1 00:00:22,082 --> 00:00:25,143 Any "Connections" program is full of the unexpected... 2 00:00:25,286 --> 00:00:27,481 this one, more than usual. 3 00:00:27,621 --> 00:00:29,179 Here are a few clues. 4 00:00:41,335 --> 00:00:46,398 Okay, here we go on a journey that will end with "Fire from the Sky." 5 00:00:52,546 --> 00:00:54,310 Welcome to Iceland. 6 00:00:57,984 --> 00:01:00,680 Hey, this job isn't all tropical beaches, you know. 7 00:01:08,763 --> 00:01:10,560 Okay, folks, watch this. 8 00:01:10,697 --> 00:01:13,462 Three, two, one. 9 00:01:19,974 --> 00:01:20,998 Thank you. 10 00:01:21,141 --> 00:01:22,905 You know why that happens here in Iceland? 11 00:01:23,043 --> 00:01:25,876 Same reason New York used to be a part of Portugal. 12 00:01:26,013 --> 00:01:27,310 And this snail... 13 00:01:27,447 --> 00:01:29,472 well, a fossil ancestor of this snail... 14 00:01:29,617 --> 00:01:33,052 once walked from Brazil to Africa in a few seconds, 15 00:01:33,186 --> 00:01:35,655 because... oh, hang on a minute. 16 00:01:44,599 --> 00:01:48,159 Because the continents began all joined up and then floated apart 17 00:01:48,302 --> 00:01:49,894 when the surface of the planet cracked 18 00:01:50,037 --> 00:01:54,063 and molten magma started spewing out from the center of the Earth. 19 00:01:54,207 --> 00:01:58,007 As they floated apart, the continents rode on plates of rock: 20 00:01:58,144 --> 00:02:02,240 Tectonic plates that cracked and buckled when they collided. 21 00:02:06,554 --> 00:02:08,487 Iceland sits right on top of the split 22 00:02:08,622 --> 00:02:11,990 between two of those ancient tectonic plates. 23 00:02:18,098 --> 00:02:19,861 The tectonic plates are the reason 24 00:02:20,001 --> 00:02:24,131 Iceland has volcanoes and geysers, like this. 25 00:02:24,270 --> 00:02:29,469 And we know all this, thanks to a German guy called Wegener, 26 00:02:29,610 --> 00:02:31,338 who's regarded back then 27 00:02:31,479 --> 00:02:33,878 as a crackpot who knows nothing about geology 28 00:02:34,014 --> 00:02:37,382 because he's just a weatherman, so what would he know? 29 00:02:38,885 --> 00:02:43,983 You know Wegener's crackpot idea as the Continental Drift Theory. 30 00:02:44,125 --> 00:02:47,322 He thinks it all up in 1912, when he's out here in Iceland 31 00:02:47,461 --> 00:02:50,361 flying kites to check on the winds and stuff... 32 00:02:50,497 --> 00:02:51,759 you know, being a weatherman. 33 00:02:55,436 --> 00:02:58,132 One day, he watches an ice floe cracking apart 34 00:02:58,271 --> 00:03:00,740 and dreams up Continental Drift... 35 00:03:03,544 --> 00:03:07,377 which explains those ancient snails crawling from Brazil to Africa. 36 00:03:07,514 --> 00:03:09,106 Back when the continents were joined together. 37 00:03:09,250 --> 00:03:11,046 It was easy. 38 00:03:21,262 --> 00:03:23,195 Big idea, Wegener's, right? 39 00:03:24,465 --> 00:03:27,592 Takes 30 years for him to be taken seriously. 40 00:03:27,735 --> 00:03:30,931 Most geologists, noodling away at their rock tapping, 41 00:03:31,072 --> 00:03:33,006 Iook at this continental-fit idea 42 00:03:33,139 --> 00:03:35,266 and think poor old Wegener's seeing things. 43 00:03:35,408 --> 00:03:37,673 Ironic, that. 44 00:03:37,812 --> 00:03:41,508 The other thing Wegener's crazy about is mirages. 45 00:03:46,252 --> 00:03:51,020 Okay, this is a mirage of something that's not really there. 46 00:03:53,561 --> 00:03:57,997 You see a mirage across a flat surface when hot air bends the light 47 00:03:58,132 --> 00:04:00,224 so it kind of curves around the Earth 48 00:04:00,366 --> 00:04:03,234 and brings an image from beyond the horizon. 49 00:04:03,370 --> 00:04:08,774 Sometimes wind will distort the image in weird and wonderful ways. 50 00:04:14,448 --> 00:04:16,005 It was medieval scientists 51 00:04:16,149 --> 00:04:20,985 who gave this castles-in-the-air mirage its name, Fata Morgana, 52 00:04:21,122 --> 00:04:23,214 a magic illusion by Morgan the Witch, 53 00:04:23,357 --> 00:04:26,223 the most powerful magician in medieval mythology, 54 00:04:26,360 --> 00:04:28,122 none other than the sister 55 00:04:28,262 --> 00:04:30,492 of the legendary ruler of ancient Britain, 56 00:04:30,630 --> 00:04:34,067 the sovereign of Camelot, the great King Arthur. 57 00:04:47,814 --> 00:04:49,009 Hi. 58 00:04:49,149 --> 00:04:51,744 This is the usual view you get of Arthur, isn't it? 59 00:04:51,886 --> 00:04:53,944 The Hollywood view... this stuff. 60 00:05:06,934 --> 00:05:08,060 Garbage. 61 00:05:08,201 --> 00:05:12,161 I mean, if he ever existed, Arthur was probably some Romanized kilt 62 00:05:12,305 --> 00:05:14,500 trying to stop stuff going down the toilet 63 00:05:14,641 --> 00:05:18,168 when the Romans evacuated Britain and the barbarian Saxons turned up 64 00:05:18,312 --> 00:05:20,745 and started all that rape and pillage stuff. 65 00:05:20,880 --> 00:05:22,040 Ohh. 66 00:05:22,182 --> 00:05:23,172 Mind if I sit down? 67 00:05:23,317 --> 00:05:24,978 This outfit weighs a ton. 68 00:05:27,021 --> 00:05:30,478 Mind you, it's just as likely that the whole Arthur thing 69 00:05:30,624 --> 00:05:33,752 is some ancient Welsh myth about the calendar, 70 00:05:33,894 --> 00:05:36,692 like Stonehenge here is a calendar. 71 00:05:36,831 --> 00:05:38,093 You know, on a certain day, 72 00:05:38,232 --> 00:05:41,029 the Sun comes up right between two particular stones, 73 00:05:41,168 --> 00:05:44,934 and that's how they used this place: To tell them the date back then. 74 00:05:45,072 --> 00:05:48,906 That's why some people think Arthur is really the Welsh Sun god 75 00:05:49,043 --> 00:05:53,002 and the 12 Knights of the Round Table, the 12 months of the year, 76 00:05:53,146 --> 00:05:55,377 and the whole thing's all about ancient fertility rites 77 00:05:55,516 --> 00:05:57,040 and all that good stuff. 78 00:05:57,184 --> 00:05:58,742 Well, be that as it may, 79 00:05:58,886 --> 00:06:01,411 the reason we all know about King Arthur... 80 00:06:01,555 --> 00:06:03,045 whoever and whatever he is... 81 00:06:03,189 --> 00:06:06,158 is because about 500 years after it all happens, 82 00:06:06,293 --> 00:06:07,624 or doesn't, 83 00:06:07,761 --> 00:06:11,697 some young French monk called Chretine De Troyes 84 00:06:11,831 --> 00:06:15,392 comes over here on a trip to England, oh, around 1170. 85 00:06:15,536 --> 00:06:17,002 He hears all the local stories 86 00:06:17,137 --> 00:06:19,730 about Arthur and Camelot and Guinevere and all that 87 00:06:19,874 --> 00:06:22,206 and decides to take the stories back to France, 88 00:06:22,343 --> 00:06:24,572 where they're bound to top the charts. 89 00:06:24,711 --> 00:06:27,805 Well, they do, once Chretine turns them into love poems, 90 00:06:27,947 --> 00:06:28,971 and they're the basis 91 00:06:29,115 --> 00:06:31,242 for the Hollywood Arthur you get in the movies. 92 00:06:31,384 --> 00:06:34,353 Let me read you a bit of medieval soap opera. 93 00:06:34,487 --> 00:06:37,514 "Whoever wishes to love must feel fear, 94 00:06:37,658 --> 00:06:40,319 "but he must fear only the one he loves. 95 00:06:40,461 --> 00:06:44,420 "What causes his wound to fester and pain him the more 96 00:06:44,564 --> 00:06:48,194 is that he dares not speak of his desire." 97 00:06:48,334 --> 00:06:50,802 Sounds like the guy needs a shrink. Right? 98 00:06:50,937 --> 00:06:51,961 Wrong. 99 00:06:52,105 --> 00:06:57,908 This in medieval terms is a new kind of interpersonal relationship 100 00:06:58,045 --> 00:07:00,343 called courtly love. 101 00:07:00,480 --> 00:07:02,380 Funny business. 102 00:07:02,516 --> 00:07:04,507 Well, see for yourself. 103 00:07:16,697 --> 00:07:20,326 Courtly love is a game played by aristocrats in northern Europe 104 00:07:20,466 --> 00:07:23,095 who get married not for love but for business, 105 00:07:23,237 --> 00:07:25,899 so alone in their boudoirs, 106 00:07:26,040 --> 00:07:28,201 the wives dream of handsome lovers 107 00:07:28,341 --> 00:07:31,778 while their husbands spend their entire adult lives 108 00:07:31,911 --> 00:07:35,370 riding off to have military fun in some Crusade or other. 