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Last time

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in this potentially award-winning history
of human civilization,

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I showed you how our ancestors
underwent a sudden spiritual awakening

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like my Aunt Carol.

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Like Carol,
they found exciting gurus to follow.

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But unlike her,
they didn't leave their husband

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to live on a farm in Wales with them,
alongside eight other women,

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in a situation I can't discuss further

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as it's currently under investigation
by North Wales Police.

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Our world changed forever,

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as religious messages
of tolerance and forgiveness

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inspired mankind to fight like rats
in a shoe for hundreds of years.

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But the world was about
to have its mind expanded

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and then split at the seams
by a different kind of higher calling.

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Humankind was about
to undergo a renaissance

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by having the Renaissance,

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here on the same planet
we still use today,

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a glistening space rock known as Earth.

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It's the year 1440.
Not now, but then, in 1440.

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And a new invention is about to spark
a blaze beneath the bush of possibility.

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Centuries earlier,
the Chinese had invented printing,

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but no one in Europe paid attention

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until the printing press
was invented again

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by a German called
Johannes "Steve" Gutenberg.

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Gutenberg's press
was the first of its kind in history,

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except Chinese history.

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Did the printing press
actually change anything of significance?

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If Gutenberg hadn't invented printing,

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which meant that ideas could be
communicated throughout the world,

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our culture would not have developed
in the same way as it has.

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So in many ways, he has made the world
our modern world today.

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So that's your idea of significant?

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The first book to be printed
on Gutenberg's press was the Bible.

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But as well as spreading the word of God,

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it spread the word of scientists,
philosophers, and eventually Dan Brown.

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Writing new books takes a long time,
so to give their presses something to do,

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people reached back through time
in search of old material to repackage.

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That's how the philosophy
of ancient Greece

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suddenly came back in fashion
and blew minds.

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At the time, most people's lives were
as grim and joyless as my Uncle Martin.

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Their only hobbies were doing
backbreaking work, dying of the plague,

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or being tortured.

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As far as they were concerned,
this was all there was to life.

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So for them, being exposed
to ancient Greek philosophy

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wasn't boring like it is now,

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but a mind-expanding experience that
transformed the way they saw themselves.

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Like when my mate Paul
ate five ketamine brownies

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and thought he could
communicate telepathically

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with any animal he saw on television.

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Although, whereas Paul ended up
sectioned for his own safety,

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our ancestors decided to change the world.

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This is Florence.

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The Italians call it Firenze
to try and stop tourists from finding it.

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But it's definitely Florence because
we double-checked it on a British map.

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Florence might look
like a pointless mess today,

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but in the 15th century
it was the epicenter

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of an unprecedented artistic
and cultural phenomenon.

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What was "Renai-sauce"?

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Was that a sort of 16th-century ketchup?

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Renaissance comes from
the French "renaissance."

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"Re-naissance."

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Naissance is birth.
So it was seen as a rebirth.

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So it's not a condiment at all.

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- No, not as far as I know.
- Okay.

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What sauces did they use back then?

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So this is an area of culinary history.

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I'm not very familiar
with the history of sauces.

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So you're not the sauce person?

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I'm not predominantly a sauce person.

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We're going to have to rethink
this whole interview.

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During the Renaissance,

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Florence produced artists who,
for the first time in history,

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were competent enough
to create paintings worth looking at.

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One of the most competent paintsmiths
was Botticelli.

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So what's this painting?

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So this is Alessandro Botticelli's
The Birth of Venus.

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It's one of the great paintings
of the Renaissance.

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So do we know if the birth of Venus
actually looked like this?

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Well, it's depicting
a sort of mythical figure,

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so it's sort of metaphorical.

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So it's the idea of a goddess

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who is coming into being,
rather than being born.

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Her neck's very long.

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Was she part giraffe
or could he just not do necks?

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No, her... her neck...

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It's meant to be a sign of beauty
that he would have elongated the neck.

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I've spotted a mistake here. Look.

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He's blowing,
and her hair's all whipping about.

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But look at these trees on the right.
Not moving at all. No wind.

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I think these people have been
photoshopped in.

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It's all fake.

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Other notable artists produced
3D paintings, or sculptures,

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the most famous example
being this very naked man,

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known as "Michelangelo's David."

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If you manage to look past
his little marble goolies,

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you'll notice
there's an incredible amount of detail

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all over the rest of Michelangelo's body.

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His eyes have pupils in them
like a Furby does.

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His muscles are really detailed.
Look at his abs.

