1 00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:09,720 Last time, in 29 informative yet accessible minutes, 2 00:00:09,800 --> 00:00:13,840 we saw how a string of breakthroughs led humankind to build the modern world 3 00:00:13,920 --> 00:00:18,480 and create a weapon powerful enough to turn it all to white-hot, boiling shit. 4 00:00:18,560 --> 00:00:22,520 But that was only part of the story. The part after that starts now. 5 00:00:23,200 --> 00:00:24,960 It's 1945. 6 00:00:25,040 --> 00:00:28,880 The atomic bomb's just gone off. The world lies in ruins. 7 00:00:28,960 --> 00:00:31,560 Cloning of Hitler has already begun. 8 00:00:31,640 --> 00:00:33,560 The future looked uncertain, 9 00:00:33,640 --> 00:00:37,160 and it was getting closer every minute, like it always does. 10 00:00:38,120 --> 00:00:41,280 But this was going to be a future unlike any the world had seen before. 11 00:00:41,360 --> 00:00:45,640 A future of moon men and rock stars, big business and free love, 12 00:00:45,720 --> 00:00:47,440 computers and the Internet. 13 00:00:47,520 --> 00:00:50,520 And a killer robot sent through time to kill Sarah Connor. 14 00:00:50,600 --> 00:00:52,880 Although that bit was just in a film. 15 00:00:52,960 --> 00:00:56,920 Modern civilization had arrived, but a clash of worldviews 16 00:00:57,000 --> 00:01:00,160 meant that the threat of all-out conflict was never far away. 17 00:01:00,240 --> 00:01:03,840 Could new forms of mass communication help us all to get along? 18 00:01:03,920 --> 00:01:05,760 Or totally not do that? 19 00:01:05,840 --> 00:01:07,920 Should there be two social medias, 20 00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:11,280 one for people who are right and one for people who are wrong? 21 00:01:11,360 --> 00:01:15,240 I know a lot of people I'd put on the wrong one, like wankers. 22 00:01:15,320 --> 00:01:19,080 So join me now in the last part of human existence, 23 00:01:19,160 --> 00:01:21,800 as I find out how we got where I am now 24 00:01:21,880 --> 00:01:23,440 and where we'll be tomorrow, 25 00:01:23,520 --> 00:01:26,680 which at the time of filming is Wednesday. 26 00:01:26,760 --> 00:01:29,880 Whenever the future arrives, it'll happen here, 27 00:01:29,960 --> 00:01:33,840 on a fragile bauble I've come to know as Earth. 28 00:01:34,920 --> 00:01:36,776 - Okay, cut. - My hair looks fucking shit. 29 00:01:50,720 --> 00:01:53,800 Russia. A vast land to the east. 30 00:01:53,880 --> 00:01:56,680 It's the first time we've mentioned it in this series, 31 00:01:56,760 --> 00:01:58,920 but it's been there all along. 32 00:01:59,920 --> 00:02:03,640 At the start of the 20th century, Russia was a vast empire, 33 00:02:03,720 --> 00:02:06,680 just like the Marvel Cinematic Universe is today. 34 00:02:07,760 --> 00:02:11,760 The average Russian was a pheasant, but he dreamt of being a man. 35 00:02:11,840 --> 00:02:13,680 Preferably a wealthy one. 36 00:02:13,760 --> 00:02:16,880 Because while the Russian pheasants lived in poverty, 37 00:02:16,960 --> 00:02:19,520 the rich lived in St. Petersburg. 38 00:02:19,600 --> 00:02:25,040 The top Russian was called Czar Nicholas, which is Russian for King Nicholas. 39 00:02:25,120 --> 00:02:27,720 He was allowed to rule the country like a dictator, 40 00:02:27,800 --> 00:02:31,680 which I've been advised to say isn't how Russia works today. 41 00:02:31,760 --> 00:02:35,800 A world like this where the masses toil for pennies 42 00:02:35,880 --> 00:02:37,760 while a tiny elite grow rich 43 00:02:37,840 --> 00:02:42,120 seems so obviously unfair and unthinkable to us today, 44 00:02:42,200 --> 00:02:45,600 we can scarcely imagine what it must have been like. 45 00:02:45,680 --> 00:02:48,040 One man who thought it was ein load of Scheiße 46 00:02:48,120 --> 00:02:50,480 was German thinker Karl Marx. 47 00:02:50,560 --> 00:02:53,600 It's hard to tell, but if you look closely at this photograph, 48 00:02:53,680 --> 00:02:55,880 you might notice he had a beard. 49 00:02:56,440 --> 00:02:58,280 Marx also had a vision, 50 00:02:58,360 --> 00:03:01,720 which he wrote down in a book called The Commonest Man in Festo. 51 00:03:01,800 --> 00:03:04,240 Today, it's one of those books that boffins talk about, 52 00:03:04,320 --> 00:03:07,280 but no one actually reads, like all books. 53 00:03:07,360 --> 00:03:09,120 But back then, it was a hit, 54 00:03:09,200 --> 00:03:12,920 particularly popular amongst the 18-to-35 anti-capitalist, 55 00:03:13,000 --> 00:03:15,080 revolutionary demographic. 56 00:03:15,160 --> 00:03:19,440 One Russian who read the book was the man currently starring in this photograph, 57 00:03:19,520 --> 00:03:21,600 Vladimir Ilyich John Lennon. 58 00:03:21,680 --> 00:03:24,320 Lenin imagined a world with no possessions, 59 00:03:24,400 --> 00:03:27,840 I wonder if you can, nothing to kill or die for, 60 00:03:27,920 --> 00:03:29,600 a brotherhood of man. 61 00:03:29,680 --> 00:03:32,640 And he chose to bring it about with a violent uprising. 62 00:03:34,200 --> 00:03:36,360 In 1917, he got his chance. 63 00:03:37,120 --> 00:03:41,640 Thanks to food shortages, people started rioting for bread, like ducks do. 64 00:03:42,320 --> 00:03:45,240 Lenin and his followers hacked into the Winter Palace 65 00:03:45,320 --> 00:03:47,560 and uploaded a communist government. 