109 00:07:40,454 --> 00:07:41,944 Now, in the modern world, 110 00:07:42,088 --> 00:07:44,613 this would be a recipe for marital disaster. 111 00:07:44,757 --> 00:07:45,951 Not in the Middle Ages, 112 00:07:46,093 --> 00:07:51,531 reason being, you commit adultery, they drown you, 113 00:07:51,665 --> 00:07:54,225 so you're kind of between a rock and a hard place. 114 00:07:54,367 --> 00:07:56,767 The only solution is courtly love. 115 00:07:56,903 --> 00:08:01,363 When one of your admirers turns up, neither of you commits adultery. 116 00:08:01,507 --> 00:08:06,036 You just sublimate your urges by kind of pretending. 117 00:08:06,180 --> 00:08:08,704 She plays the ice princess. 118 00:08:08,848 --> 00:08:12,545 He does the heavy breathing, frustrated bit. 119 00:08:26,867 --> 00:08:29,836 Now, they both know where it's not going to lead, 120 00:08:29,970 --> 00:08:31,267 like, "Are you kidding?" 121 00:08:31,404 --> 00:08:35,534 Meanwhile, nudge, wink, it's fun to fantasize. 122 00:08:48,054 --> 00:08:51,285 Well, there's only so much pressure a gal can take, 123 00:08:51,424 --> 00:08:53,393 and some of the songs get really heavy. 124 00:08:53,527 --> 00:08:56,461 I mean, words like "body" get used. 125 00:08:56,596 --> 00:08:59,566 So for the sake of everybody's mental and physical health, 126 00:08:59,700 --> 00:09:02,863 there's only one way it ever ends, 127 00:09:04,004 --> 00:09:05,596 and that's courtly love. 128 00:09:08,174 --> 00:09:12,475 Now, all this looks more hot Latin lover 129 00:09:12,613 --> 00:09:15,410 than cool northern Europe, right? 130 00:09:15,548 --> 00:09:16,743 Right. 131 00:09:16,884 --> 00:09:20,047 Because chances are, all this risque stuff 132 00:09:20,187 --> 00:09:23,246 really starts way down in the south of France 133 00:09:23,389 --> 00:09:28,191 where a bunch of religious deviants are stirring things up. 134 00:09:28,327 --> 00:09:32,559 Those southern religious types may be the original inspiration 135 00:09:32,698 --> 00:09:36,157 for this romantic revolution in interpersonal relationships 136 00:09:36,302 --> 00:09:38,827 going on here up north, 137 00:09:38,971 --> 00:09:42,339 except what's going on down south 138 00:09:42,475 --> 00:09:46,537 is a good bit more revolution than romantic. 139 00:09:55,556 --> 00:09:59,423 What kicks off the revolution is what's going on in places like this, 140 00:09:59,559 --> 00:10:04,087 where fat-cat churchmen are, according to the revolutionaries, 141 00:10:04,230 --> 00:10:05,960 boozing, fornicating, and worse. 142 00:10:06,100 --> 00:10:09,159 The revolutionaries are mystics known as Cathars. 143 00:10:09,302 --> 00:10:14,570 They believe in meditation, free love, and vows of poverty for churchmen. 144 00:10:20,279 --> 00:10:22,441 Well, guess how Rome reacts. 145 00:10:22,582 --> 00:10:24,812 The Pope declares an anti-Cathar Crusade, 146 00:10:24,951 --> 00:10:27,818 and the usual fun and games then follow. 147 00:10:27,955 --> 00:10:29,717 Dozens of castles are destroyed, 148 00:10:29,856 --> 00:10:32,620 there's lots of fighting and killing and all that good stuff, 149 00:10:32,759 --> 00:10:35,557 thousands of people are burned without trial. 150 00:10:35,696 --> 00:10:39,325 And that's it for the mystical Cathars. 151 00:10:40,868 --> 00:10:42,859 So where are we? 152 00:10:44,270 --> 00:10:46,261 The Continental Drift Theory by Wegener, 153 00:10:46,405 --> 00:10:50,307 who's crazy about mirages that medieval scientists think are magic 154 00:10:50,443 --> 00:10:52,139 made by the sister of King Arthur, 155 00:10:52,278 --> 00:10:56,113 stories about whom inspire the substitute for adultery, courtly love, 156 00:10:56,250 --> 00:10:57,876 that probably really starts 157 00:10:58,018 --> 00:11:01,215 with those church radicals, the mystical Cathars. 158 00:11:02,589 --> 00:11:04,351 Which brings us to the other mystics 159 00:11:04,490 --> 00:11:07,051 with whom the Cathars have a lot in common 160 00:11:07,193 --> 00:11:11,893 and who are in the same place at the same time: The Jews. 161 00:11:12,032 --> 00:11:15,432 Well, not just Jews, special Jews 162 00:11:15,568 --> 00:11:20,666 who are also into meditation and stuff and reciting magic formulas 163 00:11:20,807 --> 00:11:23,537 so as to get what we would describe as high, 164 00:11:23,677 --> 00:11:26,009 in a trance, ecstatic... whatever. 165 00:11:26,145 --> 00:11:29,115 These guys are known as cabalists, 166 00:11:29,249 --> 00:11:33,116 and for them, the secret of the universe is numbers. 167 00:11:33,253 --> 00:11:37,245 First you give every letter in a language, like Hebrew, a number 168 00:11:37,390 --> 00:11:40,019 to encode the knowledge every language contains 169 00:11:40,159 --> 00:11:42,457 hidden in its words. 170 00:11:42,596 --> 00:11:44,722 Well, it does, doesn't it? 171 00:11:44,865 --> 00:11:47,890 So let me try and show you what the cabalists do 172 00:11:48,034 --> 00:11:49,365 with letters and numbers. 173 00:11:58,611 --> 00:12:00,909 Okay, it's 13th-century Spain, 174 00:12:01,048 --> 00:12:03,846 and this is cabalist Abraham Abulafia, 175 00:12:03,984 --> 00:12:05,780 who writes a book on the strange truths 176 00:12:05,918 --> 00:12:08,716 words and numbers can reveal. 177 00:12:08,855 --> 00:12:12,052 But instead of Hebrew, let me try it with English. 178 00:12:12,192 --> 00:12:15,456 If you give the alphabet numbers from 1 to 26, 179 00:12:15,596 --> 00:12:18,759 the numbers for each letter of this phrase, "God is," 180 00:12:18,899 --> 00:12:19,923 are these: 181 00:12:20,067 --> 00:12:21,364 And added up, 182 00:12:21,500 --> 00:12:24,493 they give you the same total as the numbers for this word, 183 00:12:24,638 --> 00:12:29,041 so the existence of God is the same as love. 184 00:12:30,744 --> 00:12:31,711 Here's another. 185 00:12:31,845 --> 00:12:33,676 The numbers for the words "bad sky" 186 00:12:33,813 --> 00:12:37,875 add up to the same as "plague." 187 00:12:38,018 --> 00:12:39,712 And what about this next one? 188 00:12:39,852 --> 00:12:42,845 "Holy trinity" adds up to 175, 189 00:12:42,990 --> 00:12:46,892 and so does "father, son," and "ghost." 190 00:12:47,027 --> 00:12:48,823 For cabalists like Abulafia, 191 00:12:48,961 --> 00:12:50,121 the way of cabala 192 00:12:50,264 --> 00:12:53,198 and meditating on the mystery of words and numbers 193 00:12:53,332 --> 00:12:55,664 brings endless peace. 194 00:12:55,802 --> 00:12:59,669 You see what I mean about revealing strange truths, eh? 195 00:12:59,806 --> 00:13:03,366 I'll just give you a moment to meditate on that. 196 00:13:10,549 --> 00:13:12,745 In 1270, Abulafia leaves Spain 197 00:13:12,885 --> 00:13:16,014 and takes his cabalist mysteries elsewhere. 198 00:13:22,696 --> 00:13:24,721 Abulafia's cabalism goes over very big 199 00:13:24,865 --> 00:13:27,095 in Mirandola, Northern Italy... 200 00:13:28,802 --> 00:13:32,100 a little town about which little can be said. 201 00:13:32,239 --> 00:13:37,938 Cabalism really turns on this guy: Pico, Count of Mirandola in the 1480s. 202 00:13:38,077 --> 00:13:40,672 And this is Pico's castle... 203 00:13:40,813 --> 00:13:42,008 well, what's left of it... 204 00:13:42,149 --> 00:13:46,107 now a condo and pizzeria, as you can see. 205 00:13:46,253 --> 00:13:47,777 Oh, and a hairdresser's. 206 00:13:47,921 --> 00:13:49,683 Still nice enough place. 207 00:13:49,822 --> 00:13:52,485 The castle sits at one end of the main square, 208 00:13:52,625 --> 00:13:55,527 the place where locals meet and greet. 209 00:13:58,764 --> 00:14:03,725 At the other end of the square: Pico's family home, now the town hall. 210 00:14:09,275 --> 00:14:14,235 Now, as I said, Pico gets excited by Jewish cabala 211 00:14:14,380 --> 00:14:16,644 and produces his own version of it, 212 00:14:16,783 --> 00:14:20,149 mixed with a little philosophy and mathematics. 213 00:14:21,587 --> 00:14:24,716 You remember, numbers matter to cabalists. 