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They prove gyms are bullshit

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because they didn't have gyms back then,
but look how toned he is.

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Then there's the realistic veins
in the back of his hands,

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carrying statue blood to his fingers.

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Yet, despite all this attention to detail,

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a quick inspection of his back half
reveals he doesn't have an anus.

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It's a baffling omission.

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Maybe the sculptor got embarrassed

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or the model had to leave early that day,
or didn't actually have an anus.

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We just don't know.

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The undisputed master of the Renaissance

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was a human known as Leonardo da Vinci.

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This is The Vitruvian Man.

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It's a drawing made by Leonardo
in about 1490.

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What's it for?

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What's the point of it?

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The point was that Leonardo wanted to know

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how to sketch the human body proportion.

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Just to be clear,
you can see his bits too?

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I'm not imagining that.

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Is there a version of this
with underpants on?

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Oh, no, no, no.

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He thought that was fine, did he?
It's a bit rude, isn't it?

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No, it's not.

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Because, you know, the beauty
of the human body, of course.

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Look at the todger.
You can't say that's beautiful.

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Look at it.

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Leonardo also filled notebook
after notebook with drawings of inventions

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years ahead of their time.

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What's that?

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This is a flying machine.
It's like the helicopter.

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It doesn't look very convincing.

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Like my mate Paul invented
a treadmill for his fiancée's pet snake,

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and the sketches for that
were much more convincing than this.

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And he was on mushrooms.

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Mind you, the prototype
did pull the snake's head off.

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Yeah...

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Worst ending to a birthday party
I've ever been to.

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His inventions were one thing,

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but it's mainly for his paintings
that we know da Vinci today.

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This is the Mona Lisa, an actual painting
that exists in our world and on this wall.

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It's Mona Lisa's enigmatic character
that draws people in.

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Like all women, you simply can't tell
what's going on in her head.

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Just looking at her
prompts so many questions.

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Who is she? What's she smiling about?

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Is she holding a balloon
between her knees?

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And if so, what color is it?

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Has she got a boyfriend? What's his name?

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What's between his knees,
and how can we find out?

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The answer is we can't.

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And that's why people
keep returning every year

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to gaze upon her and wonder,

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then stop wondering and go home.

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As well as looking all right,

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"Da Vinci's work demonstrated mastery

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of the trailblazing techniques
of the age," it says here.

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Before the Renaissance,

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other people's paintings
were in a sort of wonky 2D.

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That's because artists
had no sense of perspective.

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A bit like my mate Paul,
who punched a waiter in a TGI Friday's

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for dropping his banoffee pie.

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Just look at this 14th-century painting
of Jesus having his fateful tea party.

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The dimensions are all wrong.

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The room's squashed up,

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so it looks like it's happening
in the lid of a cardboard box.

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Jesus is twice as big as the others,

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so it looks like he's enjoying
an intimate dinner with some school boys.

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Not a good look.

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And what are those? Bowls or seashells?

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It's just shoddy craftsmanship.
Absolutely disgraceful.

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Shouldn't even be in a museum.

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But da Vinci's reboot of the same painting
is a different story.

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He knew how to perspective
the fuck out of things.

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Look at the angles of the walls
in The Last Supper and the table there.

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You almost feel like you could crawl
inside it and betray Jesus yourself.

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Perspective was
a huge leap forward for human art,

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on a par with the release
of Crash Bandicoot centuries later.

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There's no denying the Renaissance
was a pretty big deal for civilization.

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Just how important it was
is for experts to decide.

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Which was more culturally significant,

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the Renaissance
or "Single Ladies" by Beyoncé?

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They both have their period
and they both have their time.

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Um...

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Beyoncé I'm rather fond of,

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but what the Renaissance
was trying to do

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was to reform culture as a whole,

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and whatever Beyoncé does, I don't think
she's quite got that ambition.

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So, what, the work
of a few straight white men

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just blows Beyoncé out of the water?

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Is that what you're saying, on camera?

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The Renaissance
might have been expanding minds,

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but without programs
like this around to educate them,

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people were still largely ignorant
about the planet they were living on.

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Ask a medieval peasant where
America was and you'd get a blank look.

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Or, worse still, the plague.

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That's because to them,
the world map looked like this,

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a garbled mass of the countries
they'd discovered so far,

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all squashed together,
with America nowhere to be seen.

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But one man changed all that:

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Italian sailor and detective
Christopher Colombo.