66 00:03:48,560 --> 00:03:54,000 Russia changed its name to USSR, or sometimes CCC... P! 67 00:03:54,080 --> 00:03:56,240 What was the Soviet onion? 68 00:03:56,320 --> 00:03:58,880 I think you're laboring under a misapprehension 69 00:03:58,960 --> 00:04:00,840 and you probably mean the Soviet Union. 70 00:04:00,920 --> 00:04:04,120 No, it's onion, I saw it on a bit of paper earlier. 71 00:04:04,200 --> 00:04:07,080 It's probably been misspelt, or you can't read very well. 72 00:04:07,160 --> 00:04:10,360 But I think that you mean, in historical terms, the Soviet Union 73 00:04:10,440 --> 00:04:13,160 or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. 74 00:04:13,240 --> 00:04:16,200 I don't want to be rude, but I think you're mansplaining a bit. 75 00:04:16,280 --> 00:04:18,720 Can we stick to the topic of the Soviet onion, please? 76 00:04:18,800 --> 00:04:21,280 - Okay. - What exactly was it? 77 00:04:21,359 --> 00:04:23,960 If you don't know, it's okay to say, I won't judge you. 78 00:04:24,520 --> 00:04:30,520 Well, if you want to talk about sort of Russian Soviet vegetables, we can. 79 00:04:30,600 --> 00:04:32,680 I mean, it was a deeply agrarian country. 80 00:04:32,760 --> 00:04:36,720 And so there were lots of onions, lots of potatoes, lots of other things. 81 00:04:36,800 --> 00:04:39,000 - Did they have turnips? - Think so. 82 00:04:39,080 --> 00:04:42,840 Cheap, easy to grow, hardy, great in a stew. 83 00:04:42,920 --> 00:04:45,960 So how come you know so much about vegetables? 84 00:04:46,040 --> 00:04:48,240 Have you got an allotment? 85 00:04:49,040 --> 00:04:51,480 In 1924, Lenin left the band 86 00:04:51,560 --> 00:04:55,440 to concentrate on existing only in an afterlife he didn't believe in. 87 00:04:55,520 --> 00:04:58,360 Lenin's place was taken by Joseph Stalin, 88 00:04:58,440 --> 00:05:00,600 who presided over a ruthless crackdown 89 00:05:00,680 --> 00:05:03,760 that killed, starved or exiled millions of people. 90 00:05:03,840 --> 00:05:06,440 Although on the plus side, he had a friendly moustache. 91 00:05:10,240 --> 00:05:12,960 Communism and capitalism are natural enemies, 92 00:05:13,040 --> 00:05:15,280 like men and women and cats and dogs. 93 00:05:15,880 --> 00:05:18,640 But Russia and America had put aside their differences, 94 00:05:18,720 --> 00:05:22,440 thanks to a mutual interest in winning the Second World War. 95 00:05:23,040 --> 00:05:27,960 The end of WWII led to loads of celebrations in black and white, 96 00:05:28,040 --> 00:05:31,680 as people put years of conflict and misery behind them. 97 00:05:31,760 --> 00:05:34,960 But behind these outdated-looking celebrations, 98 00:05:35,040 --> 00:05:37,000 trouble was brewing. 99 00:05:37,080 --> 00:05:40,040 Now they'd run out of baddies to blow up or shoot, 100 00:05:40,120 --> 00:05:42,800 East and West grew suspicious of each other. 101 00:05:42,880 --> 00:05:45,600 It was the beginning of a whole new conflict: 102 00:05:45,680 --> 00:05:47,560 World War Cold. 103 00:05:48,480 --> 00:05:51,160 The Cold War is quite complicated, isn't it? 104 00:05:51,240 --> 00:05:54,040 Should we definitely bother mentioning it in this, 105 00:05:54,120 --> 00:05:56,400 or could we just give it a miss? 106 00:05:57,200 --> 00:05:59,640 It defines most of the second half of the 20th century, 107 00:05:59,720 --> 00:06:01,360 so you should probably include it. 108 00:06:01,440 --> 00:06:03,240 Oh, right. Okay. 109 00:06:03,800 --> 00:06:06,160 As the Soviet Union expanded, 110 00:06:06,240 --> 00:06:09,480 the animosity between East and West deepened. 111 00:06:09,560 --> 00:06:13,080 The division was symbolized by the construction of the Berlin Wall, 112 00:06:13,160 --> 00:06:15,160 a sort of divorce made of bricks. 113 00:06:15,880 --> 00:06:18,480 There was a terrible atmosphere of mistrust, 114 00:06:18,560 --> 00:06:21,520 like I had with my ex when I saw he had 28 missed calls 115 00:06:21,600 --> 00:06:24,880 from a contact he'd labelled "Claudia Tits" on his phone. 116 00:06:24,960 --> 00:06:27,480 He claims she was just a rep from Fitness First 117 00:06:27,560 --> 00:06:29,360 and that that was her real name. 118 00:06:29,440 --> 00:06:32,840 Well, I'm sorry, Sean, I didn't buy it then, and I don't buy it now. 119 00:06:32,920 --> 00:06:34,520 I hope your mum's well. 120 00:06:35,480 --> 00:06:38,520 Soon there was so much paranoia between East and West, 121 00:06:38,600 --> 00:06:42,600 they started spying on each other, stockpiled nuclear weapons, 122 00:06:42,680 --> 00:06:45,480 and fought a series of proxy wars. 123 00:06:45,560 --> 00:06:48,840 So, Russia and America had proxy wars 124 00:06:48,920 --> 00:06:51,360 where they'd use other countries to fight with. 125 00:06:51,440 --> 00:06:53,760 Is that a bit like picking a character 126 00:06:53,840 --> 00:06:56,040 to do your fighting with in Street Fighter II? 127 00:06:57,000 --> 00:06:59,160 Well, I think throughout human history, 128 00:06:59,240 --> 00:07:02,840 there's been a tendency to try and use other forces, 129 00:07:02,920 --> 00:07:06,480 fighters from other lands to help do the fighting. 