Original subtitles

(dramatic music)

(dramatic music)

(birds calling)

(dramatic music)

I'm Christoper Clark, Cambridge historian.

I was born in Australia.

For Europeans, that's practically

the other end of the world.

But the European continent and its incredible diversity

always fascinated me.

Even in the far-off country where I grew up,

I was always aware that so much of our world

has its roots in Europe.

And modern Europe is one of the greatest

achievements in human history.

I want to share the grand saga of this continent.

And in the process, I hope to rediscover

its wonders for myself.

(dramatic music)

Europe is a restless continent,

a continent that is constantly reinventing itself.

It began to project its power into the world.

The expansion of the European frontier

was one of the most momentous events

of all human history.

The world became the theater for the playing out

of European power struggles.

But these encounters with other peoples and their cultures

and commodities, in turn, had a transformative impact

on Europe itself.

The history of Europe's expansion is a narrative

of entrepreneurial spirit, technology,

curiosity and courage, but also of violence,

suppression and exploitation.

Geography has always shaped Europe's opportunities,

right from the very beginning.

The continent is flanked to the north, the south

and the west by seas and oceans.

68,000 kilometers of coast,

three times more than the United States.

Crossing the water was the only way to expand.

For people desperate to escape overpopulation,

poverty, war and hunger, there was no other option

but to leave by sea.

And that's still true today.

Europeans have always been driven by a thirst

for adventure, a lust for power

and not least, by greed.

And their geographical destiny

ensured that they were excellent seafarers.

The Vikings construct seaworthy ships and set sail.

1,200 years before our era, they flee the harsh

and unforgiving climate of the European north,

constantly seeking new targets for their raids.

They're talented shipbuilders and navigators,

but their brutal conquests soon make them

one of the most feared peoples in Europe.

(dramatic music)

It begins on a June night in the year 793,

with a raid on the island monastery of Lindisfarne,

off the coast of northern England.

The monks are peacefully going about their work

when they notice the ships rapidly approaching the island.

They sense disaster, the first Viking raid.

(church bell ringing)

(dramatic music)

The Vikings storm the monastery, armed with swords and axes,

slaughtering the terrified monks.

It's a bloodbath.

The raiders plunder the monastery of its gold,

silver, gemstones and anything else that looks valuable.

They soon make a name for themselves all over Europe

with their hit-and-run raids.

People everywhere utter the pray, Oh, Lord,

protect us from the wrath of the Northmen.

(dramatic music)

But the Vikings push the boundaries

of their territory further and further.

Eventually, they become more than just

the terrifying raiders from the far north.

They evolve into a well equipped, confident maritime power.

They discover Iceland and Greenland,

and they advance as far as Newfoundland,

where they establish settlements.

(dramatic music)

They were the first to land on the coast of North America

1,000 years ago, but it was in Europe

that they really left their mark, and their legendary raids

aren't the only thing they're remembered for.

Many regions bear the name.

Normandy in France is named after these Northmen,

and here, where I'm standing, on the shores

of the Gulf of Finland, the Northmen were known

as the Russ, or the Rowers.

And that's why today this part of Europe is called Russia.

The Vikings certainly got around in Europe.

They made themselves at home wherever they went,

and these erstwhile terrorists from the north

created what was essentially

the continent's first economic union.

Networks and interconnections of this kind

enhanced the cohesion of Europe as a cultural space.

Westminster Abbey in London.

Mont St. Michel in northern France.

And deep in the south of Italy,

the Palazzo dei Normanni in Palermo.

The Vikings also made their mark

on the continent's architecture.

The impressive Norman citadel known as the Castel del Monte

later used as a palace by the Wornschtalfen dynasty,

is a case in point.

European marketplaces become a lot more

colorful thanks to the Vikings.

They're able to offer a broader range of merchandise,

including more exotic items.

Traders return from long journeys with luxury goods.

Initially intended for the nobility,

these products soon begin to find a wider market.

And spices from India are the best sellers of all.

The Vikings pave the way, and German merchants

soon follow in their footsteps,

creating the Hanseatic League.

Good business is always the goal.

Trade missions spring up in the north and east.