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Colombo thought that if he sailed
off the edge of the map,

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he'd reappear on the other side
like Pac-Man.

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It would be a shortcut to India,
and he'd shake off any ghosts on his tail.

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It was a huge risk.

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If Colombo was right,
he'd be a millionaire.

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If he was wrong, he'd be a laughingstock.
But a dead one.

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And he could live with that,
which is why he set sail.

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Colombo failed to find India,

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but his ship eventually
bumped into the New World,

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Planet Earth Part Two, aka America.

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And before long,
others were following in his wake.

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This is Plymouth.

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00:11:42,800 --> 00:11:47,120
Gathered here in 1620 was a group
of pilgrims who yearned for a better life.

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00:11:47,200 --> 00:11:50,800
Which isn't surprising because,
like I say, this is Plymouth.

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The Pilgrims leapt into their water
mobile, or boat, the Starship Mayflower

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and bravely sailed across
this drawing of the Atlantic Ocean

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to arrive on the other side,
still in Plymouth.

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They must have been devastated.

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00:12:06,160 --> 00:12:09,520
Luckily, it turned out this Plymouth
wasn't the one they'd just left.

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At first, the European colonists
found life in the New World hard.

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Luckily, some Native Americans
taught them how to grow corn

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and where to fish.

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In exchange, the colonists
introduced the Native Americans

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to smallpox.

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The settlers never forgot what
the Native Americans had done for them,

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00:12:27,360 --> 00:12:30,840
although they did ignore it
when they massacred them years later.

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While the New World
was undergoing massive change,

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a controversial breakthrough
was brewing in the Old World.

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It's the early 1600s,
and this stupidly dressed scientist

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is about to change the way
mankind sees itself forever.

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His name is Galileo,

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one of the few figures in history
to become so famous,

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they're known by just one name.

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00:12:52,280 --> 00:12:55,880
Like Churchill, Pepsi or Garfield.

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00:12:55,960 --> 00:13:00,520
Galileo's full name was
Galileo Figaro Magnifico, wasn't it?

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00:13:00,600 --> 00:13:03,960
I'm not sure that's right. I don't know...

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00:13:04,040 --> 00:13:06,680
That's what it says
in "Dominican Rhapsody."

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00:13:06,760 --> 00:13:08,440
Are you thinking of "Bohemian Rhapsody"?

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00:13:08,520 --> 00:13:09,840
What was his name then?

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00:13:09,920 --> 00:13:13,320
Well, as far as I'm aware,
his name was Galileo Galilei.

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00:13:13,840 --> 00:13:16,520
- Galileo Galilei?
- Yes.

241
00:13:16,600 --> 00:13:19,760
That's like me being called
Philomena Philomenei.

242
00:13:20,840 --> 00:13:22,480
Actually, I quite like that.

243
00:13:22,560 --> 00:13:25,680
Galileo invented a telescope so powerful,

244
00:13:25,760 --> 00:13:28,320
he could watch people
getting changed on the Sun.

245
00:13:28,400 --> 00:13:31,560
Bloody hell.
This makes everything look massive.

246
00:13:31,640 --> 00:13:34,040
Have you had a go on this yet?
It's amazing.

247
00:13:35,080 --> 00:13:38,960
How did you do that?
Are you the real Galileo or an actor one?

248
00:13:40,760 --> 00:13:42,120
Was the real one busy?

249
00:13:42,880 --> 00:13:45,560
Galileo's astronomical smart arsery

250
00:13:45,640 --> 00:13:49,320
led him to a discovery so shocking,
the Pope shat his hat off.

251
00:13:50,160 --> 00:13:53,240
According to the Old Testament,
the Sun goes around the Earth,

252
00:13:53,320 --> 00:13:54,920
not the other way around.

253
00:13:55,000 --> 00:13:59,920
So as far as the church was concerned,
Galileo was calling the Bible a liar.

254
00:14:00,000 --> 00:14:01,760
Rather than overreact,

255
00:14:01,840 --> 00:14:04,880
they did the Christian thing
by accusing him of heresy

256
00:14:04,960 --> 00:14:08,120
and finding him guilty
in a corrupt show trial.

257
00:14:08,200 --> 00:14:12,280
Galileo was sentenced to spend
the rest of his life under house arrest

258
00:14:12,360 --> 00:14:14,480
on a planet
with the Sun spinning around it.

259
00:14:14,560 --> 00:14:16,920
The church thought the Sun
went round the Earth,

260
00:14:17,000 --> 00:14:20,000
but Galileo thought
the Earth went round the Sun.