130 00:07:06,560 --> 00:07:09,760 Right. So exactly like Street Fighter then. 131 00:07:10,320 --> 00:07:15,000 If this was Street Fighter II and the Americans chose the character Ken, 132 00:07:15,080 --> 00:07:19,080 would the Russians pick Zangief because he's from the Soviet Union? 133 00:07:19,160 --> 00:07:21,880 Or would they go for someone like Dhalsim? 134 00:07:21,960 --> 00:07:26,320 Obviously he'd be a better choice because he can dive kick over Ken's fireballs. 135 00:07:27,880 --> 00:07:28,880 Well, I don't know. 136 00:07:28,920 --> 00:07:31,040 You'd have to ask, I think, President Putin 137 00:07:31,120 --> 00:07:33,560 for the definitive answer on that. 138 00:07:33,640 --> 00:07:39,440 I suppose they'd go for the ones that had the most chance of beating Ken. 139 00:07:40,000 --> 00:07:42,800 Meanwhile, East and West were also competing 140 00:07:42,880 --> 00:07:45,200 to be the first to explore the stars. 141 00:07:45,840 --> 00:07:49,320 The rivalry became known as the space race because that rhymes, 142 00:07:49,400 --> 00:07:50,800 although probably not in Russian. 143 00:07:50,880 --> 00:07:52,856 We don't know what they called it, and to be honest, 144 00:07:52,880 --> 00:07:56,200 we probably should have found out before recording this bit. 145 00:07:56,280 --> 00:07:59,880 The first launches were considered complete disasters at the time, 146 00:07:59,960 --> 00:08:02,040 but we now know they make for soothing viewing 147 00:08:02,120 --> 00:08:03,640 when cut to light jazz. 148 00:08:16,280 --> 00:08:18,120 Today, a new moon is in the sky, 149 00:08:18,200 --> 00:08:21,720 a 23-inch metal sphere placed in orbit by a Russian rocket. 150 00:08:21,800 --> 00:08:23,680 Finally, in 1957, 151 00:08:23,760 --> 00:08:27,480 the Russians became the first to pull off a successful launch. 152 00:08:27,560 --> 00:08:30,880 Why did the Russians launch spunk into orbit? 153 00:08:30,960 --> 00:08:33,136 Well, first of all, when you're looking at Russian words, 154 00:08:33,160 --> 00:08:36,920 the name of the world's first satellite was Sputnik 1, and the Russians... 155 00:08:36,999 --> 00:08:39,040 Is that Russian for "spunk"? 156 00:08:39,119 --> 00:08:41,920 No, it's Russian for "traveler." 157 00:08:41,999 --> 00:08:45,160 I suppose spunk in orbit would just sort of float around in globules 158 00:08:45,240 --> 00:08:46,720 like it does in a bath. 159 00:08:47,280 --> 00:08:49,320 Sorry, shall I change the subject? 160 00:08:50,160 --> 00:08:53,840 Hot on Sputnik's heels was this Soviet space-dog, 161 00:08:53,920 --> 00:08:55,640 known on earth as Laika, 162 00:08:55,720 --> 00:08:58,720 who blasted into space in November 1957. 163 00:08:59,240 --> 00:09:00,760 What happened to Laika? 164 00:09:00,840 --> 00:09:04,680 I expect they gave her a bone and a rub on the tummy when she got back. 165 00:09:04,760 --> 00:09:07,520 Well, Laika, unfortunately, never made it back to Earth 166 00:09:07,600 --> 00:09:09,880 because shortly after launching she overheated 167 00:09:09,960 --> 00:09:13,480 and she tragically passed away just a few hours after being launched. 168 00:09:13,560 --> 00:09:15,040 You're fucking joking! 169 00:09:15,120 --> 00:09:17,000 I wish I was. No, this was... 170 00:09:17,080 --> 00:09:20,360 She was launched on a flight that was pretty much one way. 171 00:09:20,440 --> 00:09:22,080 There's a dead dog in space! 172 00:09:22,160 --> 00:09:25,480 So there's a dead dog somewhere in the back of a frame 173 00:09:25,560 --> 00:09:28,160 of every film shot in space like Star Wars? 174 00:09:28,240 --> 00:09:31,160 - I wouldn't say... - There are dead dogs in Star Wars! 175 00:09:31,240 --> 00:09:33,320 - Um... - That is unacceptable. 176 00:09:33,400 --> 00:09:37,400 Well, Laika's satellite eventually burned up in the Earth's atmosphere, 177 00:09:37,480 --> 00:09:39,320 but this was well after she'd passed away. 178 00:09:39,400 --> 00:09:43,520 As I say, it was just a few hours after launch that she died. 179 00:09:43,600 --> 00:09:46,800 Sorry, can we just have a minute's silence for Laika? 180 00:09:58,840 --> 00:10:00,320 Okay. 181 00:10:06,480 --> 00:10:08,400 There's a dead dog in space. 182 00:10:09,040 --> 00:10:13,240 Away from the space race, everyday Russians often had hard lives, 183 00:10:13,320 --> 00:10:15,640 while Americans, in contrast, 184 00:10:15,720 --> 00:10:19,120 appeared to enjoy a life of carefree luxury and hats. 185 00:10:19,200 --> 00:10:21,520 Was the 1950s real? 186 00:10:22,400 --> 00:10:24,560 Yes, it was certainly real. 187 00:10:24,640 --> 00:10:28,240 Are we sure? Because it looks like it was made up when you see it. 188 00:10:28,320 --> 00:10:32,560 It's all men in hats and housewives smiling in kitchens. 189 00:10:32,640 --> 00:10:36,960 Were those people real, and was all that really happening? 190 00:10:37,040 --> 00:10:39,560 Well, a lot of that is what you see in advertising. 191 00:10:40,120 --> 00:10:45,440 The '55 Chevrolet is lower, wider and longer looking. 192 00:10:45,520 --> 00:10:49,920 The most popular drama on 1950s television was a show called Adverts. 193 00:10:50,000 --> 00:10:53,400 Adverts told the story of a man or woman who wanted a thing 194 00:10:53,480 --> 00:10:55,840 and then bought it and then was happy, 195 00:10:55,920 --> 00:10:59,400 the first ever example of a three-act narrative structure. 