214 00:14:26,125 --> 00:14:29,118 And what he comes up with may not seem much to you, 215 00:14:29,261 --> 00:14:31,126 but some people say 216 00:14:31,264 --> 00:14:34,255 it kicked off science in the modern world. 217 00:14:34,400 --> 00:14:36,562 Oh, that's the cathedral. 218 00:14:36,702 --> 00:14:40,764 See, what Pico della Mirandola tells everybody is 219 00:14:40,907 --> 00:14:44,570 that there has to be a way, with numbers, 220 00:14:44,711 --> 00:14:48,772 to understand how the mysterious forces of the sky affect life on earth. 221 00:14:48,914 --> 00:14:50,745 Do you hear cabalism talking? 222 00:14:50,884 --> 00:14:53,852 A way that isn't mumbo jumbo: Astrology. 223 00:14:53,986 --> 00:14:56,922 Numbers, says Pico, are the secret to understanding 224 00:14:57,057 --> 00:14:58,683 how the universe works. 225 00:14:58,825 --> 00:15:00,759 Do you hear science talking? 226 00:15:02,361 --> 00:15:04,261 Then Pico really blows it. 227 00:15:04,398 --> 00:15:06,592 He applies cabalism to Christianity, 228 00:15:06,732 --> 00:15:09,293 which may be the reason he doesn't get buried here, 229 00:15:09,436 --> 00:15:11,495 among the family tombs. 230 00:15:14,374 --> 00:15:18,071 Hey, he's lucky he gets a Christian burial at all 231 00:15:18,211 --> 00:15:19,472 because of this stuff. 232 00:15:19,613 --> 00:15:21,945 See, because of his interest in cabalism, 233 00:15:22,081 --> 00:15:23,845 he has a real love affair with Hebrew, 234 00:15:23,984 --> 00:15:25,951 the language he says you have to know 235 00:15:26,086 --> 00:15:28,679 if you want to understand the Bible. 236 00:15:28,822 --> 00:15:32,724 Okay, a little risky saying that back then, 237 00:15:32,859 --> 00:15:35,793 but Pico's near-fatal mistake with the pope, 238 00:15:35,928 --> 00:15:38,658 who, you will recall, has power of thumbscrew, 239 00:15:38,798 --> 00:15:40,767 is to go one more step further 240 00:15:40,900 --> 00:15:43,028 and say that the mysteries of cabalism... 241 00:15:43,169 --> 00:15:44,534 wait for this... 242 00:15:44,671 --> 00:15:50,769 are the only way to understand the divinity of Christ. 243 00:15:55,782 --> 00:15:58,511 Well, everything hits the papal fan, 244 00:15:58,652 --> 00:16:02,587 and it doesn't help that a very senior German Catholic intellectual 245 00:16:02,721 --> 00:16:04,154 agrees with Pico. 246 00:16:04,291 --> 00:16:05,883 Nothing helps. 247 00:16:06,025 --> 00:16:10,086 You just do not wave this stuff in Rome's face 248 00:16:10,230 --> 00:16:12,596 without lighting a fire under somebody. 249 00:16:27,514 --> 00:16:29,708 The senior German intellectual churchman 250 00:16:29,850 --> 00:16:32,682 that Pico turns on to cabalism and the Hebrew language 251 00:16:32,818 --> 00:16:34,446 is this guy, John Reuchlin, 252 00:16:34,587 --> 00:16:37,648 who is troubled by a really burning question. 253 00:16:37,791 --> 00:16:40,692 See, Reuchlin thinks anybody worth his salt 254 00:16:40,826 --> 00:16:42,054 ought to know Hebrew, 255 00:16:42,195 --> 00:16:44,355 so he writes the first Hebrew Latin grammar, 256 00:16:44,498 --> 00:16:48,229 so eventually, the German church authorities ask him 257 00:16:48,368 --> 00:16:49,892 about which Hebrew books they should burn 258 00:16:50,035 --> 00:16:53,437 because they're anti-Christian, and Reuchlin says none 259 00:16:53,572 --> 00:16:56,269 and attacks the whole book-burning idea. 260 00:17:05,018 --> 00:17:08,077 By 1514, Reuchlin's been making loud enough noises 261 00:17:08,221 --> 00:17:09,449 about freedom of thought 262 00:17:09,588 --> 00:17:11,317 and how there's nothing wrong with cabalism 263 00:17:11,458 --> 00:17:15,086 that there's only one way all this can end. 264 00:17:15,228 --> 00:17:18,459 That year, the German bishops drag him up before a court 265 00:17:18,597 --> 00:17:20,462 and accuse him of heresy, 266 00:17:20,599 --> 00:17:23,967 for which the punishment is death by fire. 267 00:17:28,208 --> 00:17:30,506 The case drags on for six years. 268 00:17:30,644 --> 00:17:32,976 In the end, Reuchlin is found not guilty, 269 00:17:33,113 --> 00:17:35,444 but the experience destroys him. 270 00:17:35,582 --> 00:17:36,844 He's lucky. 271 00:17:36,982 --> 00:17:38,814 All that gets burnt is books. 272 00:17:38,951 --> 00:17:40,419 Problem is his supporters, 273 00:17:40,554 --> 00:17:42,784 including a guy the Catholic Church regards 274 00:17:42,923 --> 00:17:45,914 as just about the most dangerous theological maverick 275 00:17:46,058 --> 00:17:49,961 Rome's had to deal with in more than 1,000 years: 276 00:17:50,096 --> 00:17:52,929 The breakaway Protestant revolutionary, Martin Luther. 277 00:17:53,066 --> 00:17:55,397 And one of the reasons Luther speaks up for Reuchlin 278 00:17:55,535 --> 00:17:58,470 is something else that doesn't help Reuchlin very much. 279 00:17:58,605 --> 00:18:02,701 Luther's right-hand man is Reuchlin's nephew. 280 00:18:04,243 --> 00:18:06,211 His name's Philip Melanchthon, 281 00:18:06,346 --> 00:18:09,542 and he moves my story along towards its unexpected end 282 00:18:09,682 --> 00:18:13,141 in the comfortable surroundings of Wittenburg, Germany. 283 00:18:22,028 --> 00:18:24,894 Wittenburg is the center of a new radical movement 284 00:18:25,030 --> 00:18:28,261 started by Martin Luther, who was excommunicated by the pope 285 00:18:28,401 --> 00:18:30,425 and starts his own religion here. 286 00:18:30,569 --> 00:18:33,505 This includes training a totally new kind of minister 287 00:18:33,640 --> 00:18:38,542 at a totally new kind of university teaching totally new kinds of stuff, 288 00:18:38,678 --> 00:18:43,205 which is why the 16th-century ancestors of these staid modern Wittenburgers 289 00:18:43,349 --> 00:18:47,218 are regarded back then by Rome as dangerous lunatics. 290 00:18:54,894 --> 00:18:56,987 Here's why any pope might think that. 291 00:18:57,130 --> 00:18:59,222 It's on the door of the church where it happened, 292 00:18:59,365 --> 00:19:01,834 so you know it's important. 293 00:19:01,968 --> 00:19:05,425 These are the words that changed the history of the western world, 294 00:19:05,571 --> 00:19:09,633 and they're cast in bronze here to make sure you don't forget. 295 00:19:09,776 --> 00:19:13,678 They are a shocking attack on the Catholic Church by Martin Luther 296 00:19:13,813 --> 00:19:16,838 about everything that's wrong with the church, 297 00:19:16,982 --> 00:19:20,441 in reaction to which remarks, Rome goes totally ape. 298 00:19:20,586 --> 00:19:21,951 Luther and his pals protest 299 00:19:22,087 --> 00:19:25,489 and become known as "protestants," Protestants. 300 00:19:25,625 --> 00:19:27,786 Anyway, in 1518, 301 00:19:27,926 --> 00:19:31,419 three years after everything theological has hit the fan, 302 00:19:31,564 --> 00:19:33,259 Melanchthon... remember him? 303 00:19:33,400 --> 00:19:35,731 Turns up here as professor of Greek, 304 00:19:35,868 --> 00:19:40,032 and between him and Luther, it's love at first sight. 305 00:19:44,678 --> 00:19:47,909 Melanchthon and Luther are the kind of guys kids love to hate, 306 00:19:48,048 --> 00:19:51,211 because they believe kids need one thing above all else: 307 00:19:51,351 --> 00:19:52,942 Regular classes. 308 00:19:53,086 --> 00:19:54,144 So the two men come up 309 00:19:54,287 --> 00:19:56,949 with the all-time biggest ideas for school reform. 310 00:19:57,089 --> 00:20:00,651 Educated kids, they say, make educated citizens. 311 00:20:00,794 --> 00:20:04,251 The Wittenburg town council loves the idea. 312 00:20:08,401 --> 00:20:12,428 By 1528, there are school inspectors, teachers on contract, 313 00:20:12,571 --> 00:20:15,233 a new junior-, middle-, and upper-school system, 314 00:20:15,375 --> 00:20:18,401 standardized textbooks, a curriculum, 315 00:20:18,545 --> 00:20:21,537 and Latin till it's coming out of your ears. 316 00:20:26,419 --> 00:20:30,320 The reason for the Latin is, the Protestant Bible's in Latin, 317 00:20:30,457 --> 00:20:31,788 and Melanchthon's view is, 318 00:20:31,924 --> 00:20:35,361 bang that into their heads, and you can't fail. 319 00:20:38,597 --> 00:20:41,192 Mind you, there are extremists in the Protestant movement 320 00:20:41,334 --> 00:20:45,430 who think Melanchthon's lying down on the job. 321 00:20:48,508 --> 00:20:51,943 Instead of all this education stuff, they reckon he ought to be out there 322 00:20:52,077 --> 00:20:54,705 giving hell and brimstone to Catholics... 