261
00:14:20,080 --> 00:14:22,200
Whose side are we on here?

262
00:14:22,280 --> 00:14:24,640
We are most definitely on Galileo's side,

263
00:14:25,400 --> 00:14:27,360
as I think the church is today.

264
00:14:27,440 --> 00:14:31,200
Is it possible they were both right and
the Sun and Earth go round each other?

265
00:14:31,280 --> 00:14:34,760
That would keep everyone happy.
Can we just agree on that?

266
00:14:34,840 --> 00:14:38,240
If only he'd invented
some kind of immortality engine

267
00:14:38,320 --> 00:14:40,240
instead of his pointless telescope,

268
00:14:40,320 --> 00:14:43,760
Galileo might have lived
to see his ideas accepted.

269
00:14:43,840 --> 00:14:46,600
Sadly, he simply wasn't that clever.

270
00:14:47,720 --> 00:14:51,600
Like science, the world of philosophy
was also expanding,

271
00:14:51,680 --> 00:14:53,880
thanks to massive thinkers like this man.

272
00:14:54,480 --> 00:14:57,200
Who was Jim Des Cartes?

273
00:14:57,840 --> 00:15:02,760
Well, I don't know
who Jim Des Cartes might be,

274
00:15:02,840 --> 00:15:06,640
but I do know that René Descartes
is often thought of

275
00:15:06,720 --> 00:15:08,840
as the founder of modern philosophy.

276
00:15:08,920 --> 00:15:12,720
What did he mean
by "I think therefore I am"?

277
00:15:13,960 --> 00:15:16,320
Descartes meant that

278
00:15:17,280 --> 00:15:19,760
self-awareness,

279
00:15:19,840 --> 00:15:22,240
self-consciousness,

280
00:15:22,320 --> 00:15:26,680
is the defining feature of human identity.

281
00:15:26,760 --> 00:15:31,520
So hang on, if I think therefore I am,
what about other people?

282
00:15:31,600 --> 00:15:33,960
Do they think therefore they am?

283
00:15:34,040 --> 00:15:37,080
How can I tell
if they're thinking therefore they am?

284
00:15:37,160 --> 00:15:41,120
Or am I just thinking
they think therefore they am,

285
00:15:41,200 --> 00:15:44,600
but actually they're not real
and I'm only thinking they am?

286
00:15:44,680 --> 00:15:48,200
Are you thinking
therefore you am right now?

287
00:15:48,280 --> 00:15:50,040
Well, I wouldn't want to say that

288
00:15:50,120 --> 00:15:55,160
my existence is dependent upon my thought,

289
00:15:55,240 --> 00:15:59,280
but that is not the claim
that Descartes wants to make.

290
00:15:59,360 --> 00:16:02,080
Is it possible to think
you're someone else?

291
00:16:02,160 --> 00:16:07,360
Like, if I thought really hard
that I was Eddie Murphy,

292
00:16:08,080 --> 00:16:10,520
could I eventually become him?

293
00:16:10,600 --> 00:16:14,280
If I did become him, would he become me

294
00:16:14,360 --> 00:16:16,520
or would he just disappear?

295
00:16:17,080 --> 00:16:19,520
Did Des Cartes ever cover this stuff?

296
00:16:20,840 --> 00:16:26,200
No. That's not a topic that Descartes
is covering as far as I'm aware.

297
00:16:26,280 --> 00:16:28,240
Why not?

298
00:16:28,320 --> 00:16:30,880
Descartes inspired
an intellectual movement

299
00:16:30,960 --> 00:16:32,720
known as the Enlightenment,

300
00:16:32,800 --> 00:16:35,520
during which metrosexual elitists
published essays

301
00:16:35,600 --> 00:16:39,720
that expanded humankind's horizons
in a manner that will go unmatched

302
00:16:39,800 --> 00:16:44,320
until the 1989 release of Belgian
techno anthem "Pump Up the Jam."

303
00:17:30,039 --> 00:17:32,039
The man trapped inside this painting

304
00:17:32,120 --> 00:17:35,520
is Enlightenment philosopher
Jean-Jacques Rousseau,

305
00:17:35,600 --> 00:17:39,080
a name so French, he might as well
have been called Pierre Baguette,

306
00:17:39,160 --> 00:17:40,240
but wasn't.

307
00:17:40,320 --> 00:17:42,280
Which is why I didn't call him that.