196 00:10:59,480 --> 00:11:02,240 - Why, that's amazing! - Right! 197 00:11:02,320 --> 00:11:05,760 Adverts was so influential, it made viewers at home 198 00:11:05,840 --> 00:11:08,560 want to be the sort of person who bought things too. 199 00:11:09,320 --> 00:11:12,240 They'd work hard to get money to buy a car 200 00:11:12,320 --> 00:11:14,920 so they could drive to the shops and buy more things, 201 00:11:15,000 --> 00:11:19,080 which they'd have to pay for by going back to work, which made them miserable. 202 00:11:19,160 --> 00:11:22,480 So they'd cheer themselves up by going out and buying more things, 203 00:11:22,560 --> 00:11:24,480 which they'd have to work to pay for. 204 00:11:24,560 --> 00:11:27,040 - Why, that's amazing! - Right! 205 00:11:27,120 --> 00:11:29,720 The only time they weren't working or buying 206 00:11:29,800 --> 00:11:31,560 was when they were watching TV. 207 00:11:31,640 --> 00:11:34,920 And it was on these airwaves that a new kind of culture was born: 208 00:11:35,000 --> 00:11:39,360 popular culture, unlike normal culture, which was paintings and Beethoven. 209 00:11:39,440 --> 00:11:42,160 This was stuff people actually enjoyed. 210 00:11:42,240 --> 00:11:47,080 For decades, pioneering Black artists had steadily built on each other's work 211 00:11:47,160 --> 00:11:51,920 to develop an exciting new musical form for white people to pass off as their own. 212 00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:56,400 Why do people say Elvis Presley appropriated white music? 213 00:11:57,040 --> 00:12:01,800 They don't say that. What they do say is that he appropriated Black music. 214 00:12:01,880 --> 00:12:06,760 He was a white man that sang music of Black origin. 215 00:12:06,840 --> 00:12:09,840 Did he have to apologize on social media? 216 00:12:09,920 --> 00:12:12,440 No, because there was no social media then. 217 00:12:12,520 --> 00:12:16,640 - Why doesn't Elvis apologize now? - Because Elvis is dead. 218 00:12:16,720 --> 00:12:19,840 So he's appropriated dead people's lifestyles now? 219 00:12:19,920 --> 00:12:21,640 What a fucking thief. 220 00:12:21,720 --> 00:12:25,080 Having overcome childhood poverty and a hip impediment, 221 00:12:25,160 --> 00:12:27,560 Elvis benefited from mass media, 222 00:12:27,640 --> 00:12:31,760 which broadcast him to an audience of millions, in sanitized form. 223 00:12:31,840 --> 00:12:36,400 Why was it so dangerous to show Elvis from the waist down? 224 00:12:36,480 --> 00:12:40,480 Was he naked underneath like a pervert on a Zoom call? 225 00:12:40,560 --> 00:12:41,800 He wasn't naked. 226 00:12:41,880 --> 00:12:47,280 He moved his hips around a lot in a very sort of sexual manner. 227 00:12:47,360 --> 00:12:49,520 And there was a lot of anxiety 228 00:12:49,600 --> 00:12:55,120 that young women might be a little bit too turned on by Elvis. 229 00:12:55,200 --> 00:12:57,440 People were prudish back then, weren't they? 230 00:12:57,520 --> 00:13:01,200 If they saw his penis, they'd probably have a stroke, wouldn't they? 231 00:13:01,280 --> 00:13:04,880 Probably. I don't think that would have made it onto the... 232 00:13:05,880 --> 00:13:06,800 Oh, God. 233 00:13:06,880 --> 00:13:10,080 That's not a joke. What's funny about that? 234 00:13:10,160 --> 00:13:13,160 If they saw his penis, they'd have a stroke. 235 00:13:13,240 --> 00:13:17,280 That's no laughing matter. We're talking about people's lives here. 236 00:13:17,360 --> 00:13:20,520 Elvis was so dangerously explosive, 237 00:13:20,600 --> 00:13:23,720 he was requisitioned by the US Army for military use. 238 00:13:24,680 --> 00:13:27,200 And little wonder, considering what was going on. 239 00:13:28,000 --> 00:13:32,600 Both Russia and America were building up huge stockpiles of nuclear weapons, 240 00:13:33,120 --> 00:13:36,280 enough to destroy the entire planet several times over, 241 00:13:36,360 --> 00:13:38,440 in case they missed the first time. 242 00:13:38,520 --> 00:13:41,360 It seemed the planet was headed for World War III, 243 00:13:41,440 --> 00:13:45,800 and in the early '60s, it teetered up to the edge of the brink of the precipice 244 00:13:45,880 --> 00:13:48,480 and gazed straight into an abyss of no return. 245 00:13:48,560 --> 00:13:50,120 Crisis! 246 00:13:50,200 --> 00:13:52,680 The word suddenly springs alive 247 00:13:52,760 --> 00:13:55,600 ominously in the newspapers across America... 248 00:13:55,680 --> 00:13:57,560 In the Cube and Missile Crisis, 249 00:13:57,640 --> 00:14:02,200 which was more dangerous, the cubes or the missiles? 250 00:14:02,280 --> 00:14:05,360 You're thinking of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which refers to Cuba, 251 00:14:05,440 --> 00:14:08,680 which is a country off the coast of the United States near Florida. 252 00:14:08,760 --> 00:14:10,880 Isn't a cube a terrible shape for a missile? 253 00:14:10,960 --> 00:14:12,440 It'd be more like a brick. 254 00:14:13,520 --> 00:14:18,080 In 1959, there had been a communist revolution in Cuba. 255 00:14:18,640 --> 00:14:24,440 A man called Fidel Castro rose to power and immediately made friends with Russia. 