There are up to 300 flourishing Hanseatic cities.

(dramatic music)

The trade in furs, pelts, wood, grain and beer

is highly lucrative.

The merchants grow immensely wealthy,

and their influence increases accordingly.

Hanseatic shipping is now driving the European economy.

German merchants open a trading post

in the Flemish city of Bruges in 1235.

The Venice of the north, Bruges is the hub

of the Hanseatic League and will grow to become

the wealthiest and most powerful Hanseatic city.

The traveling merchants from Germany establish

growing numbers of local trading posts

in places like Bergen in Norway,

where the fish trade is thriving.

These entrepose provide the Germans with safe quarters

in foreign countries.

And by the high Middle Ages, the Hanseatic League

is a brand worth protecting, with the reputation

for reliability and fair dealing.

That's not to say that these early European traders

didn't have a keen nose for business.

They expanded their trade routes all the way to Russia.

Even today, you can feel the spirit of the Hanseatic League

in cities such as Tallinn in Estonia,

formerly known as Revala.

(dramatic music)

The Hanseatic League is an early form

of the European Union.

Trade routes are increasingly tight-knit,

and a new system of logistics is developing

in northern Europe.

The League maintains ties outside of its member countries

as well, including with the republic of Venice,

which becomes a vital hub.

In fact, the flourishing trade and resulting prosperity

allows the Venetians to expand their fleet.

They dominate trade throughout the entire Mediterranean

region, with their hundreds of ship.

The Venetians' share of influence extends

from the east coast of the Adriatic Sea

to Constantinople, Syria and Lebanon,

and across the Black Sea, all the way to Asia.

But that's not enough for the Europeans.

They want to go even further.

(dramatic music)

Europeans become engrossed in speculations

about the world beyond the world they know.

They know that the Earth is round,

but they have no idea of what lies beyond the horizon.

Why did the Renaissance become an era

of European world exploration?

Was it intellectual curiosity

or the competitive ambition of powerful states

determined to deny each other

the advantages of new possessions?

The Spaniards and the Portuguese were the first.

The Dutch, the British and the French

followed hard on their heels.

Whatever drove them to make these perilous journeys,

one thing is clear.

The world would never be the same again.

The race is on to find an ocean route to India.

Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus is working on a plan.

He offers it to the Portuguese,

but they dismiss him as a madman.

He carefully studies the Book of the Marvels

of the World by Marco Polo, in which the Italian explorer

details his adventurous journey to Asia.

The book is a bestseller in Europe

and feeds a desire to know unknown worlds.

(upbeat music)

Perhaps Columbus can convince the Spanish to fund his plan.

But that's no easy task.

He spends more than five years begging Queen Isabella

of Spain before she finally gives in.

Columbus is entrusted with the task of finding gold.

Why? Because the Spanish crown is bankrupt.

Columbus sets sail in the summer of 1492.

His crew consists of ruffians, murderers

and thieves who have nothing to lose,

not what you might call a seaworthy team.

He's unable to attract better men.

The fear of the end of the world is simply too powerful.

Columbus grossly underestimates the size of the globe.

He thinks he's on his way to India.

The Atlantic Ocean seems endless,

but then, finally, land ho.

(dramatic music)

After more than two months of uncertainty,

it seems that the sailor's prayers have been answered.

The team of three ships has been on the verge of mutiny

more than once, but finally, the sailors fish some reeds

and a few twigs with berries on them out of the sea.

Harbingers of land.

The sailors are fascinated with the flora

and fauna on this unfamiliar shore.

Christopher Columbus writes in his journal,

"Upon disembarking we saw a landscape

"with very green trees, many streams of water

"and diverse sorts of fruits."

Columbus is itching to seize this land.

He has enough witnesses and his crew even includes

a notary to certify the entire process.

Of course, the question that has them all

on the edge of their seats is whether

or not the land is inhabited.

After all, part of their mission is to find the natives

and convert them to Christianity.

When they do eventually meet the locals,

both sides are curious.

Columbus would later report, "I was very attentive

to them, and strove to learn if they had any gold."

(dramatic music)

And he succeeded in the name of God and the Spanish crown.