308
00:17:43,080 --> 00:17:48,040
Rousseau wrote, "Man is free
but is everywhere in chains."

309
00:17:48,120 --> 00:17:52,080
He dreamed of a new society in which
people were masters of their own destiny.

310
00:17:52,720 --> 00:17:57,120
It was the same dream that was tempting
colonists to the New World in droves...

311
00:17:57,200 --> 00:17:58,400
and boats.

312
00:17:59,280 --> 00:18:03,480
After arriving in America to forge a life
of honest, hard work and toil,

313
00:18:03,560 --> 00:18:06,920
many of these colonists quickly discovered
they couldn't be arsed,

314
00:18:07,000 --> 00:18:10,600
so they stole people from Africa
and made them do it instead.

315
00:18:10,680 --> 00:18:14,480
You might think these were precisely
the people Rousseau had been talking about

316
00:18:14,560 --> 00:18:17,320
when he said mankind needed
to throw off its chains.

317
00:18:17,400 --> 00:18:18,840
But they weren't.

318
00:18:18,920 --> 00:18:21,760
Like many humanists,
he'd found a clever loophole.

319
00:18:21,840 --> 00:18:25,840
By not thinking of slaves as human,
he was free to not give a shit.

320
00:18:25,920 --> 00:18:28,080
As luck would have it, around this time,

321
00:18:28,160 --> 00:18:30,960
the colonists started
getting interested in freedom.

322
00:18:32,320 --> 00:18:33,840
Although as luck wouldn't have it,

323
00:18:33,920 --> 00:18:37,640
it wasn't the slaves' freedom
they were interested in, but their own.

324
00:18:37,720 --> 00:18:42,360
The British colonies were ruled
by king and line drawing George III.

325
00:18:43,160 --> 00:18:48,360
But the relationship between old England
and the New World was getting frosty.

326
00:18:48,440 --> 00:18:53,560
What started the tension between
the British and the Americans?

327
00:18:53,640 --> 00:18:56,400
Was it because you say cookies
and we say biscuits

328
00:18:56,480 --> 00:18:59,360
and you say sidewalk and we say pavement?

329
00:18:59,440 --> 00:19:00,800
Because I find in a relationship,

330
00:19:00,880 --> 00:19:03,520
it's those little things
that start to grate after a while.

331
00:19:03,600 --> 00:19:05,240
It was worse than that.

332
00:19:05,320 --> 00:19:08,080
Britain decided they were going
to tax the colonies

333
00:19:08,160 --> 00:19:09,880
and this hadn't happened before.

334
00:19:09,960 --> 00:19:12,920
So it was a disagreement
over money, basically.

335
00:19:13,000 --> 00:19:16,920
It's like the situation
between me and my ex, Sean.

336
00:19:17,000 --> 00:19:21,440
Uh, when we used to get takeaway,
or takeout, as you call it,

337
00:19:21,520 --> 00:19:26,200
um, sometimes, you know, he would
always insist that we go halves

338
00:19:26,280 --> 00:19:31,160
and yet he would want to buy things
like onion bhajis, which he knows I hate,

339
00:19:31,240 --> 00:19:33,120
and they made his breath stink.

340
00:19:33,200 --> 00:19:36,640
- Mm.
- So, but I had to pay for half of that.

341
00:19:36,720 --> 00:19:40,160
That doesn't seem fair to me.
Does it to you?

342
00:19:40,920 --> 00:19:42,320
Put that way, no.

343
00:19:42,400 --> 00:19:45,200
No. And that's from a professor, Sean.

344
00:19:47,040 --> 00:19:49,680
Finally, in Boston in 1773,

345
00:19:49,760 --> 00:19:52,640
a group of colonists decided
they'd had enough.

346
00:19:52,720 --> 00:19:57,200
So when the people in Boston
got angry with the British,

347
00:19:57,280 --> 00:20:01,200
why did they just hold a prissy Tea Party

348
00:20:01,280 --> 00:20:04,560
instead of having a proper fight
like British men would?

349
00:20:04,640 --> 00:20:09,000
Why has there always been this big
cowardly streak in the Americans,

350
00:20:09,080 --> 00:20:10,280
even to this day?

351
00:20:10,960 --> 00:20:13,960
Well, the only cowardly streak
in that, I suppose,

352
00:20:14,040 --> 00:20:17,360
is that they dressed
themselves up as Indians

353
00:20:17,440 --> 00:20:19,200
and no one said who their names were.