323 00:20:54,847 --> 00:20:56,212 and sinners. 324 00:20:57,616 --> 00:20:58,709 One of these radicals, 325 00:20:58,852 --> 00:21:01,012 who has the mother and father of all rows 326 00:21:01,153 --> 00:21:02,586 with Melanchthon about this, 327 00:21:02,721 --> 00:21:08,682 is a guy who is a professor at Koenigsberg University, 328 00:21:08,827 --> 00:21:11,694 on the Baltic, here. 329 00:21:12,898 --> 00:21:16,493 His name is Andreas Osiander, who is... 330 00:21:16,635 --> 00:21:18,035 how shall I put this?... 331 00:21:18,171 --> 00:21:21,698 an arrogant, unqualified creep who only gets the job 332 00:21:21,840 --> 00:21:24,275 because he's in like Flynn with the local prince. 333 00:21:24,410 --> 00:21:25,900 Everybody hates him. 334 00:21:26,045 --> 00:21:33,348 Osiander ends up in the history books with a reputation so bad, it's cosmic. 335 00:21:38,691 --> 00:21:41,489 Here's the official view of the cosmos at the time, 336 00:21:41,627 --> 00:21:43,993 with the earth... and, of course, humankind... 337 00:21:44,130 --> 00:21:45,653 at the center of everything, 338 00:21:45,798 --> 00:21:49,234 circled by the Sun and the Moon and all the planets. 339 00:21:49,368 --> 00:21:51,803 This idea has been around for 2,000 years, 340 00:21:51,938 --> 00:21:54,873 ever since the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle 341 00:21:55,008 --> 00:22:00,070 dreams up a universe made of giant invisible concentric spheres 342 00:22:00,212 --> 00:22:01,770 made of some magic material, 343 00:22:01,914 --> 00:22:03,746 each one of the spheres carrying 344 00:22:03,883 --> 00:22:07,546 each one of the heavenly bodies attached to it. 345 00:22:12,392 --> 00:22:16,556 Now, this whole gobbledygook works fine until you take a closer look, 346 00:22:16,695 --> 00:22:19,493 because it doesn't explain why, from time to time, 347 00:22:19,632 --> 00:22:24,797 Mars appears to go backwards, which it ain't supposed to do. 348 00:22:28,007 --> 00:22:33,205 Well, by 1514, the calendar, based on this wrong view of things, 349 00:22:33,346 --> 00:22:35,007 is so far out of whack 350 00:22:35,147 --> 00:22:38,015 that good Catholics don't know if it's really Friday, 351 00:22:38,151 --> 00:22:40,346 and, like, can they eat meat or not? 352 00:22:40,486 --> 00:22:45,946 So the pope puts a Pole on the case, and in 1542 in Nuremberg, 353 00:22:46,092 --> 00:22:48,652 they're about to print what he's done about it all. 354 00:22:48,795 --> 00:22:52,959 So the editing job goes to that creep Osiander. 355 00:22:53,098 --> 00:22:54,123 Remember him? 356 00:22:54,267 --> 00:22:55,393 So you just know 357 00:22:55,535 --> 00:22:58,698 something really bad is going to happen to this book... 358 00:23:00,839 --> 00:23:03,365 because its Polish author comes up with an idea 359 00:23:03,509 --> 00:23:08,037 that nails Aristotle's entire concept nearly stone dead. 360 00:23:10,383 --> 00:23:13,409 If you put the Sun at the center and everything else in orbit, 361 00:23:13,553 --> 00:23:14,849 it explains everything, 362 00:23:14,988 --> 00:23:17,615 including why Mars appears to go backwards 363 00:23:17,757 --> 00:23:22,455 whenever the earth catches up and moves ahead of it for a while. 364 00:23:29,368 --> 00:23:32,098 Take another look at Mars as if you were on the earth, 365 00:23:32,238 --> 00:23:33,967 and you'll see it happening. 366 00:23:36,476 --> 00:23:37,807 There. 367 00:23:47,086 --> 00:23:51,113 Now, as far as Osiander is concerned, this crazy stuff will prove 368 00:23:51,257 --> 00:23:54,317 the church has been wrong all along about everything, 369 00:23:54,460 --> 00:23:57,486 so he writes to the author, Nicolaus Copernicus, 370 00:23:57,630 --> 00:24:01,292 saying, "Hey, why don't you say you don't mean it? 371 00:24:01,433 --> 00:24:03,026 "Say this is all theory, 372 00:24:03,169 --> 00:24:06,798 nothing to do with what's really happening up in the sky." 373 00:24:07,807 --> 00:24:08,796 Right. 374 00:24:08,942 --> 00:24:11,467 Time for a pause and a catch-up. 375 00:24:13,378 --> 00:24:15,369 Abulafia's cabalist numbers 376 00:24:15,515 --> 00:24:17,813 get Pico of Mirandola into Hebrew studies, 377 00:24:17,951 --> 00:24:21,386 which get the Catholic John Reuchlin into book-burning trouble, 378 00:24:21,520 --> 00:24:25,150 not helped by support from his Protestant nephew, Philip Melanchthon, 379 00:24:25,290 --> 00:24:27,952 who has a terrible row with the creep Osiander, 380 00:24:28,094 --> 00:24:31,153 who tries to persuade Polish author Nicolaus Copernicus 381 00:24:31,297 --> 00:24:33,628 to say his new astronomy is just theory. 382 00:24:34,901 --> 00:24:36,960 Well, Copernicus flips him the bird. 383 00:24:37,103 --> 00:24:40,334 So Osiander promptly passes the manuscript to the printer 384 00:24:40,472 --> 00:24:43,339 and says, "Go for it," and they print. 385 00:24:43,476 --> 00:24:46,069 But what nobody knows until it's too late is 386 00:24:46,211 --> 00:24:48,976 that Osiander has ripped out Copernicus' preface 387 00:24:49,115 --> 00:24:50,707 and slipped in his own, 388 00:24:50,849 --> 00:24:53,785 where it says all that stuff about it not being real. 389 00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:56,752 Too late for Copernicus to do anything about it. 390 00:24:56,888 --> 00:25:00,483 He gets a copy on his deathbed and croaks. 391 00:25:00,625 --> 00:25:01,718 Well, wouldn't you? 392 00:25:01,861 --> 00:25:04,796 The printer back in Nuremberg says, "Looked kosher to me," 393 00:25:04,931 --> 00:25:08,491 and all they know in Rome is, it's all just theory. 394 00:25:09,935 --> 00:25:14,167 So Osiander has pulled off the greatest con in history, 395 00:25:14,307 --> 00:25:19,074 so he gets back to his astrology and writing letters to an Italian pal. 396 00:25:27,086 --> 00:25:32,285 This is Osiander's Italian pal, and this is somebody we'll get back to. 397 00:25:32,424 --> 00:25:35,019 Okay, meet Girolamo Cardano, 398 00:25:35,161 --> 00:25:38,756 an Italian doctor who writes the first great book on algebra, 399 00:25:38,897 --> 00:25:40,194 and he's here in Scotland 400 00:25:40,333 --> 00:25:45,292 attending a patient who will, like this program, come to a sticky end. 401 00:25:48,540 --> 00:25:52,442 As you can see, friend Cardano is also a bit of a gambler, 402 00:25:52,577 --> 00:25:55,137 and he works out that there are only three results 403 00:25:55,280 --> 00:25:56,873 you get from throwing dice: 404 00:25:57,016 --> 00:25:59,507 Impossible: You'll throw two sevens; 405 00:25:59,652 --> 00:26:02,848 certain: You'll get numbers between one and six; 406 00:26:02,989 --> 00:26:05,388 and possible: You'll throw two sixes. 407 00:26:05,525 --> 00:26:08,892 Cardano has discovered the first law of probability. 408 00:26:09,028 --> 00:26:14,432 Anyway, in 1551, he comes to Scotland to treat this unfortunate type, 409 00:26:14,567 --> 00:26:17,035 John Hamilton, archbishop of St. Andrews, 410 00:26:17,170 --> 00:26:18,967 who has asthma. 411 00:26:24,443 --> 00:26:27,173 Now, Cardano's worked out a treatment for asthma 412 00:26:27,313 --> 00:26:30,839 involving some weird mixture of herbs and stuff, 413 00:26:30,982 --> 00:26:34,509 so he tries it on the archbish, and it works. 414 00:26:34,653 --> 00:26:38,282 So Cardano collects his fee and hightails it back to Italy. 415 00:26:38,423 --> 00:26:40,288 Alas, as you will see, 416 00:26:40,425 --> 00:26:44,726 things don't go that well for Cardano's poor old Episcopal patient. 417 00:26:45,897 --> 00:26:47,762 In the great card game of life, 418 00:26:47,900 --> 00:26:51,801 Archbishop Hamilton is about to draw a really lousy hand, 419 00:26:51,938 --> 00:26:54,566 and the fatal mistake he is destined to make is, 420 00:26:54,707 --> 00:26:56,902 he bets on the queen. 