The native peoples, on the other hand, are baffled.

They had never seen white men before.

Things would ultimately end badly for them,

but the first encounters remained peaceful.

While the natives innocently marveled at the new arrivals,

Columbus and his men already have very clear goals in mind.

Two worlds collide here.

The islanders have no concept of ownership.

They believe the land belongs to everyone.

The Europeans, on the other hand, want to annex territory,

convert people to Christianity

and exploit both the land and its inhabitants.

This is where the fatal race for resources begins.

(speaking foreign language)

Columbus calls the natives Indians.

He is thoroughly convinced that he is in India.

He finds the people to be friendly and not at all dangerous.

He believes they would make excellent slaves.

But he has actually landed on the Bahamas in the Caribbean.

And although he doesn't find any gold,

he is standing on the threshold of an unknown continent.

The Behaim Erdapfel, the oldest globe

still in existence today,

was created in the very year Columbus sailed to the west.

All the geographical information Europeans were aware of

at that time is included on this globe.

But its precision naturally varies

from continent to continent.

The Atlantic extends all the way from Europe to Asia.

Both continents are a bit too big,

and there's nothing in between them.

Or is there something?

A terra incognita.

But why did all of this originate from Europe

and not from what was then an already powerful

and technologically advanced China?

When the third emperor of the Ming dynasty

ascended the throne in 1402, he sent out

a gigantic fleet to sail to Africa and Arabia,

but when he died, the new emperor received

a memorandum from his advisers.

They wrote, "Your servants hope that your majesty

"will not permit warlike plans and the gaining of glory

"by expeditions to distant lands.

"Give your people a period of rest."

Whereupon the new emperor promptly decreed

that high seas navigation would henceforth

be punishable by death.

The Chinese leadership simply had

little interest in the outside world.

China sufficed unto itself.

Moreover, they had only one ruler.

Power was focused in one place.

There was no competition,

not at least in the world of power politics.

In Europe, almost as big as China, everything was different.

It was shared among many sovereign territories,

with just as many rulers.

And they kept goading each other on,

even as they set their sights

beyond the margins of the continent.

Discoveries and conquests became weapons

in a continental power struggle.

To prevail in the struggle, you had to be open

to new ideas and always ready for the big move.

Hordes of armed men follow Columbus to the New World.

They have nothing to lose in Spain,

and they hope to find a better future across the ocean.

They board ships heading west, and along with their horses,

they advance deep into Central America.

(dramatic music)

This land must harbor incredible treasures, they think.

Legends like El Dorado, a Central American ruler

so rich that he supposedly covers himself in gold dust

every morning and washes it off every evening

in a sacred lake, only served to increase

their thirst for adventure.

But where is El Dorado, and where are his piles

of gold and silver?

The conquest of the New World offers immense opportunities

to the restless, underemployed men

of the Iberian Peninsula.

As conquistadores, they strike deep inroads

into the Americas, driven by greed,

missionary zeal, and the desire for status.

(soft music)

The main competitors of the Spanish are the Portuguese,

an experienced seafaring nation.

They too have an insatiable desire to explore the world

in search of opportunities that will give them

an advantage over their rivals.

Five years after the discovery of America,

explorers Vasco da Gama and Bartolmeu Dias

set off for India.

They round the dreaded Cape of Good Hope

at the southern tip of Africa and become the first

Europeans to actually make it to India via this route.

(dramatic music)

There's an astonishing dynamism to this process

of European expansion.

Competition with the Spanish crown drives the Portuguese

to keep extending the range of their operations.

And the extraordinary success of this small

European country suggests that they

must be doing something right.

It was with these ships, caravels,

that the Portuguese first reached Africa,

India, Brazil and Japan.

Without such craft, and their later and larger

follow-up versions, the Europeans wouldn't have

discovered anything, let alone conquered it.

And what lay behind them was nothing less

than cutting-edge technology.

The caravel was the space shuttle of its era.

Very fast, extremely stable, storm-resistant

and able to navigate in shallow coastal waters.

Incidentally, there are virtually no written records

of how this breakthrough invention was achieved.

It was all kept secret.