256 00:14:24,520 --> 00:14:29,360 Then in 1962, America discovered the Soviets were going to use Cuba 257 00:14:29,440 --> 00:14:31,280 as a base for nuclear missiles, 258 00:14:31,360 --> 00:14:35,040 and those missiles could make it to Florida in just 20 minutes, 259 00:14:35,120 --> 00:14:38,480 if the wind was fair and they could find somewhere to park. 260 00:14:39,160 --> 00:14:42,360 American president and pin-up John Fing Kennedy 261 00:14:42,440 --> 00:14:46,720 demanded the Russians remove the missiles, otherwise, war was inevitable. 262 00:14:46,800 --> 00:14:48,880 Or worse still, possible. 263 00:14:49,560 --> 00:14:52,080 For six days, the world held its breath, 264 00:14:52,160 --> 00:14:56,200 meaning it might die from asphyxiation before the bombs even went off. 265 00:14:56,280 --> 00:14:59,560 In the end, Soviet Emperor Nikita Khrushchev 266 00:14:59,640 --> 00:15:02,120 backed down like a shameful fucking chicken, 267 00:15:02,200 --> 00:15:05,200 and his missiles went home with their tails between their legs. 268 00:15:05,280 --> 00:15:07,800 Kennedy was victorious. 269 00:15:07,880 --> 00:15:12,000 John F. Kennedy won the Cuban Missile Crisis. 270 00:15:12,080 --> 00:15:14,720 Why did he shoot himself afterwards? 271 00:15:15,840 --> 00:15:16,720 Well, he didn't. 272 00:15:16,800 --> 00:15:19,960 He negotiated a settlement to the Cuban Missile Crisis 273 00:15:20,040 --> 00:15:22,880 with the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev. 274 00:15:22,960 --> 00:15:27,720 And then after that, he ended up being assassinated in Dallas, Texas, 275 00:15:27,800 --> 00:15:30,560 in 1963, unfortunately, but he didn't fire the bullet. 276 00:15:30,640 --> 00:15:34,920 Right. It's ironic that he was so concerned about Cuban missiles 277 00:15:35,000 --> 00:15:38,880 when it was a gun in Texas he should have been worried about. 278 00:15:38,960 --> 00:15:41,720 I bet he was kicking himself after he was shot. 279 00:15:41,800 --> 00:15:45,440 Having dodged Armageddon, the world was hungry for change 280 00:15:45,520 --> 00:15:48,920 and a young generation who wanted to give peace a chance rose up. 281 00:15:49,000 --> 00:15:50,880 Their heroes weren't politicians 282 00:15:50,960 --> 00:15:55,520 but countercultural musicians whose works defined the era. 283 00:15:55,600 --> 00:15:58,960 The Rolling Stones were huge in the 1960s. 284 00:15:59,040 --> 00:16:02,640 Would it be fair to say they were the Beatles of their day? 285 00:16:02,720 --> 00:16:05,600 Well, I thought they were contemporary. 286 00:16:05,680 --> 00:16:09,480 So there was always a jostle between the Stones and the Beatles. 287 00:16:09,560 --> 00:16:12,960 Right, but the Beatles were already the Elvis of their day. 288 00:16:13,040 --> 00:16:15,880 So there's a spare Beatles. 289 00:16:15,960 --> 00:16:17,640 Can we give that to the Rolling Stones, 290 00:16:17,720 --> 00:16:20,520 even though they're happening at the same time? 291 00:16:20,600 --> 00:16:23,960 Well, I think people have their preferences 292 00:16:24,040 --> 00:16:27,120 between the style of the Beatles and the style of the Stones. 293 00:16:27,200 --> 00:16:31,120 Okay, so which of the "the Beatles of their day" was best: 294 00:16:31,200 --> 00:16:32,960 Beatles one or Beatles two? 295 00:16:33,040 --> 00:16:37,680 I think Beatles one is the preferred... Or Beatles... the first... the Beatles. 296 00:16:37,760 --> 00:16:39,440 Next question: 297 00:16:39,520 --> 00:16:44,160 of all the bands of the 1960s, which ones was the Kinks? 298 00:16:46,000 --> 00:16:49,320 Meanwhile, the space race was still being run. 299 00:16:49,840 --> 00:16:51,600 NASA had spent billions of dollars 300 00:16:51,680 --> 00:16:54,120 developing a rocket powerful enough to reach the moon, 301 00:16:54,200 --> 00:16:57,320 but not so powerful that it would blow up when it got there. 302 00:16:58,120 --> 00:17:01,680 On board were Neil Armstrong, Alan Alda 303 00:17:01,760 --> 00:17:05,200 and another man who asked to remain anonymous. 304 00:17:05,280 --> 00:17:09,480 On July 20th, 1969, the whole world was watching on television 305 00:17:09,559 --> 00:17:11,200 to see if the moon would blow up. 306 00:17:11,279 --> 00:17:14,000 And also because there was nothing else on. 307 00:17:14,840 --> 00:17:17,360 The global audience must have been genuinely astounded 308 00:17:17,440 --> 00:17:21,600 by the appalling picture quality, which was terrible even for the time. 309 00:17:21,680 --> 00:17:22,840 I mean, just look at it. 310 00:17:22,920 --> 00:17:26,480 Looks like they've flown to the Blur dimension to intercept a smudge. 311 00:17:27,840 --> 00:17:30,200 That's one small step for man, 312 00:17:32,799 --> 00:17:35,880 one giant leap for mankind. 313 00:17:36,720 --> 00:17:40,360 The sound quality was terrible too, but what he said was, 314 00:17:40,440 --> 00:17:44,520 "That's one small step for man, one bionic leap for mankind," 315 00:17:44,600 --> 00:17:46,680 thereby declaring the moon for men. 316 00:17:46,760 --> 00:17:50,120 Which is why, to this day, women have been denied entry to the moon. 317 00:17:50,960 --> 00:17:54,160 With the moon landings, man had achieved greatness, 318 00:17:54,240 --> 00:17:57,760 transcending earthly limits and exploring the heavens themselves. 