421 00:27:07,686 --> 00:27:09,450 Mary, the queen in question, 422 00:27:09,588 --> 00:27:11,989 leads a life that's more like a whodunit, 423 00:27:12,125 --> 00:27:15,184 full of intrigue and betrayal and dead bodies. 424 00:27:18,698 --> 00:27:21,861 It's a miracle she makes it through the mayhem and skulduggery. 425 00:27:23,269 --> 00:27:25,031 Well, she doesn't. 426 00:27:25,171 --> 00:27:27,162 But anyway, here's why. 427 00:27:27,306 --> 00:27:29,773 English royal family: 428 00:27:29,909 --> 00:27:31,637 King Henry VIIl; 429 00:27:31,777 --> 00:27:33,471 his daughter, Elizabeth; 430 00:27:33,613 --> 00:27:36,012 his sister, Margaret; 431 00:27:36,148 --> 00:27:38,981 her first husband, James IV of Scotland; 432 00:27:39,117 --> 00:27:41,143 his son, James V of Scotland; 433 00:27:41,287 --> 00:27:44,313 his daughter, the lady I'm talking about. 434 00:27:44,457 --> 00:27:45,821 As you can see, 435 00:27:45,958 --> 00:27:50,792 Mary has a claim to the Scottish throne, like this, 436 00:27:50,930 --> 00:27:53,329 and, where the whole mess begins, 437 00:27:53,465 --> 00:27:56,833 also to the English throne, like this, 438 00:27:56,969 --> 00:27:59,836 which does not make Liz, here... 439 00:27:59,971 --> 00:28:03,031 queen of England at the time... her pal. 440 00:28:03,175 --> 00:28:04,472 Okay? 441 00:28:04,609 --> 00:28:07,238 Mary marries a wimpy French royal. 442 00:28:07,380 --> 00:28:08,574 He snuffs it. 443 00:28:08,713 --> 00:28:11,807 She goes back to Scotland as queen of the place, 444 00:28:11,951 --> 00:28:13,645 so now she's Mary, Queen of Scots. 445 00:28:13,786 --> 00:28:17,118 And then she gets the hots for and marries 446 00:28:17,256 --> 00:28:19,849 a guy called Henry Darnley. 447 00:28:19,991 --> 00:28:22,050 Okay, time for family trees again. 448 00:28:22,194 --> 00:28:23,684 Here's Henry Darnley. 449 00:28:23,828 --> 00:28:26,820 His father is the great-great-grandson 450 00:28:26,965 --> 00:28:29,627 of James II of Scotland, 451 00:28:29,769 --> 00:28:34,432 and his mother's father is the second husband 452 00:28:34,574 --> 00:28:38,567 of Margaret... you remember, the sister of Henry VIII of England. 453 00:28:38,711 --> 00:28:39,769 Get it? 454 00:28:39,912 --> 00:28:41,777 Henry Darnley has a claim 455 00:28:41,913 --> 00:28:44,007 to the English and Scottish thrones too. 456 00:28:44,150 --> 00:28:46,448 Trouble is, Darnley's a real lout 457 00:28:46,586 --> 00:28:50,282 who drinks and cheats on his wife and wants to be a real king 458 00:28:50,423 --> 00:28:52,891 and not just Mary's significant other. 459 00:28:54,559 --> 00:28:57,893 So his pals dream up a scam to discredit Mary 460 00:28:58,029 --> 00:28:59,519 by killing her executive assistant 461 00:28:59,664 --> 00:29:02,462 and claiming she was having an affair with the guy. 462 00:29:06,404 --> 00:29:12,037 Mary reacts by bringing in the Earl of Bothwell. 463 00:29:16,015 --> 00:29:18,711 Bothwell masterminds the great explosion. 464 00:29:18,851 --> 00:29:22,513 In 1564, he gets rid of the sleazeball Darnley 465 00:29:22,654 --> 00:29:24,952 by blowing up the house he's in at the time. 466 00:29:28,794 --> 00:29:31,694 Actually, Bothwell blows it in every sense. 467 00:29:31,830 --> 00:29:34,823 The cops find visible trails of gunpowder, 468 00:29:34,967 --> 00:29:37,959 the fuses are provided by soldiers who spill the beans, 469 00:29:38,104 --> 00:29:41,938 and Bothwell buys the candles at the shop down the street. 470 00:29:42,074 --> 00:29:44,405 What follows is total insanity. 471 00:29:44,542 --> 00:29:46,602 Bothwell gets his marriage annulled by Archbishop Hamilton. 472 00:29:46,746 --> 00:29:47,905 Remember him? 473 00:29:48,047 --> 00:29:51,346 So he and Mary can then do something absolutely crazy: 474 00:29:51,483 --> 00:29:53,474 Become man and wife. 475 00:29:57,490 --> 00:30:01,324 Well, Mary marrying Bothwell really ticks everybody off, 476 00:30:01,460 --> 00:30:04,087 because now Bothwell wants to be king. 477 00:30:04,230 --> 00:30:08,222 So in no time at all, there's Queen Elizabeth's army outside; 478 00:30:08,366 --> 00:30:12,326 Mary is captured, accused of okaying the plot to kill Darnley 479 00:30:12,471 --> 00:30:16,338 and conspiring against Queen Elizabeth and executed; 480 00:30:16,474 --> 00:30:18,909 and so is the asthmatic Archbishop Hamilton, 481 00:30:19,045 --> 00:30:22,309 leaving one survivor, the devious Bothwell, 482 00:30:22,448 --> 00:30:26,213 who sorts out his travel plans and heads for Scandinavia. 483 00:30:26,352 --> 00:30:28,615 Where he thinks he'll be safe. 484 00:30:28,753 --> 00:30:32,451 Alas, Scandinavia is where the lights go out for Bothwell. 485 00:30:36,494 --> 00:30:40,932 What comes next is one of those stories I really think I have a nose for. 486 00:30:43,836 --> 00:30:47,635 See, Bothwell's ship gets intercepted by the local navy, 487 00:30:47,772 --> 00:30:50,570 and he gives them a load of flimflam about "Who, me? 488 00:30:50,710 --> 00:30:52,075 I'm just here looking for work." 489 00:30:52,211 --> 00:30:55,907 Unfortunately, he picks the wrong place to try that one on. 490 00:30:56,048 --> 00:30:57,742 Here's where he ends up: 491 00:30:57,883 --> 00:30:58,906 Scandinavia, 492 00:30:59,050 --> 00:31:00,608 Norway, 493 00:31:00,752 --> 00:31:01,946 Bergen, 494 00:31:02,087 --> 00:31:04,488 where the local duke has a cousin, 495 00:31:04,623 --> 00:31:07,955 who is a gal who, years back, Bothwell... 496 00:31:08,094 --> 00:31:09,253 how shall I put this? 497 00:31:09,394 --> 00:31:11,157 Done wrong. 498 00:31:11,297 --> 00:31:12,423 So she fingers him. 499 00:31:12,565 --> 00:31:14,692 So they stick him in jail down the road here 500 00:31:14,834 --> 00:31:16,528 and leave him to rot, 501 00:31:18,203 --> 00:31:22,196 in spite of a lot of shuttle diplomacy by the French ambassador, 502 00:31:22,340 --> 00:31:26,743 a fellow called Charles Dancay, who acts like a go-between, 503 00:31:26,878 --> 00:31:29,608 trying to get Bothwell out of the pokey. 504 00:31:29,749 --> 00:31:30,715 Fails. 505 00:31:30,849 --> 00:31:34,115 Bothwell goes nuts and dies. 506 00:31:35,587 --> 00:31:38,113 Meanwhile, a Danish pal of Dancay's 507 00:31:38,257 --> 00:31:42,125 is about to do another one of those cosmically meaningful things 508 00:31:42,260 --> 00:31:44,229 here at his home, Knutstorp Castle, 509 00:31:44,363 --> 00:31:48,298 where he looks up one night and sees something impossible. 510 00:31:48,433 --> 00:31:51,231 Now, he's looking up because he's an astronomer, 511 00:31:51,369 --> 00:31:55,238 and what he sees is impossible because it's a new star. 512 00:31:55,374 --> 00:31:56,671 You remember I said 513 00:31:56,808 --> 00:31:59,368 Copernicus stuck one nail in Aristotle's coffin? 514 00:31:59,511 --> 00:32:02,480 Well, this is going to be nail number two... 515 00:32:04,083 --> 00:32:09,487 banged in by our astronomer friend, Tycho Brahe, 516 00:32:09,622 --> 00:32:12,385 because another thing Aristotle and the church say is 517 00:32:12,525 --> 00:32:15,323 that the heavens never change. 518 00:32:15,461 --> 00:32:17,655 So what's this new star thing? 519 00:32:17,797 --> 00:32:20,924 Let me show you how Brahe blows everybody away with the news: 520 00:32:21,066 --> 00:32:22,294 This. 521 00:32:22,434 --> 00:32:25,632 This is a cross staff for measuring stars back then. 522 00:32:25,770 --> 00:32:27,602 Here are the degrees marked on it. 523 00:32:27,740 --> 00:32:31,675 This is a movable crossbar with sights, one at each end, 524 00:32:31,810 --> 00:32:34,371 and here's the sighting ring. 525 00:32:35,413 --> 00:32:36,438 Right. 526 00:32:36,582 --> 00:32:38,048 Say here's the new star 527 00:32:38,183 --> 00:32:41,744 and the nearest constellation to it, Cassiopeia. 528 00:32:42,922 --> 00:32:44,355 Okay, watch this. 529 00:32:46,424 --> 00:32:48,654 You move the crossbar up and down 530 00:32:48,794 --> 00:32:51,557 so as to line up the sights at each end of the bar, 531 00:32:51,696 --> 00:32:55,258 one with the star and the other with the constellation. 