The shipbuilders passed their knowledge from generation

to generation by word of mouth.

After all, the competition was always watching.

European audiences are enthralled by the explorers'

travel journals and by the stories of their adventures,

which describe breathtaking landscapes

with lavish natural wonders around every corner.

A life of prosperity and abundance seems possible there.

The natives surely must be doing well for themselves,

if they can afford the kind of spices

only possessed by the wealthiest Europeans.

(dramatic music)

In the race for conquest outside of Europe,

Spain and Portugal remain bitter competitors.

Now the pope plans to step in to arbitrate the conflict.

In 1494, a treaty is negotiated in Spain

to regulate each country's holdings.

Using a simple method, the world is divided into two halves.

You, servant, take this cord

and stretch it across the map.

Right down the middle.

Like this.

That's how we'll divide the world.

No, that won't do.

You, move more to the right.

Further, further, and you, the other,

further to the left.

Good.

That's how the border should be.

Here is my part, and--

No!

No way.

(dramatic music)

The Treaty of Tordesillas is intended

to establish a definitive peace between the two rivals.

America to the west of this randomly fixed line

is promised to the Spanish kings, while all

the territory to the east, meaning Africa and Asia,

goes to the Portuguese.

The treaty doesn't even consider the other

maritime powers such as England and Holland.

The conflict over global wealth now begins in earnest,

and the competition among the European powers

grows even fiercer.

Everything changed.

Europe's view of the world, its prosperity,

its greed for more and more.

The violence of this conflicted continent

was projected outwards onto other peoples,

with horrific consequences.

The explorers were followed by the conquerors.

They set out into a strange and unfamiliar world,

lured by legendary treasures and adventure.

Mexico is a good example.

Hernan Cortes brings an army with him right from the start.

The conquerors view this new territory as their property,

as though no one lives here.

But of course there are already people and cultures

inhabiting these territories.

This is Europe's original sin.

By the time the Europeans arrive,

Mexico is the center of a highly advanced civilization.

But the conquerors are unimpressed.

Their goal is to strip the country's assets

and Christianize the population.

We used to admire these fearless adventurers.

We'd forgotten what misery they inflicted

on so much of humanity.

Gold is abundantly available on this continent.

It's a highly visible feature of indigenous culture.

And the Mexicans who use and display it

have no idea of the lust this treasure

excites in the European invaders.

(dramatic music)

The war against the native peoples begins.

It's arrows versus firearms,

entire peoples are enslaved, killed off

or perish from disease and malnutrition.

Their culture is destroyed.

Their treasures are carted off to Europe.

What's more, the Europeans pit the continent's

various ethnic groups against each other.

The Aztec temple in modern-day Mexico City is leveled.

On its foundations, the Spaniards construct

a Christian cathedral.

Europeans destroy a powerful empire

and build their own on its ruins.

(dramatic music)

It was a potent mix.

In South America, Western European imperialism

blended with religious zeal.

And so the new lords set the stamp of their authority

on the lands and people they captured.

Many of the cities on the conquered continent

still bear the signs of it today.

Their models were palatial monasteries,

such as the Mosteiro Jeronimos,

or Jeronimos Monastery, in Lisbon.

Imagine the effect of such prideful,

elaborately decorated facades on the indigenous peoples.

The Europeans profit not only from the continent's

gold and silver, but also from the natives'

agricultural and medical knowledge.

In today's globalized world, it's virtually impossible

to imagine how deep the impact of these encounters was.

There's profound change on both sides of the Atlantic.

Foods that had never been seen in Europe before

revolutionize the European diet.

Corn, tobacco, cotton, potatoes, coffee and chocolate

made their way into Europeans' shopping baskets.

After the introduction of the South American potato,

Europeans finally have enough to eat.

Soon, the population explodes.

You might even say that the American potato helped to lay

the foundation for Europe's rise as a global power.

It fed the masses.

(dramatic music)

And in return, America gets grain crops,

cabbage, wine grapes, and most importantly,

domesticated European animals.

The settlers now arriving in America

bring pigs, cows and horses.

Life completely changes within just a few generations.

The surviving native peoples gradually establish

permanent settlements and acquire private property,

just like the Europeans.