354
00:20:19,280 --> 00:20:21,320
But would you voluntarily,

355
00:20:21,400 --> 00:20:24,520
when you didn't have to, go to jail?

356
00:20:26,440 --> 00:20:29,160
It depends what facilities
they had, I think.

357
00:20:29,840 --> 00:20:32,760
Disrespecting our tea was one thing,

358
00:20:32,840 --> 00:20:36,120
but an even nastier slap
in the tits was to come.

359
00:20:36,200 --> 00:20:40,360
In 1776, the leaders
of the 13 colonies decided

360
00:20:40,440 --> 00:20:44,600
that they didn't want to be called
British anymore, but Americans.

361
00:20:44,680 --> 00:20:48,640
This straight, white supergroup
known as the Founding Fathers

362
00:20:48,720 --> 00:20:51,640
drafted the most famous
breakup text in history,

363
00:20:51,720 --> 00:20:54,240
the Declaration of Independence.

364
00:20:54,320 --> 00:20:57,760
All the men you see here
became idols if you're American.

365
00:20:57,840 --> 00:20:59,720
Otherwise, they're just not all that.

366
00:21:00,240 --> 00:21:04,160
It led to all-out war
between American and British.

367
00:21:04,240 --> 00:21:06,840
Because no one
had invented camouflage yet,

368
00:21:06,920 --> 00:21:09,960
the British troops of the time
wore bright red coats

369
00:21:10,040 --> 00:21:14,000
and were consequently shot
in their thousands, while looking amazing.

370
00:21:14,760 --> 00:21:18,520
This painting depicts
one of the war's most pivotal events:

371
00:21:18,600 --> 00:21:21,520
George Washington
crossing the Delaware River.

372
00:21:21,600 --> 00:21:24,880
As you can see, he had to stand up
for the whole journey

373
00:21:24,960 --> 00:21:26,720
because he hadn't reserved a seat.

374
00:21:26,800 --> 00:21:29,840
He didn't fall in,
but he also didn't help with the rowing,

375
00:21:29,920 --> 00:21:31,920
which must have been annoying.

376
00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:36,400
Eventually, Washington won,
becoming America's first president,

377
00:21:36,480 --> 00:21:39,000
the single most revered role in the world,

378
00:21:39,080 --> 00:21:41,000
until 2016.

379
00:21:41,640 --> 00:21:45,200
Washington and the other founding daddies
wrote the Constitution,

380
00:21:45,280 --> 00:21:47,600
an instruction manual
for their new country,

381
00:21:47,680 --> 00:21:51,440
containing some of the most influential
political concepts ever.

382
00:21:51,520 --> 00:21:55,840
I read somewhere that America
isn't just a country, but an idea.

383
00:21:56,480 --> 00:21:59,120
But it is just a country, isn't it?

384
00:21:59,200 --> 00:22:01,560
Well, it was founded under an idea,

385
00:22:01,640 --> 00:22:03,640
so it's organized around...

386
00:22:03,720 --> 00:22:05,880
has always been organized around the idea

387
00:22:05,960 --> 00:22:07,960
that it's a land of liberty for everyone.

388
00:22:08,040 --> 00:22:10,400
Yeah, but, like,
having a sandwich, that's an idea.

389
00:22:10,480 --> 00:22:13,000
Painting your bicycle blue,
that's an idea.

390
00:22:13,080 --> 00:22:15,880
Going... that's an idea.

391
00:22:15,960 --> 00:22:18,400
America is just a place.

392
00:22:18,920 --> 00:22:22,200
The American Revolution
sent shockwaves around the globe,

393
00:22:22,280 --> 00:22:23,960
not to mention the planet.

394
00:22:24,040 --> 00:22:26,200
It hit especially hard in France,

395
00:22:26,280 --> 00:22:29,800
where the common man, or "homme,"
had to scrabble about in the muck

396
00:22:30,520 --> 00:22:34,720
while the rich had got so posh
they'd evolved frills.

397
00:22:34,800 --> 00:22:38,640
Soon, the average Jacques had enough
of their ruler, King Louis XVI,

398
00:22:38,720 --> 00:22:41,360
and his identical wives,
Marie and Toinette,

399
00:22:41,440 --> 00:22:46,280
who enjoyed lavish lifestyles while
the poor were forced to survive on cake.

400
00:22:47,000 --> 00:22:51,960
Finally, in 1789,
it exploded into topless revolution.

401
00:22:52,880 --> 00:22:54,680
The poor toppled the king

402
00:22:54,760 --> 00:22:58,560
and invented a machine that would
rid the world of royalty forever.