532 00:32:56,669 --> 00:32:59,000 And then you can read how many degrees apart they are. 533 00:32:59,137 --> 00:33:00,537 See? 534 00:33:00,673 --> 00:33:03,836 Every night for months, Brahe gets the same readings, 535 00:33:03,976 --> 00:33:07,502 so nothing up there is changing, so all this is real. 536 00:33:11,616 --> 00:33:14,915 And wherever you look from, that separation angle is the same, 537 00:33:15,054 --> 00:33:18,079 so both heavenly bodies are out there in space. 538 00:33:19,892 --> 00:33:23,259 In 1573, Brahe goes into print about this stuff, 539 00:33:23,394 --> 00:33:27,229 becomes so famous, he ends up as imperial astronomer, 540 00:33:27,365 --> 00:33:28,526 in spite of this, 541 00:33:28,666 --> 00:33:31,101 which I thought I'd try to see what it felt like. 542 00:33:32,904 --> 00:33:35,499 All his life, he keeps quiet about it, 543 00:33:35,641 --> 00:33:38,303 and the only reason we know he loses his nose in a duel 544 00:33:38,443 --> 00:33:40,105 and wears a metal replacement 545 00:33:40,246 --> 00:33:43,044 and carries glue everywhere with him in case it falls off 546 00:33:43,182 --> 00:33:46,378 is because the story gets blown by one of his assistants, 547 00:33:46,519 --> 00:33:50,147 a loudmouth Dutchman named Willem Blaeu. 548 00:33:54,425 --> 00:33:56,416 Now, the talkative Blaeu leaves Tycho 549 00:33:56,561 --> 00:33:59,326 for a job that gives him a particular problem. 550 00:34:01,232 --> 00:34:05,101 When he produces what he produces, it's already out of date. 551 00:34:05,237 --> 00:34:06,203 You know what I mean? 552 00:34:06,337 --> 00:34:09,431 In Blaeu's case, what's out of date 553 00:34:09,574 --> 00:34:12,976 every time a ship comes back from somewhere is this stuff: 554 00:34:13,112 --> 00:34:14,340 Maps. 555 00:34:14,480 --> 00:34:16,811 I mean, here they are in the 18th century, 556 00:34:16,949 --> 00:34:19,382 opening up the world with every voyage of exploration, 557 00:34:19,518 --> 00:34:20,849 blah, blah, blah, 558 00:34:20,985 --> 00:34:24,217 and when the guys get back from their intrepid trip, 559 00:34:24,356 --> 00:34:27,018 every time, the first thing they say is, 560 00:34:27,159 --> 00:34:28,853 "Hey, you know that island 561 00:34:28,994 --> 00:34:30,518 "everybody says is north of the headland? 562 00:34:30,663 --> 00:34:31,652 "Well, it's not. 563 00:34:31,797 --> 00:34:33,992 It's south," or some such. 564 00:34:35,233 --> 00:34:37,065 So Blaeu is a very busy guy. 565 00:34:37,202 --> 00:34:40,000 See, after he quits Tycho and astronomy, 566 00:34:40,139 --> 00:34:42,733 he sets up in Amsterdam as a mapmaker. 567 00:34:42,875 --> 00:34:44,739 Astronomy and mapmaking go together 568 00:34:44,876 --> 00:34:49,210 because sailors use the stars to navigate by, don't they? 569 00:34:53,284 --> 00:34:57,221 So by 1602, he's got one of the biggest print shops around, 570 00:34:57,356 --> 00:35:00,847 churning out updated versions of anything you might want to know 571 00:35:00,992 --> 00:35:04,588 about tides, winds, coastlines, star positions, 572 00:35:04,730 --> 00:35:06,197 you name it... 573 00:35:06,331 --> 00:35:08,800 anything, in fact, you might want to know 574 00:35:08,934 --> 00:35:11,402 in order to get yourself from "A" for Amsterdam 575 00:35:11,536 --> 00:35:13,971 to " B" for anywhere else, 576 00:35:14,106 --> 00:35:16,574 which is why he gets the plum job 577 00:35:16,708 --> 00:35:19,405 of mapmaker to the Dutch East India Company, 578 00:35:19,545 --> 00:35:22,105 whose main aim in life is, in fact, 579 00:35:22,246 --> 00:35:24,737 to get from that "A," Amsterdam, 580 00:35:24,882 --> 00:35:26,474 to this " B," 581 00:35:26,619 --> 00:35:28,677 the beautiful island of Sri Lanka. 582 00:35:32,625 --> 00:35:33,717 Why? 583 00:35:33,858 --> 00:35:35,349 Money, of course. 584 00:35:35,494 --> 00:35:38,759 Well, let me explain that cutting remark. 585 00:35:42,735 --> 00:35:44,965 Here we are in one of the profit-making places 586 00:35:45,103 --> 00:35:47,971 found by those 17th-century Dutch explorers. 587 00:35:48,106 --> 00:35:49,768 What you're looking at is 588 00:35:49,907 --> 00:35:52,501 the botanical equivalent of a license to print money, 589 00:35:52,644 --> 00:35:56,137 a load of money, because this is no ordinary load. 590 00:35:56,280 --> 00:36:00,684 It's something you've probably eaten, maybe without even knowing you did, 591 00:36:00,818 --> 00:36:02,445 and it's why those Dutch guys 592 00:36:02,588 --> 00:36:06,182 risk life, limb, and shipwreck to get here. 593 00:36:13,364 --> 00:36:17,494 Take a look at one of the greater 17th-century profit centers of all time. 594 00:36:17,635 --> 00:36:21,867 Great thing is, no production line to eat up your capital. 595 00:36:22,007 --> 00:36:24,804 Just scrape the bark off each branch, 596 00:36:24,943 --> 00:36:28,503 then rub the branch all over with any old metal rod, 597 00:36:28,646 --> 00:36:30,376 and once you've softened it, 598 00:36:30,516 --> 00:36:33,679 very carefully slice off the next layer in strips, 599 00:36:33,818 --> 00:36:35,286 like this. 600 00:36:35,420 --> 00:36:39,983 Once you've done that, the next bit doesn't involve anybody. 601 00:36:40,125 --> 00:36:42,684 You just leave the strips to dry out in the sun. 602 00:36:44,028 --> 00:36:46,998 Then you roll the strips into each other 603 00:36:47,132 --> 00:36:49,032 so they form a kind of stick, 604 00:36:49,168 --> 00:36:53,867 and then package the sticks in big bundles like this, 605 00:36:54,005 --> 00:36:56,132 and then take the whole lot back to Holland 606 00:36:56,275 --> 00:36:59,300 and make at least 600°/° profit on the deal. 607 00:36:59,445 --> 00:37:00,503 Why? 608 00:37:00,646 --> 00:37:03,911 Well, as I said, take a look at the production costs. 609 00:37:08,286 --> 00:37:12,121 And the mysterious plant that's worth all this effort? 610 00:37:12,257 --> 00:37:15,192 Cinnamon, and Sri Lanka has the best around, 611 00:37:15,327 --> 00:37:18,887 which is why getting here is so important. 612 00:37:19,030 --> 00:37:22,159 So when that guy, Willem Blaeu, 613 00:37:22,300 --> 00:37:24,894 put somebody else's knockout navigational trick 614 00:37:25,036 --> 00:37:26,664 into his printed atlases, 615 00:37:26,804 --> 00:37:29,637 well, he goes straight into the charts. 616 00:37:32,643 --> 00:37:34,043 Here's the previous problem: 617 00:37:34,179 --> 00:37:36,704 As a navigator going from "A" to " B," 618 00:37:36,849 --> 00:37:39,079 you want to go straight there, right? 619 00:37:39,217 --> 00:37:41,344 But because the earth's a globe, 620 00:37:41,487 --> 00:37:45,184 your angle back to the North Star keeps changing, 621 00:37:45,324 --> 00:37:47,291 screws up your calculations, 622 00:37:47,425 --> 00:37:50,190 till a fellow named Mercator solves the problem 623 00:37:50,329 --> 00:37:53,594 by flattening the earth on a chart, like this. 624 00:37:53,731 --> 00:37:57,224 So now, when you head off on your straight line from "A" to " B," 625 00:37:57,369 --> 00:38:00,804 this time, your angle's the same all the way. 626 00:38:00,938 --> 00:38:02,269 See? 627 00:38:02,407 --> 00:38:06,137 The fact that the new system distorts the real size of countries 628 00:38:06,277 --> 00:38:08,211 doesn't seem to matter much. 629 00:38:09,748 --> 00:38:11,648 Anyway, all this navigational stuff's 630 00:38:11,784 --> 00:38:13,978 put together in a giant atlas 631 00:38:14,119 --> 00:38:17,054 by a guy working in Italy for the Duke of Tuscany, 632 00:38:17,188 --> 00:38:19,554 an Englishman, name of Dudley, 633 00:38:19,690 --> 00:38:23,922 who also provides the duke with a new seaport he badly needs. 634 00:38:28,032 --> 00:38:30,557 Then Dudley brings in English shipbuilders 635 00:38:30,702 --> 00:38:32,760 to give the duke the navy he wants. 636 00:38:32,905 --> 00:38:35,998 Dudley also builds canals and drains marshes 637 00:38:36,141 --> 00:38:37,402 and other such stuff 638 00:38:37,543 --> 00:38:39,534 for the duke's superintendent of public works, 639 00:38:39,677 --> 00:38:42,112 a guy called Bernardo Buontalenti, 640 00:38:42,246 --> 00:38:45,876 and this is where the story takes a really unexpected turn. 641 00:38:46,018 --> 00:38:49,146 Because Buontalenti's quite an entertaining guy, 642 00:38:49,288 --> 00:38:53,121 the duke gets him to do something quite entertaining. 