America's prairies become agrarian landscapes.

A decisive turning point in the continent's ecology.

(upbeat music)

But even a peaceful encounter can

have terrible consequences.

The conquerors bring more than just

their religious faith to the New World.

They also bring pathogens that spell doom

for many native peoples.

Historical records suggest that within a short time,

as many as 80% of the native population died

of smallpox, plague, typhoid fever and influenza.

(dramatic music)

We can trace the story of this dark chapter

of the colonial era

at the Sugar and Slavery Museum in London.

I've come here to find out more.

(soft music)

We're in the Docklands in the heart of London.

In the 18th century, this was where they traded in sugar.

It's often demonized today, but in the 18th century,

it was idolized.

Sugar was at the center of European dreams

of power and wealth.

The desire for sweetness is deeply embedded

in the genetic makeup of human beings.

The demand for colonial sugar was insatiable.

In the years between 1770 and 1775,

sugar consumption in England rose eight-fold.

No other commodity, not even gold and silver,

could match it for importance.

No other commodity so drastically exemplifies

the destructive impact of European consumption.

And no other product is so closely intertwined

with the exploitation of Central and South America,

and the degradation of the human beings who lived there.

But exactly how did this system of exploitation operate?

The Caribbean became the object of intense competition

among the European colonial powers.

Alongside Spain, France, the Netherlands and England

also became increasingly hungry

for goods from the Caribbean.

In the process, human beings themselves

were degraded to the status of commodities.

The more colonies the Europeans acquired,

the more workers they needed.

Networks of African traders provided

the Europeans with slaves.

These were shipped to North America and the Caribbean

to be exploited on sugar plantations.

Ships transported the products of the slave system

to an insatiable England, and the next slave raid

in Africa followed soon after.

This triangular trade became the most lucrative branch

of maritime commerce, until in 1807,

a law put an end to the slave trade in England.

The Europeans' contempt for the black population

is a decisive factor here.

They're treated as goods, not as people with rights,

and the slave trade is shockingly lucrative.

In collusion with tribal chiefs and Arab slave traders,

the Europeans capture the natives and transport them

to harbor towns, where they're shipped to the colonies

in slave galleys in abhorrent conditions.

(dramatic music)

The atrocity of slavery would make Europe rich and powerful.

This continent's ascendancy was secured

at an immense cost in human suffering.

There are registers in which the slaves

were listed as if they were cattle.

On this list here, we see on the left-hand side

the names of each of the slaves, then their ages,

here the price that was paid for them,

and on the right hand remarks on each individual.

That he's sickly, that he is a good Negro,

a good hand, that he is a runaway.

That he's slightly consumptive.

Human beings are treated as commodities.

There are approximately 40,000 slave transports

from Africa to America.

12 million people are shipped on slave galleys,

but only around 10 million of them

are still alive when they arrive.

They are processed through the slave markets

and spend the rest of their lives

on sugar plantations, cotton fields

or in the mines of South America.

The goods produced in the New World

are then sent back to Europe,

a profitable cycle for white Europeans.

(dramatic music)

Spain and Portugal proudly show off their new wealth.

Cities like Seville and Lisbon

grow into radiant, bustling metropolises,

sparking envy among their neighbors.

Europe is dominated by relentless competition

for profit and power.

Other countries shoulder their way

into the global marketplace.

The Dutch are particularly active here

as merchants and as pirates.

With its powerful fleet and modern financial system,

this tiny republic keeps its European neighbors on edge.

The merchants' impressive homes still bear witness

to that golden era in the Netherlands' history.

(dramatic music)

The Amsterdam Stock Exchange is established

in the early 17th century.

It's a meeting spot for people who want to invest

their money in securities, as well as for those

who hope to turn their securities into money.

In that sense, this stock market

is an early form of exchange, or trading, floor.

And like today's stock markets,

this one had its bubbles and busts.

This was the era of the tulip craze.

These beautiful flowers had become a valuable commodity

hotly traded on the stock exchange,

even while the tulip bulbs were still in the ground.

In the winter of 1636, the tulip bubble burst.