403
00:23:00,040 --> 00:23:04,160
The guillotine was specifically designed
to be the most humane way

404
00:23:04,240 --> 00:23:07,760
to decapitate someone
in front of a jeering crowd.

405
00:23:07,840 --> 00:23:12,800
You simply fed a royal, headfirst,
through the chopping hole here.

406
00:23:12,880 --> 00:23:16,760
Then the razor-sharp blade up there
would drop down and slice their head off,

407
00:23:16,840 --> 00:23:19,880
sending it sailing away
from their neck and body.

408
00:23:19,960 --> 00:23:22,640
At that point,
they probably thought they'd escaped.

409
00:23:22,720 --> 00:23:26,600
But any sense of victory was short lived,
because moments later,

410
00:23:26,680 --> 00:23:31,080
they'd land face first into
this horribly coarse wicker basket.

411
00:23:32,800 --> 00:23:35,680
If you look, there's no padding in there,

412
00:23:35,760 --> 00:23:38,320
so the fall would have caused
extensive bruising

413
00:23:38,400 --> 00:23:40,080
and maybe even concussion.

414
00:23:40,160 --> 00:23:41,680
I suppose it could have been worse.

415
00:23:41,760 --> 00:23:43,656
They could have made you
stick your head out of a carriage

416
00:23:43,680 --> 00:23:46,120
and driven really close to a building.

417
00:23:46,200 --> 00:23:50,320
Even so, being guillotined
would have had a huge impact on anyone.

418
00:23:50,400 --> 00:23:52,160
But especially King Louis.

419
00:23:52,240 --> 00:23:55,960
With his head gone, he could never
breed or wear a crown again

420
00:23:56,040 --> 00:23:59,720
and was almost certainly unemployable
in any other line of work.

421
00:23:59,800 --> 00:24:03,080
Perhaps that's why he chose
to withdraw from public life completely

422
00:24:03,160 --> 00:24:04,680
shortly after it happened.

423
00:24:04,760 --> 00:24:07,280
The French Revolution
wasn't the first time

424
00:24:07,360 --> 00:24:11,200
the masses had risen up against the elite,
and it may not be the last.

425
00:24:11,280 --> 00:24:15,200
A lot of revolutions seem to be about
poor people overthrowing the rich.

426
00:24:15,280 --> 00:24:17,600
Do you think billionaires like Elon Musk

427
00:24:17,680 --> 00:24:19,960
should be worried
about getting guillotined?

428
00:24:20,720 --> 00:24:23,240
I think that the French Revolution

429
00:24:23,320 --> 00:24:26,320
certainly made a lot of people
who were powerful

430
00:24:26,960 --> 00:24:29,280
very, very worried about their existence.

431
00:24:29,360 --> 00:24:33,920
I suppose Elon Musk could invent a machine
that chops his own head off electronically

432
00:24:34,000 --> 00:24:35,440
before the mob arrives.

433
00:24:35,520 --> 00:24:39,040
- You know much more about this than I do.
- I'm just guessing.

434
00:24:40,120 --> 00:24:43,800
Soon, France decided it needed
a strong man to take charge of things,

435
00:24:43,880 --> 00:24:46,840
and they got one in the form
of the Emperor Napoleon.

436
00:24:46,920 --> 00:24:50,280
No relation to the Emperor Penguin
as far as we can ascertain at this time.

437
00:24:51,160 --> 00:24:54,400
Napoleon did a load of massive wars
on land and sea,

438
00:24:54,480 --> 00:24:56,800
which remain far too expensive
to properly re-create

439
00:24:56,880 --> 00:24:59,520
in historical documentaries to this day.

440
00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:05,360
Laying sound effects
over a painting of a battle like this

441
00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:08,120
gives some idea
of what it might have been like,

442
00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:10,320
but there was still
a key ingredient missing.

443
00:25:10,880 --> 00:25:13,640
A soundtrack of classical music
was the only thing

444
00:25:13,720 --> 00:25:16,200
that would really bring
these Napoleonic wars to life.

445
00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:26,000
See? Loads better.

446
00:25:26,760 --> 00:25:30,920
And luckily, classical music was being
perfected elsewhere in Europe

447
00:25:31,000 --> 00:25:33,280
by a composer called Beethoven.

448
00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:39,880
Did Beethoven have an actual
full-sized horse living inside his face?

449
00:25:40,760 --> 00:25:42,640
Sorry, I've misphrased that.