643 00:38:53,257 --> 00:38:57,661 Okay, just before I go on stage, where are we? 644 00:38:57,795 --> 00:39:00,594 You recall Dr. Cardano and his sick patient, 645 00:39:00,731 --> 00:39:02,097 Archbishop John Hamilton, 646 00:39:02,233 --> 00:39:04,827 who gets executed for helping Mary, Queen of Scots, 647 00:39:04,969 --> 00:39:07,530 whose lover, Bothwell, ends up in a Scandinavian jail 648 00:39:07,672 --> 00:39:09,971 near the home of astronomer Tycho Brahe, 649 00:39:10,108 --> 00:39:11,438 whose assistant, Blaeu, 650 00:39:11,577 --> 00:39:14,239 makes maps incorporating Mercator's new system 651 00:39:14,378 --> 00:39:16,710 that features in the atlas Dudley creates 652 00:39:16,849 --> 00:39:19,750 before building canals for that public works superintendent, 653 00:39:19,885 --> 00:39:21,648 Bernardo Buontalenti. 654 00:39:26,692 --> 00:39:28,887 Now, Buontalenti's an engineer, 655 00:39:29,027 --> 00:39:32,121 so the Duke of Tuscany asks him to do something to liven up 656 00:39:32,264 --> 00:39:34,994 the entertainments the duke likes to put on for his guests, 657 00:39:35,132 --> 00:39:37,260 and Buontalenti goes right over the top, 658 00:39:37,402 --> 00:39:40,929 with movable scenery and people all dressed up in costumes 659 00:39:41,072 --> 00:39:43,405 and a plot that involves a real story line 660 00:39:43,541 --> 00:39:47,137 and all the stuff you associate with going out to the theater today, 661 00:39:47,278 --> 00:39:50,146 with gods and goddesses and fake sea monsters 662 00:39:50,282 --> 00:39:51,579 and all kinds of gizmos 663 00:39:51,717 --> 00:39:55,311 you will now see in one of the world's first operas, 664 00:39:55,454 --> 00:39:58,581 which must have gone a bit like this. 665 00:40:46,438 --> 00:40:48,201 Thank you, thank you. 666 00:40:48,340 --> 00:40:52,639 Now, this opera thing catches on like wildfire in France, 667 00:40:52,777 --> 00:40:54,608 where the guy running the country for the king 668 00:40:54,746 --> 00:40:57,579 is an Italian called Mazeran... 669 00:41:00,117 --> 00:41:06,818 after he spent time reading the play in his giant new 40,000-volume library, 670 00:41:06,958 --> 00:41:08,391 put together for him 671 00:41:08,527 --> 00:41:12,018 by a Frenchman who writes a book rivetingly entitled... 672 00:41:12,164 --> 00:41:14,530 "How to Run a Library," 673 00:41:14,833 --> 00:41:16,697 promptly translated into English, 674 00:41:16,835 --> 00:41:21,465 whereupon it falls into the hands of a fellow named Samuel Pepys, 675 00:41:21,606 --> 00:41:25,405 who's building up a collection of books on how to run... this stuff, 676 00:41:25,543 --> 00:41:26,943 a navy. 677 00:41:32,416 --> 00:41:37,150 When Pepys takes over as secretary to the English navy in 1665, 678 00:41:37,289 --> 00:41:38,449 it's a mess. 679 00:41:38,590 --> 00:41:40,056 There are hardly any ships. 680 00:41:40,192 --> 00:41:43,251 Admirals get their jobs from pals in the government. 681 00:41:43,394 --> 00:41:44,952 Captains don't know how to sail. 682 00:41:45,097 --> 00:41:49,329 Pepys takes the navy apart and puts it together again. 683 00:41:49,467 --> 00:41:52,300 This time, it works. 684 00:41:59,677 --> 00:42:02,340 Pepys makes would-be officers start as midshipmen 685 00:42:02,481 --> 00:42:04,311 and do three years' training at sea. 686 00:42:04,449 --> 00:42:06,076 They have to be able to navigate. 687 00:42:06,217 --> 00:42:07,913 Is the boat ready to go? 688 00:42:08,052 --> 00:42:09,884 Captains have to be certified. 689 00:42:10,021 --> 00:42:13,047 The size of the ship dictates how big the crew is. 690 00:42:13,190 --> 00:42:15,125 And they all get standardized pay scales, 691 00:42:15,260 --> 00:42:18,855 medical treatment, pensions, and discipline. 692 00:42:18,996 --> 00:42:20,726 Guns are standardized, 693 00:42:20,865 --> 00:42:23,391 and so is the kind of ammunition they fire. 694 00:42:26,737 --> 00:42:29,934 Pepys organizes the supply of everything a navy needs 695 00:42:30,074 --> 00:42:31,940 to stay afloat and ready to fight. 696 00:42:32,077 --> 00:42:35,170 Best of all, he manages to persuade the English parliament 697 00:42:35,313 --> 00:42:37,746 that the one thing the country needs is 698 00:42:37,882 --> 00:42:41,478 a fleet big enough, well, to control the sea. 699 00:42:41,619 --> 00:42:46,784 They okay 30 new ships, and Pepys' dream looks like coming true. 700 00:42:46,925 --> 00:42:50,360 Britannia really is going to rule the waves. 701 00:42:57,568 --> 00:42:59,798 One last thing Pepys gets a grip on 702 00:42:59,938 --> 00:43:03,373 is making sure everybody in a fleet knows what they're all doing at sea 703 00:43:03,507 --> 00:43:06,204 by clearing up all the confusion over signaling, 704 00:43:06,344 --> 00:43:10,246 which, back then, wasn't too sophisticated. 705 00:43:10,382 --> 00:43:13,646 I mean, if you needed a supply of wood, you hung up an ax. 706 00:43:13,784 --> 00:43:17,414 Hanging up a tablecloth meant "Come to dinner." 707 00:43:19,523 --> 00:43:20,512 Well, things move ahead, 708 00:43:20,659 --> 00:43:22,592 and by 1817, you've got a system 709 00:43:22,726 --> 00:43:25,628 that will let you send up to 11,000 signals. 710 00:43:25,764 --> 00:43:28,994 Great, except for one minor inconvenience. 711 00:43:29,134 --> 00:43:32,661 In a flat calm, your flags won't flutter. 712 00:43:32,804 --> 00:43:37,831 Fortunately, a French chap is on the case, name of Chappe, 713 00:43:37,976 --> 00:43:41,139 working for Napoleon during the war against England. 714 00:43:49,753 --> 00:43:53,554 This is Chappe's signaling gizmo, called a semaphore, 715 00:43:53,692 --> 00:43:56,786 shown here during a field trial by a guy named Gamble 716 00:43:56,927 --> 00:43:58,793 for the British navy 717 00:43:58,929 --> 00:44:01,557 after Chappe's blueprints have been found during the war. 718 00:44:01,699 --> 00:44:04,635 Story is that Gamble's working in prisoner-of-war camps, 719 00:44:04,768 --> 00:44:07,465 and he's going through the pockets of some French officer 720 00:44:07,606 --> 00:44:09,266 and finds Chappe's drawings, 721 00:44:09,407 --> 00:44:13,775 so he dashes home and builds a version for the navy. 722 00:44:20,652 --> 00:44:23,052 Okay, how Gamble's version works: 723 00:44:23,188 --> 00:44:26,918 A matter of pulling the strings to alter the position of the flaps 724 00:44:27,057 --> 00:44:29,492 and make a coded pattern on the frame. 725 00:44:38,737 --> 00:44:40,670 Now, each pattern stands for a letter, 726 00:44:40,804 --> 00:44:44,001 so all you have to do is decode the patterns, 727 00:44:44,141 --> 00:44:46,132 and you know what the message is. 728 00:45:09,534 --> 00:45:13,025 Unfortunately, somebody else thinks up an even better version, 729 00:45:13,170 --> 00:45:16,038 and he gets the contract. 730 00:45:16,173 --> 00:45:18,039 As for that guy Gamble, 731 00:45:18,175 --> 00:45:20,769 he goes back to prisoner-of-war exchange work 732 00:45:20,911 --> 00:45:22,675 after Napoleon's defeat, 733 00:45:22,813 --> 00:45:26,306 and during this work, he comes across some French guy 734 00:45:26,451 --> 00:45:30,784 selling a pattern for preserving food in bottles. 735 00:45:30,922 --> 00:45:34,186 Gamble passes the idea on to a metalworking pal of his, 736 00:45:34,326 --> 00:45:35,724 and he turns it into something 737 00:45:35,860 --> 00:45:38,760 that lasts longer than the semaphore ever does: 738 00:45:43,268 --> 00:45:44,530 Canned food, 739 00:45:44,668 --> 00:45:47,262 just what intrepid explorers need in 1831, 740 00:45:47,405 --> 00:45:49,373 heading for the frozen North. 741 00:45:55,746 --> 00:45:57,840 Now, I know this isn't the frozen North, 742 00:45:57,983 --> 00:45:59,847 but, hey, I'll get there. 743 00:46:02,621 --> 00:46:03,746 Thank you. 744 00:46:03,887 --> 00:46:04,876 Okay, where was I? 745 00:46:05,023 --> 00:46:06,614 Oh, yes, the frozen North. 