99 bulbs were auctioned off for 90,000 guilders,

about 900,000 euros in today's money.

The buyers were speculating that prices would continue

to rise and they would be able to resell the bulbs

at a profit, but it was not to be.

People suddenly lost interest in the overpriced flowers,

and the speculators were left high and dry.

The wealthy merchants invest in art,

and the revenues from trade fuel the rise

of the Dutch school whose artists,

Rembrandt, Vermeer and Frans Hals,

still adorn the museums, reminding us of the opulence

and sophistication of the Dutch Golden Age.

(dramatic music)

Without the profits from the slave trade,

none of this would be here.

(popping)

For the Spanish and the Portuguese,

converting the heathen to Christianity

was still an important part of the motivational mix,

but in the 17th century, Protestants,

especially in the Netherlands,

were quite literally at the helm.

As seafarers and cartographers, they had plenty

of experience, and now they founded

the world's first multinational concerns,

corporations with a global remit

like the Dutch East India Company.

By this means they secured a monopoly on trade with Asia.

At times, they had nearly 5,000 ships under sail.

Hardly surprising then that the merchants of Amsterdam,

as depicted by Rembrandt, became immensely wealthy

and built these wonderful palaces.

No one can deny that this European city

has a harmonious beauty about it.

But there's a dark side.

The lion's share of this wealth was acquired

through the exploitation of peoples

and of the colonies where they lived.

It's an unsettling legacy that's still with us today.

The odd pediment above a front door in Amsterdam

still tells the tale.

Here, for example, this house belonged

to the famous admiral Cornelis Tromp.

He was a 17th-century seafaring hero

and master of many slaves here in Amsterdam.

And here's a little black boy that the admiral

bought for perhaps a few guilders.

The sense of a God-given superiority

over other humans is breathtaking.

And Europeans have not found it easy to look

this part of their history in the eye.

It was only a few years ago that the Dutch queen

officially acknowledged the suffering

inflicted on 550,000 slaves in the name of the crown.

And this dark past is still alive in the present,

even on the royal carriage.

But in a Europe that prided itself on its civilization

and Christian values, were no dissenting voices raised

against this appalling injustice?

Well yes there were, and one of these voices

belonged to Bishop Bartolome de las Casas,

who in the 16th century took up the cause

of the enslaved native Indians,

though he only later acknowledged the rights

of African slaves.

"It was always unjust to catch them,

"and it was tyranny to enslave them," he wrote.

This was probably the first European commitment

to universal human rights.

But it was not enforced until 200 years later,

and then, only temporarily.

(dramatic music)

England would soon overtake the Netherlands

as the leading colonial power.

London become the foremost hub

and driver of globalization.

(dramatic music)

♪ Rule, Britannia ♪

♪ Britannia, rule the waves ♪

It's a fantastically catchy song that still stirs

the blood of patriots here in England.

The ascendancy of modern Britain began with a victory

over the Spanish Armada 450 years ago.

With a modern naval fleet, Britain did indeed

soon rule the waves.

Bankrolled by the raids led by legendary privateers

like Sir Francis Drake.

Elizabeth the First was the self-confident queen

who led her country out of the shadow of Spain

and Portugal, allowing it to become a global player.

In a famous portrait of the queen, we see

the victorious fleet and the sinking armada.

Elizabeth the First as a goddess of war.

And here in Westminster Abbey, she rests in peace.

The Virgin Queen who devoted herself entirely

to her country and opened the world to England.

(dramatic music)

Over the centuries, Britain proves its mettle

as a naval and colonial power.

By 1913, the British Empire encompasses about a quarter

of the world's population and about a quarter

of its total land area.

The British navigator Captain James Cook

is in the Pacific to observe the transit of Venus,

but he has an additional secret task,

to search for new territories in the South Seas.

There is already abundant evidence of another

Southern continent, terra Australus incognita.

My home country.

On the 29th of April, 1770, James Cook drops anchor

off the coast of Australia.

He had set sail from England towards

the South Pacific a year earlier.

Now, Cook will be the first Englishman to set foot

on Australian soil, a triumph for the ambitious explorer.