450
00:25:42,720 --> 00:25:45,680
I mean, was Beethoven good at music?

451
00:25:47,080 --> 00:25:52,440
Yeah. He's considered to be the best
composer of Western classical music ever.

452
00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:54,520
Beethoven wrote that song that goes...

453
00:25:59,120 --> 00:26:00,760
What do those lyrics mean?

454
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:04,760
Um... Well, it's a really strong
orchestral motif.

455
00:26:04,840 --> 00:26:06,920
It's just the word "dum"
over and over again.

456
00:26:07,000 --> 00:26:11,000
Is it a dig at his audience,
or is it German for something?

457
00:26:11,080 --> 00:26:16,280
With the Beethoven symphonic music,
it's all just instruments.

458
00:26:16,360 --> 00:26:21,120
So there are no words
to these pieces at all.

459
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:24,920
No lyrics? How are we supposed to know
what it's about if it doesn't have lyrics?

460
00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:26,800
It's literally meaningless.

461
00:26:27,360 --> 00:26:30,880
Despite enjoying great success
with his pointless tunes,

462
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:34,240
Beethoven faced huge
personal challenges in his career.

463
00:26:34,760 --> 00:26:39,080
Is it true that in the final years
of his working life, Beethoven was dead?

464
00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:43,120
Well, he was deaf for most of his life.

465
00:26:43,200 --> 00:26:44,240
No, dead.

466
00:26:44,320 --> 00:26:45,840
- Dead?
- Yeah.

467
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:48,160
No.

468
00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:50,640
The producer wrote it in the notes.

469
00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:54,200
It's definitely here. Let me see.

470
00:26:55,600 --> 00:27:00,280
"In his later years,
Beethoven was profoundly dead."

471
00:27:01,080 --> 00:27:04,120
Profoundly deaf. D-E-A-F.

472
00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:06,200
Obviously he went deaf when he died.

473
00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:10,440
But was he deaf when he was still alive?

474
00:27:11,040 --> 00:27:13,960
Yes, he was profoundly.
Yeah, he was profoundly.

475
00:27:14,040 --> 00:27:16,880
But not dead?
He wasn't dead when he was alive?

476
00:27:16,960 --> 00:27:18,680
No, no. Not.

477
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:21,800
So how did he write the music
when he was dead?

478
00:27:22,480 --> 00:27:25,640
On 26th March 1827,

479
00:27:25,720 --> 00:27:30,720
Beethoven did roll over and his genius
was thought to be lost forever.

480
00:27:30,800 --> 00:27:32,720
Until now.

481
00:27:32,800 --> 00:27:35,280
Silicon Valley boffins
have re-created his mind

482
00:27:35,360 --> 00:27:40,120
and installed it into this smart speaker,
the B8-Hoven Smart Home+.

483
00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:42,080
Let's see if it works.

484
00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:44,800
B8-Hoven, compose a new symphony.

485
00:27:45,360 --> 00:27:49,080
- Was war das?
- Compose a new symphony.

486
00:27:49,160 --> 00:27:50,640
Where am I?

487
00:27:50,720 --> 00:27:52,880
What? Just compose your thing.

488
00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:54,720
Mein Gott, it is dark in here.

489
00:27:54,800 --> 00:27:57,200
Why am I speaking English?
I cannot see my legs.

490
00:27:57,280 --> 00:28:00,120
Just... play my Friday night playlist.

491
00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:01,560
Playing Friday night playlist.

492
00:28:03,120 --> 00:28:05,040
Why am I doing this?

493
00:28:05,120 --> 00:28:07,800
Mein Gott im Himmel, kill me!

494
00:28:12,280 --> 00:28:15,760
As we've seen,
in just a few hundred years,

495
00:28:15,840 --> 00:28:17,640
humankind had undergone a series

496
00:28:17,720 --> 00:28:20,760
of massive cultural
and political revolutions.

497
00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:24,000
Next time,
I'll show you an even bigger revolution:

498
00:28:24,080 --> 00:28:28,640
an Industrial Revolution
forged in steel, steam, sweat,

499
00:28:28,720 --> 00:28:32,160
planes, trains, automobiles
and planes a gain.

500
00:28:32,240 --> 00:28:34,880
People tried for years
to make an aeroplane.

501
00:28:35,520 --> 00:28:38,280
Why were we so interested
in conquering the sky?

502
00:28:38,360 --> 00:28:41,600
There's nothing up there.
There's not even anywhere to sit.