746 00:46:06,757 --> 00:46:08,157 Here's the story. 747 00:46:08,293 --> 00:46:10,920 The deal is to find a passage running north of Canada 748 00:46:11,061 --> 00:46:15,157 between the Atlantic over there and the Pacific over there, right? 749 00:46:15,300 --> 00:46:19,030 Well, frozen North expedition leader Sir John Ross 750 00:46:19,170 --> 00:46:22,003 and his nephew James don't find this passage thing. 751 00:46:22,139 --> 00:46:23,766 But at one point, 752 00:46:23,907 --> 00:46:27,605 the nephew takes off over the ice to here, 753 00:46:27,746 --> 00:46:31,375 where he discovers the magnetic North Pole. 754 00:46:31,516 --> 00:46:35,110 Hangs a magnetized needle on a bit of thread, like this, 755 00:46:35,253 --> 00:46:38,119 sees it point straight down, like this, 756 00:46:38,255 --> 00:46:41,521 so he claims the magnetic pole for king and country... 757 00:46:41,659 --> 00:46:42,717 harrumph... 758 00:46:42,860 --> 00:46:45,260 in spite of the fact that, as the magnetic pole is 759 00:46:45,396 --> 00:46:46,920 something that moves all the time, 760 00:46:47,065 --> 00:46:50,831 it's already kind of gone by the time he claims it. 761 00:46:53,405 --> 00:46:56,465 Now for the twist in this expeditionary tale. 762 00:47:01,679 --> 00:47:02,668 Aah. 763 00:47:02,813 --> 00:47:06,215 This is the reason they all get there in the first place. 764 00:47:06,351 --> 00:47:08,284 Well, take another look at the map. 765 00:47:08,420 --> 00:47:09,887 See these place names? 766 00:47:10,021 --> 00:47:16,186 Boothia Peninsula, Felix Harbor, Boothia Isthmus, Cape Felix, 767 00:47:16,327 --> 00:47:17,989 Gulf of Boothia. 768 00:47:18,128 --> 00:47:20,563 That's who pays for the expedition: 769 00:47:20,699 --> 00:47:23,862 Felix Booth of Booth's gin. 770 00:47:24,001 --> 00:47:25,798 Now, on board the ship, 771 00:47:25,936 --> 00:47:28,838 there's a young guy nowhere gets named after. 772 00:47:28,972 --> 00:47:30,304 Well, his name's Hooker. 773 00:47:30,442 --> 00:47:33,070 But he's the reason for the tonic 774 00:47:33,210 --> 00:47:35,804 because he goes back to London 775 00:47:35,947 --> 00:47:38,380 and becomes director of the botanical gardens, 776 00:47:38,516 --> 00:47:39,744 where they're trying to grow 777 00:47:39,884 --> 00:47:42,148 the kind of tree that will produce quinine, 778 00:47:42,286 --> 00:47:43,583 a treatment for malaria, 779 00:47:43,722 --> 00:47:47,818 which you can get back then in places like this, Sri Lanka, 780 00:47:47,958 --> 00:47:50,927 which we Brits are running at the time. 781 00:47:51,061 --> 00:47:53,188 Now, quinine tastes awful, 782 00:47:53,331 --> 00:47:58,963 so put it in sugared water, and you get quinine tonic water. 783 00:47:59,103 --> 00:48:02,164 Add gin, and you've invented gin and tonic. 784 00:48:02,306 --> 00:48:04,501 Keeps the British Empire going out here, 785 00:48:04,641 --> 00:48:07,338 where the people at the time are also busy 786 00:48:07,478 --> 00:48:09,275 trying to grow something else, 787 00:48:09,414 --> 00:48:11,905 thanks to those people back in the botanical gardens. 788 00:48:17,688 --> 00:48:19,657 This is one of those moments when you realize 789 00:48:19,791 --> 00:48:23,351 how often in history people can't see the forest for the trees. 790 00:48:23,494 --> 00:48:27,021 Back in 1888, all those botanical types know is, 791 00:48:27,164 --> 00:48:30,327 hooray, they've succeeded in transplanting rubber trees 792 00:48:30,467 --> 00:48:32,527 from South America to Sri Lanka here, 793 00:48:32,670 --> 00:48:36,003 so now, good things like raincoats can be invented 794 00:48:36,141 --> 00:48:40,635 and one day, tires for automobiles and surgical rubber gloves 795 00:48:40,778 --> 00:48:45,112 and a million other wonderful examples of the progress of science. 796 00:48:46,717 --> 00:48:48,981 How could any of them have foreseen, 797 00:48:49,119 --> 00:48:50,916 back when this stuff happened for the first time 798 00:48:51,054 --> 00:48:52,681 and rubber tapping kicked off 799 00:48:52,824 --> 00:48:55,291 one of the greatest industries of the 19th century, 800 00:48:55,427 --> 00:48:57,759 where it would end? 801 00:48:57,896 --> 00:49:00,364 All they could have predicted, maybe, 802 00:49:00,498 --> 00:49:03,228 was that as the latex flowed from these trees, 803 00:49:03,367 --> 00:49:05,768 the profits would protect British industry 804 00:49:05,903 --> 00:49:09,202 against some future economic rainy day. 805 00:49:09,340 --> 00:49:12,570 Well, rubber was good news for raincoat makers... 806 00:49:14,679 --> 00:49:19,445 and really bad news for people living in Hamburg, Germany, in 1943, 807 00:49:19,583 --> 00:49:22,018 because at one point during World War II, 808 00:49:22,152 --> 00:49:23,585 the Japanese invade 809 00:49:23,721 --> 00:49:26,713 most of the places out east growing rubber, like Malaysia, 810 00:49:26,858 --> 00:49:29,190 and here in Sri Lanka is about all the rubber 811 00:49:29,327 --> 00:49:32,193 the Allies have left for the war effort. 812 00:49:32,329 --> 00:49:35,298 One of those efforts is a really nifty idea... 813 00:49:35,432 --> 00:49:37,833 well, it's a nifty idea if you're having a war... 814 00:49:37,969 --> 00:49:40,903 and that is to mix rubber with gasoline, 815 00:49:41,039 --> 00:49:42,699 which makes the gasoline burn slower 816 00:49:42,840 --> 00:49:45,570 and stick to anything while it does that. 817 00:49:47,612 --> 00:49:51,309 So thanks to Continental Drift and Wegener's passion for mirages, 818 00:49:51,449 --> 00:49:54,577 magic images from the sister of King Arthur, 819 00:49:54,719 --> 00:49:56,186 whose chivalry supposedly triggers 820 00:49:56,320 --> 00:49:58,949 the medieval courtly love answer to adultery, 821 00:49:59,090 --> 00:50:02,490 inspired by the free love ideas of the mystical Cathars, 822 00:50:02,626 --> 00:50:07,326 who live next to the mystical cabalists with their thing about mystic numbers 823 00:50:07,465 --> 00:50:10,161 that turn Pico of Mirandola on to Hebrew, 824 00:50:10,300 --> 00:50:12,565 which then brings trouble for John Reuchlin, 825 00:50:12,704 --> 00:50:16,139 not helped by his nephew, the Protestant Melanchthon, 826 00:50:16,273 --> 00:50:18,902 who has a row with the creep Osiander, 827 00:50:19,043 --> 00:50:20,635 who pulls that famous con 828 00:50:20,777 --> 00:50:22,905 when he rewrites the work of Copernicus. 829 00:50:23,047 --> 00:50:26,175 Osiander's Italian pal, Dr. Cardano, 830 00:50:26,317 --> 00:50:29,114 who cures the asthmatic Archbishop Hamilton, 831 00:50:29,253 --> 00:50:31,722 executed for helping Mary, Queen of Scots, 832 00:50:31,856 --> 00:50:35,188 whose lover, the explosive Bothwell, ends up in Scandinavia 833 00:50:35,326 --> 00:50:37,590 with a pal of astronomer Tycho Brahe, 834 00:50:37,728 --> 00:50:40,253 whose assistant, Willem Blaeu, makes maps 835 00:50:40,398 --> 00:50:43,697 updated in the first proper atlas by the Englishman Dudley, 836 00:50:43,835 --> 00:50:45,597 working in Italy for Buontalenti, 837 00:50:45,737 --> 00:50:49,103 who kind of kicks off opera: A rave success, 838 00:50:49,239 --> 00:50:51,867 especially with the French big cheese Cardinal Mazeran, 839 00:50:52,010 --> 00:50:55,070 whose library inspires the secretary to the English navy, 840 00:50:55,213 --> 00:50:57,840 which eventually buys that French semaphore, 841 00:50:57,981 --> 00:51:00,449 after which Gamble gets the patent for food in cans 842 00:51:00,585 --> 00:51:02,518 that feeds explorers like Hooker, 843 00:51:02,653 --> 00:51:05,521 who transplants rubber trees to Sri Lanka. 844 00:51:05,657 --> 00:51:07,954 As a result of all that, 845 00:51:08,092 --> 00:51:12,585 we have rubber to mix with gasoline to make it burn slower, 846 00:51:12,730 --> 00:51:14,527 a very effective idea 847 00:51:14,666 --> 00:51:19,034 if what you have in mind is what they had in mind 848 00:51:19,170 --> 00:51:22,764 on the night of July 24, 1943... 849 00:51:22,907 --> 00:51:24,771 this: 850 00:51:24,909 --> 00:51:28,639 The World War II firebombing of Hamburg.