319 00:17:57,840 --> 00:18:00,360 Assuming any of this actually happened. 320 00:18:00,440 --> 00:18:04,720 A lot of people on the Internet say the moon landings were faked. 321 00:18:05,320 --> 00:18:06,960 How right are they? 322 00:18:07,040 --> 00:18:09,000 They are completely wrong. 323 00:18:09,080 --> 00:18:14,480 No historian has ever questioned the reality of Project Apollo 324 00:18:14,560 --> 00:18:17,600 because not one piece of so-called evidence 325 00:18:17,680 --> 00:18:22,840 that the conspiracy theorists put forward has ever stood up to peer review scrutiny. 326 00:18:22,920 --> 00:18:26,480 But obviously it is fake because how could they have landed on the moon 327 00:18:26,560 --> 00:18:28,240 if the moon isn't real? 328 00:18:28,320 --> 00:18:30,720 What makes you think the moon isn't real, Philomena? 329 00:18:30,800 --> 00:18:33,320 It isn't. I don't know if you've done your own research, 330 00:18:33,400 --> 00:18:37,520 but my mate Paul sent me a video that exposes the whole thing. 331 00:18:37,600 --> 00:18:42,040 Can you prove the moon exists? You can't, can you? 332 00:18:42,120 --> 00:18:46,240 We see it in the sky. We have sent spacecraft to the moon. 333 00:18:46,320 --> 00:18:48,320 We've brought samples back to Earth. 334 00:18:48,400 --> 00:18:51,640 No. Watch the video. It'll open your eyes. 335 00:18:51,720 --> 00:18:54,400 You probably believe in nighttime too, don't you? 336 00:18:54,480 --> 00:18:58,480 I experience it, as do billions of people around the world. 337 00:18:58,560 --> 00:19:01,160 So, yes, I-I believe in nighttime. 338 00:19:01,240 --> 00:19:03,680 I believe that when the earth rotates, 339 00:19:03,760 --> 00:19:06,040 then we have a period of dark that we call nighttime. 340 00:19:06,120 --> 00:19:08,240 Wake up. It's all in the video. 341 00:19:08,320 --> 00:19:12,400 They just make us think the moon is real and that night is real, 342 00:19:12,480 --> 00:19:14,440 just to keep us obedient. 343 00:19:14,520 --> 00:19:15,720 Think about it. 344 00:19:15,800 --> 00:19:17,720 Babies haven't been indoctrinated yet, 345 00:19:17,800 --> 00:19:20,000 so they know there's no such thing as night. 346 00:19:20,080 --> 00:19:22,960 And that's why they wake up screaming. 347 00:19:23,040 --> 00:19:24,640 Let's move on. 348 00:19:26,040 --> 00:19:29,640 The space race was over. America had won. 349 00:19:29,720 --> 00:19:33,560 And the prize had turned out to be the worst holiday destination in history, 350 00:19:33,640 --> 00:19:37,600 which they couldn't even warn people about because TripAdvisor didn't exist. 351 00:19:39,000 --> 00:19:40,680 But there was a consolation prize: 352 00:19:40,760 --> 00:19:46,440 the best holiday snap in history taken on Apollo 8 and known as Earthrise. 353 00:19:46,520 --> 00:19:48,720 Today, it's too boring to hold your attention 354 00:19:48,800 --> 00:19:51,480 in a landmark documentary for more than eight seconds. 355 00:19:51,560 --> 00:19:54,680 But back then, this photograph made people think. 356 00:19:55,320 --> 00:20:00,000 And not just a small thought like, "That looks nice," but a big thought. 357 00:20:00,840 --> 00:20:04,080 It made us realize our planet is fragile. 358 00:20:06,720 --> 00:20:10,160 The ecological movement had always been popular with hippies, 359 00:20:10,240 --> 00:20:13,360 but people ignored them because of the way they were dressed 360 00:20:13,440 --> 00:20:17,360 and because they were too stoned to make their point coherently. 361 00:20:17,440 --> 00:20:20,640 But now scientists began to worry about the state of the planet. 362 00:20:21,400 --> 00:20:23,400 And so no one would mistake them for hippies, 363 00:20:23,480 --> 00:20:27,120 they wore clean white coats and glasses to deliver their warnings. 364 00:20:27,200 --> 00:20:30,000 But we ignored them too, because they looked like nerds. 365 00:20:30,080 --> 00:20:32,320 The problem was progress. 366 00:20:32,400 --> 00:20:37,080 All the modern gadgets we'd got so hooked on ran on electricity, 367 00:20:37,160 --> 00:20:40,920 which came from power stations, which burn fossil fuels, 368 00:20:41,000 --> 00:20:45,480 which creates a gas called CO2, which flies out of chimneys 369 00:20:45,560 --> 00:20:47,640 and stops the sky working properly. 370 00:20:47,720 --> 00:20:50,520 One solution to all this environmental damage 371 00:20:50,600 --> 00:20:53,080 was to build nuclear power stations, 372 00:20:53,160 --> 00:20:56,400 which don't emit anywhere near as much harmful material. 373 00:20:56,480 --> 00:20:58,960 Unless they blow up, which never happens. 374 00:20:59,600 --> 00:21:02,000 Until it did in 1986 at Chernobyl. 375 00:21:02,800 --> 00:21:07,760 The radiation from Chernobyl turned a huge area into a deadly no-go zone. 376 00:21:07,840 --> 00:21:10,120 Even worse than Reigate Town Centre. 377 00:21:10,640 --> 00:21:13,120 The fallout wafted across thousands of miles 378 00:21:13,200 --> 00:21:15,960 and had one unforeseen side effect: 379 00:21:16,040 --> 00:21:19,000 it made the bricks of the Berlin wall extremely brittle, 380 00:21:19,080 --> 00:21:21,800 so brittle it began to collapse. 