 --> 00:50:42,794 American Express and Buffalo Bill, 797 00:50:42,936 --> 00:50:44,699 Vaudeville and French battles, 798 00:50:44,838 --> 00:50:46,396 Joan of Arc and the Inquisition, 799 00:50:46,540 --> 00:50:49,976 Jews welcomed by Turks, who lose to Maltese knights 800 00:50:50,110 --> 00:50:52,578 with surgeons trained on pictures by Titian, 801 00:50:52,713 --> 00:50:54,237 who's in Augsburg, 802 00:50:54,381 --> 00:50:57,214 where goldsmiths make French money to pay for tobacco. 803 00:50:57,351 --> 00:51:00,980 That triggers logarithms and slide rules made by clock makers, 804 00:51:01,121 --> 00:51:04,113 who also make pressure cookers that sterilize French beer 805 00:51:04,258 --> 00:51:07,386 kept cool by refrigerators that get used to freeze meat 806 00:51:07,528 --> 00:51:13,262 and chill down paraffin to produce paraffin wax for invisible objects. 807 00:51:13,400 --> 00:51:17,393 Well, did you notice this: Wax paper cups? 808 00:51:17,538 --> 00:51:20,098 I mean, when was the last time you really took a close look 809 00:51:20,240 --> 00:51:21,400 at one of these? 810 00:51:21,542 --> 00:51:22,804 And yet they're everywhere, 811 00:51:22,943 --> 00:51:26,071 even here in a tropical paradise. 812 00:51:27,581 --> 00:51:31,540 You know, sometimes this job is no picnic.