He goes ashore at a place he will dub Botany Bay

because the botanists who travel with him

collect hundreds of plants here that no one

in Europe has ever seen before.

Cook claims the east coast of the country

for the British Empire and names the region New South Wales.

(waves crashing)

But the country Cook has discovered

for England is not uninhabited.

The Aborigines arrive on the continent

more than 60,000 years before Cook.

According to their mythology, they've been entrusted

with the land by a higher power.

They populate the country as hunters and gatherers,

and now come the Europeans, who seize the land

and murder many of their people.

(Aboriginal music)

There are many places in Australia

where you can find the petroglyphs of the Aborigines.

Some of this artwork is up to 20,000 years old.

It's the spiritual architecture of the continent.

The images communicate reflections on

the natural environment, but there are also

depictions of humans.

The white invaders adopt a threatening,

demanding attitude, and their weapons

are painted blood red.

But something else begins with Cook's arrival too.

Systematic research into the continent's flora and fauna.

(soft music)

The sailors who undertook these epic journeys

were always joined by a complement of scientists.

Astronomers, botanists, experimental gentlemen,

as they were known here on the Endeavor.

In the 18th century European world empires,

science and power entered into an intimate relationship.

Gathering knowledge about the world,

extending it, structuring it,

was essential to the wielding of imperial power.

The Endeavor was a British ship, and its captain

was a Yorkshireman from Whitby,

but not everybody serving on this crew was British.

The experimental gentlemen, the experts and scientists

who joined this team, for the journey of exploration

to New Zealand and Australia included

the Finnish botanist Herman Sporing

and his Swedish colleague Daniel Solander.

And on a later journey, with Cook,

the great German natural scientist Georg Forster

joined the crew.

These journeys of discovery

were a genuinely European phenomenon.

At this point, no one is planning to colonize the country.

It is not until 18 years later that the first

British fleets lands with a very different purpose.

(dramatic music)

Initially, Australia serves as a penitentiary

for convicted criminals from England.

Enormous prison colonies, like Port Arthur on Tasmania,

are the result.

It's believed to have been the worst jail

in the entire British Empire.

More than 12,000 prisoners endure hell on Earth

in this remote location.

By the 19th century, the English have spread out

to every corner of the world, America, Asia,

India, Oceania, Australia.

English is becoming the new global language

alongside Spanish.

But the British soon run into trouble

with their increasingly wealthy and self-confident

white settler colonies.

In 1773, the conflict between the British motherland

and the American colonists escalates in Boston.

13 colonies revolt, and their revolution

eventually creates the United States of America.

(dramatic music)

British subjects become American patriots.

And the cause of the frustration in Boston

is the exorbitant tax on British Indian tea.

The furious Bostonians board the British ships

and dump an entire shipment of tea into the harbor.

It's the first step towards American independence.

(upbeat music)

Even today, there are still regular reenactments

of this event in Boston.

(cheering)

What begins as a tax riot soon expands

into a movement for independence.

The motto of the British colonies in America

is Give me liberty, or give me death.

The Revolutionary War begins in 1775.

Englishmen, Germans and Frenchmen,

supported by their respective indigenous allies,

are engaged in a struggle for the future of a continent.

(cannons firing)

Ultimately, the colonists win their freedom

from their colonial rulers with a decisive victory

at the Battle of Yorktown.

(guns firing)

The Declaration of Independence is followed

by the adoption of the American Constitution,

but like many constitutions, this one is not

an entirely faithful mirror of reality.

Notwithstanding the colonies' dependence on slavery,

it solemnly states that all men are created equal.

For all these dissonances, the American Constitution

was an important step towards the emergence

of modern democracy, not just in America

but in the Old World as well.

Where there is liberty, there is my country.

In the decades that followed, millions of emigrants

would take this motto to heart and pack their bags.

They leave Europe behind them.

Whole villages emigrate together.

They are fleeing poverty and hunger

in search of a better life.

Today, we might call them economic refugees.

They view America as the land of prosperity

and self-determination.

No other continent has exported as many people as Europe,

even into the 20th century.

(soft music)

Today, nearly 50 million Americans

claim that they have German ancestors.

And many others have French, British, Irish,

Spanish or Italian roots.