381 00:21:22,960 --> 00:21:25,680 Desperate locals rushed to the wall's assistance 382 00:21:25,760 --> 00:21:28,240 and tried to make it better with hammers and fists. 383 00:21:28,320 --> 00:21:30,040 But it was no use. 384 00:21:30,120 --> 00:21:33,000 As the wall died, so did communism. 385 00:21:33,080 --> 00:21:34,440 Capitalism had won, 386 00:21:34,520 --> 00:21:37,400 with financial markets embracing globalization 387 00:21:37,480 --> 00:21:41,600 to the toe-tapping sound of Belgian techno anthem "Pump Up the Jam." 388 00:22:21,720 --> 00:22:25,680 Suddenly everybody, apart from poor people, was making so much money 389 00:22:25,760 --> 00:22:28,000 that there wasn't room to store it all in coins. 390 00:22:28,560 --> 00:22:31,160 Instead, it had to be stored in numbers on a screen, 391 00:22:31,240 --> 00:22:34,280 surrounded by men shouting at it to keep it inside. 392 00:22:34,360 --> 00:22:39,240 To keep track of all this money, the world needed a special kind of mega abacus, 393 00:22:39,320 --> 00:22:42,480 and luckily it had one: the computer. 394 00:22:42,560 --> 00:22:47,360 Today, computers are everywhere, but they used to be a cumbersome rarity. 395 00:22:47,440 --> 00:22:51,320 In the '50s and '60s, one computer would take up a whole room. 396 00:22:51,400 --> 00:22:55,840 But in the 1970s, engineers made a startling discovery. 397 00:22:55,920 --> 00:22:59,520 If they got rid of all those pointless flashing lights and spinning tape reels, 398 00:22:59,600 --> 00:23:02,040 they could make computers much smaller. 399 00:23:02,120 --> 00:23:05,480 Small enough, in fact, to fit on the tip of your finger. 400 00:23:05,560 --> 00:23:08,920 This was the microchip, and it was amazing. 401 00:23:09,000 --> 00:23:11,720 Thank you. Give you the little fella back now. 402 00:23:13,240 --> 00:23:15,880 The microchip couldn't actually do anything 403 00:23:15,960 --> 00:23:18,720 until you shoved it into a big machine like this. 404 00:23:18,800 --> 00:23:23,000 But in terms of floor space alone, it was still a big improvement. 405 00:23:23,080 --> 00:23:25,680 Now computers were small enough to share a house with, 406 00:23:25,760 --> 00:23:27,920 loads more people wanted one. 407 00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:29,720 Silicon Valley was born, 408 00:23:29,800 --> 00:23:33,880 a computer heartland that would be defined by the rivalry between two men: 409 00:23:33,960 --> 00:23:36,560 Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. 410 00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:40,280 Their names might have been boring, but the things they said were more boring. 411 00:23:40,360 --> 00:23:42,440 Gates founded Microsoft 412 00:23:42,520 --> 00:23:46,200 and hit the big time with the baffling, unofficial sequel to Ms. Pac-Man 413 00:23:46,280 --> 00:23:48,200 called MS-DOS. 414 00:23:48,280 --> 00:23:50,960 Meanwhile, Jobs created the Apple Macintosh, 415 00:23:51,040 --> 00:23:53,640 the world's first inherently smug computer. 416 00:23:54,400 --> 00:23:57,840 While their rival systems kept computer users apart, 417 00:23:57,920 --> 00:24:00,720 something else was trying to bring them all together. 418 00:24:00,800 --> 00:24:04,000 WWW, the web wide world. 419 00:24:04,680 --> 00:24:07,200 The Internet was so modern and interesting, 420 00:24:07,280 --> 00:24:11,440 it seemed humankind might never get up from its desk again. 421 00:24:11,520 --> 00:24:15,120 Then, in a dramatic and momentous keynote presentation, 422 00:24:15,200 --> 00:24:16,880 Steve Jobs revealed he'd discovered 423 00:24:16,960 --> 00:24:19,800 how to put the Internet inside a portable rectangle, 424 00:24:19,880 --> 00:24:21,440 changing history forever. 425 00:24:21,520 --> 00:24:25,440 And we are calling it iPhone. 426 00:24:27,160 --> 00:24:32,080 Its success inspired tons of imitators, like that one your mum uses. 427 00:24:32,160 --> 00:24:36,000 And soon, smartphones were so ubiquitous, you're probably looking at one now 428 00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:38,080 instead of me while I'm saying this. 429 00:24:38,160 --> 00:24:41,880 Smartphones revolutionized the way humans interact 430 00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:46,240 by providing a socially acceptable way to ignore everyone around us. 431 00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:47,520 But we're not lonely. 432 00:24:47,600 --> 00:24:50,240 Thanks to social media, it's quicker and easier than ever 433 00:24:50,320 --> 00:24:52,040 to bond with millions of others 434 00:24:52,120 --> 00:24:57,280 over something as simple as a cat photo or the ritual shaming of a stranger. 435 00:24:57,360 --> 00:24:59,360 It's easy to see why the smartphone has become 436 00:24:59,440 --> 00:25:01,880 the most popular invention this century. 437 00:25:01,960 --> 00:25:03,800 It's incredibly advanced, 438 00:25:03,880 --> 00:25:07,320 yet at the same time, so simple a child can make one. 439 00:25:07,400 --> 00:25:10,840 In fact, not just one but about 50 of these an hour, 440 00:25:10,920 --> 00:25:14,000 if it wants to avoid another night in the punishment block. 441 00:25:14,080 --> 00:25:18,000 Sadly, Steve Jobs died before he could witness Apple's success, 442 00:25:18,080 --> 00:25:20,960 apart from the first few hundred billion dollars. 443 00:25:21,040 --> 00:25:23,600 On his deathbed, he made Apple engineers promise 444 00:25:23,680 --> 00:25:26,960 to change the iPhone's headphone jack every three years, 445 00:25:27,040 --> 00:25:29,400 then uploaded himself to the cloud. 446 00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:36,280 Meanwhile, Gates wasted his fortune eradicating malaria in the Third World. 447 00:25:38,200 --> 00:25:41,680 But despite Apple and Microsoft's total failure, 448 00:25:41,760 --> 00:25:44,440 computers continue to go from strength to strength. 449 00:25:44,960 --> 00:25:48,200 Some believe we're heading for an event known as the singularity, 450 00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:51,600 where artificial intelligence becomes too clever for our own good. 451 00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:55,080 While others believe this already happened 452 00:25:55,160 --> 00:26:00,600 and that all of human civilization exists only inside a computer simulation. 453 00:26:01,400 --> 00:26:04,080 How do we know we're not in a simulation? 454 00:26:04,160 --> 00:26:05,200 We don't know. 455 00:26:05,280 --> 00:26:06,720 There are lots of smart people 456 00:26:06,800 --> 00:26:10,520 who think it is possible that we live in a simulation. 457 00:26:10,600 --> 00:26:12,920 If this is a simulation, 458 00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:15,880 why is the computer making me ask you this? 459 00:26:18,040 --> 00:26:21,440 Well... from my perspective, 460 00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:23,760 you are asking a question, 461 00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:27,440 so I could imagine that you are being controlled by a computer, 462 00:26:27,520 --> 00:26:30,680 but you may well feel that you have free will 463 00:26:30,760 --> 00:26:32,760 and you're asking those questions yourself. 464 00:26:32,840 --> 00:26:35,520 Why do I have to actually come and film this? 465 00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:38,920 Couldn't a computer just show it on the telly in the simulation, 466 00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:40,720 or is that where I am? 467 00:26:40,800 --> 00:26:43,920 Do I exist at all? Why is this happening? 468 00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:48,280 Why isn't it just me eating a chocolate eclair in a loop? 469 00:26:48,360 --> 00:26:50,680 Like in a GIF. I'd swap for that. 470 00:26:52,040 --> 00:26:57,240 Actually, are people in looping GIFs caught in a simulation? 471 00:26:57,320 --> 00:27:02,080 Is that what's happened to them? Where do wasps fit into the simulation? 472 00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:04,480 I'm not quite sure how... 473 00:27:04,560 --> 00:27:06,840 Sorry, there's a lot to unpick, isn't there? 474 00:27:12,200 --> 00:27:16,040 In this series, we've taken you from our primitive beginnings 475 00:27:16,120 --> 00:27:19,760 through spiritual awakenings, cultural explosions 476 00:27:19,840 --> 00:27:22,520 and major scientific breakthroughs. 477 00:27:22,600 --> 00:27:26,920 Now, in the present moment, humankind sits impaled on a crossroads, 478 00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:29,480 facing an uncertain future. 479 00:27:29,560 --> 00:27:32,280 Will we rise to the challenge of climate change? 480 00:27:32,360 --> 00:27:33,880 Or the opposite of that? 481 00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:37,040 Will computers learn to delete us? 482 00:27:37,120 --> 00:27:41,080 And if they do, how will we get ourselves out of the recycle bin? 483 00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:45,080 Can humankind learn to exist at peace with itself? 484 00:27:45,160 --> 00:27:47,760 Or are all of us right now 485 00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:53,240 living through the final hours, minutes and seconds of civilization? 486 00:27:53,320 --> 00:27:55,440 Or not, I don't know. 487 00:27:55,520 --> 00:27:57,040 And nor do you. 488 00:27:57,120 --> 00:28:02,240 But whatever happens, it'll happen right here on Earth. 489 00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:05,320 Okay, that was great, we've got that. 490 00:28:05,360 --> 00:28:07,040 - Yeah? - Yeah, all done. Thank you. 491 00:28:07,120 --> 00:28:08,960 - Is that it? - Yeah. That's it. Nice one. 492 00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:10,600 - So we're done? - Yeah, great work. 493 00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:14,800 Oh, great. Are you sure you can make it look like I've been to these places? 494 00:28:14,880 --> 00:28:16,840 - Yeah. Don't worry about that. - Really? 495 00:28:16,920 --> 00:28:19,960 We do it on the computers afterwards. It's amazing these days. 496 00:28:20,040 --> 00:28:21,880 Brilliant, see you then. Bye! 497 00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:24,440 Cut there, guys. Thank you, well done! 498 00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:27,040 That was pretty good I think. 499 00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:30,120 Great. Thank you.