In the 20th century, America becomes a safe haven

for Europeans seeking a better life.

It's impossible to imagine modern America without them.

(soft music)

In the 19th century, the United Kingdom is the largest

colonial power in history.

But the other powers don't want to be left empty-handed,

and there's still some land to be had.

(marching band music)

Who would win the battle for the spoils

of imperial conquest?

In the 19th century, the European colonial powers

entered into a bitter competition.

The scramble for Africa.

Colonialism was a fetish.

It had less to do with profits than with prestige

and fantasies of power.

To possess and develop colonies

was considered a sign of modernity.

And here too, everything revolved around competition,

that crucial motor of European history

which in this form existed on no other continent.

The British were at the height of their

international power, and they forced their neighbors

to the margins of world events.

This fullness of power was personified in Queen Victoria,

who was also empress of India and once said,

"We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat.

"They do not exist."

The British were now stronger than they ever would be again,

but like all great powers, they were surrounded

by rivals and enemies.

They were not the only players contending

for African prizes.

France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal,

all of them wanted a piece of the great pie,

a piece of Africa.

(soft music)

The great powers meet in Berlin.

A continent is divided up and portioned out.

It's the Berlin West Africa Conference of 1884.

The German chancellor, Otto Von Bismarck,

has invited representatives to the capital

of the German Empire in an effort to prevent

a looming conflict between the African colonial powers.

14 countries are competing for the last

remaining territories.

Ultimately, it's the Belgian king who emerges

as the big winner.

He's promised the entire Congo basin, rich in resources.

10 million people will later pay for this decision

with their lives.

Germany too joins the ranks of the colonial powers.

(soft piano music)

The Europeans know little of Africa.

They think of it as the Dark Continent.

Africa has already been bled dry by the slave trade,

and now the last unconquered territory,

except for Ethiopia and Liberia,

is divided up among the European powers.

Arbitrary borders, systematic exploitation,

today's Africa is still grappling with the consequences.

(dramatic music)

In many parts of Africa, the indigenous populations

resist the colonial authorities.

At the battle of Waterberg in what is today

known as Namibia, the Germans, led by the infamous

Lothar von Trotha, drive the Herero people into the desert.

Trotha calls it a race war.

It becomes an exercise in mass extermination.

In Africa, colonial authority is founded on an alliance

between the gun and the Bible.

Missionaries educate the native populations

and convert them to Christianity.

The Europeans propagate their own civilization,

deeply convinced of its superiority.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the arm

of the European colonial powers reaches

across nearly half the world.

The Germans share islands like New Guinea with the Dutch,

and Indochina, like wide swaths of Africa,

is under French control.

The European powers even view China

as a sort of colony.

They gain colonial footholds all along the Chinese coast.

Hong Kong, Macau, Sing Tao.

(ship's horn blowing)

(dramatic music)

In 1876, Great Britain's Queen Victoria

is proclaimed empress of India.

Her immense Indian territories,

home to numerous ancient cultures,

come to be seen as the crown jewel of the British Empire.

No other continent had or would ever

dominate such a huge portion of the world's peoples.

We're still puzzling over the consequences.

(soft music)

After the end of the Second World War,

the European powers reluctantly give up their colonies.

Europe withdraws to its heartland.

But the legacy of European expansion

casts a dark shadow.

(birds calling)

(dramatic music)

The two faces of Europe remain.

Europeans discovered the world on the far side

of the oceans for themselves, and they made

their own kind of sense of the people

and things they found there.

From their perspective, it was a remarkable expansion

of the horizons of knowledge, an extraordinary feat.

On the other hand, the legacies

of their conquests were scandalous.

European civilization is the only one

to have imposed itself on the rest of the world.

And only very late in the day, after World War Two,

did Europe discover that it did have a conscience.

So the history of Europe is made of contradictions.

At the very moment when Pizarro and his conquistadors

are exterminating the Inca, erasing their culture

and preparing to strip the Andes of their bullion,

Michelangelo begins work on his fantastic painting,

The Last Judgment, for the Sistine Chapel.

The history of Europe has left deep scars,

as well as treasures.

(dramatic music)