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How could something as simple as salt...
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connect to all of life?
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To humans.
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To Earth.
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And to civilization itself.
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The answer lies in big history.
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We think of history as a timeline...
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a series of events stretching
a few thousand years into the past.
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It's time to think bigger.
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00:00:31,825 --> 00:00:36,204
Instead of a line,
imagine a Web of infinite connections...
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interacting over billions of years...
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00:00:38,957 --> 00:00:42,544
linked together to create
everything we 've ever known-
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00:00:42,627 --> 00:00:46,423
our universe, our planet and us.
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00:00:47,465 --> 00:00:51,386
When We consider our most epic moments
through the lens of science...
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00:00:51,469 --> 00:00:53,763
We unleash
a revolutionary new idea.
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00:00:54,597 --> 00:00:58,560
The movement of atoms
steer the movements of men...
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00:00:58,643 --> 00:01:01,229
civilizations, galaxies.
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00:01:01,312 --> 00:01:05,150
History as We know it
is about to get big.
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00:01:12,240 --> 00:01:16,161
Thousands of laborers
are making 25 cents a day...
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digging a ditch 350 miles long.
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The Erie Canal.
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Traditional history tells us it's
the most ambitious engineering project...
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ever attempted in America.
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Big history tells us it's the key
to a secret map of the World-
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designed mainly to transport
one precious item: salt.
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America has a shortage.
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But upstate New York
has a natural supply.
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By connecting
that salt-rich region...
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to the country's
Water highway system...
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the shortage Will be solved.
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00:02:02,874 --> 00:02:06,628
The Erie Canal lets you bring
salt by water to the Hudson River.
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00:02:06,711 --> 00:02:08,797
From the Hudson River,
you can get down to New York...
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and from New York, by water,
you can move anywhere.
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The Erie Canal
Will be called "the ditch that salt built. "
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00:02:18,681 --> 00:02:21,017
But it leaves another mark
on America.
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Trade explodes between the Great Lakes
and the Hudson River.
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00:02:28,733 --> 00:02:30,443
And since all that trade...
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has to pass through the port
at the mouth of the Hudson...
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that port explodes as Well.
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00:02:38,743 --> 00:02:42,038
So, in a big history sense,
New York City...
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00:02:42,121 --> 00:02:46,960
would not be the city that it is
without salt.
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00:02:55,260 --> 00:02:58,096
Big history
is about taking simple things...
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and making epic connections.
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00:03:03,268 --> 00:03:06,563
It links events on a global scale...
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to a craving in the animal kingdom.
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All animals need salt...
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and carve out trails
to Where it exists naturally...
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called "salt licks. "
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In prehistoric New York...
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Where there are far more buffalo
than people...
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vast herds carve a trail
to one salt lick-
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in the spot Where the Erie Canal
Will one day empty into Lake Erie.
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The site Will be called
Buffalo, New York.
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Early hunters follow these paths...
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Which become trails...
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and then our earliest roads.
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If you looked at a road map
of North America before the 1960s...
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00:04:17,216 --> 00:04:20,261
before they created
the national highway grid...
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00:04:20,345 --> 00:04:23,514
you would see a very odd
formation of roads.
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00:04:23,598 --> 00:04:25,600
And that's because
most of these roads...
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were just paved-over animal paths
to salt licks.
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Around the World,
salt leaves its mark on the map.
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00:04:40,198 --> 00:04:42,742
In ancient Rome,
the very first paved road...
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is built to carry salt.
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It is called the Via Salaria-
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"the Salt Road. "
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Centuries later,
salt roads and shipping routes...
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built Venice into a powerhouse of trade.
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00:05:02,887 --> 00:05:04,806
Salt is so important...
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We mark the places
Where it's found by name.
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00:05:10,019 --> 00:05:12,146
Like Salzburg in Austria...
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Which means "Salt Town. "
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And any town in England
that ends in "Wich. "
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00:05:20,238 --> 00:05:21,990
Greenwich and Sandwich and Norwich...
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00:05:22,073 --> 00:05:23,658
and any place with a "wich"...
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00:05:23,741 --> 00:05:26,369
is a salt-making town in England.
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So much of our map,
from the Erie Canal...
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to the salt-making towns of England...
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00:05:36,045 --> 00:05:39,257
can be traced back
to the quest for salt.
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00:05:40,591 --> 00:05:44,762
So much seems to rest on Why salt
ended up Where it did.
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00:05:47,932 --> 00:05:52,061
But how did salt end up in these places
and not others?
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00:06:02,697 --> 00:06:05,283
Three billion years ago...
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00:06:05,366 --> 00:06:07,994
salt is dissolved by rain...
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and flows into early seas.
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These oceans evaporate,
leaving huge deposits behind.
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00:06:23,259 --> 00:06:25,011
Earth's shifting crust...
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00:06:25,094 --> 00:06:28,639
folds these massive salt flats
deep underground.
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Deposits of salt are basically just
prehistoric oceans dried up.
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00:06:37,982 --> 00:06:41,110
Later, the remnants
of these ancient seas...
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00:06:41,194 --> 00:06:44,989
break to the surface,
but only in some places-
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00:06:47,033 --> 00:06:51,287
rare sites that Will have
a massive impact on civilization.
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Just five percent of the Earth...
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is Within 10 miles
of a natural salt supply.
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00:07:01,881 --> 00:07:04,050
All of man’s earliest cities...
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00:07:04,133 --> 00:07:07,762
Will be built not only
next to sources of Water...
96
00:07:07,845 --> 00:07:10,223
but also next to
these sources of salt.
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00:07:14,227 --> 00:07:17,980
And even in the places
Without a natural supply...
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salt connects the World...
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00:07:22,527 --> 00:07:25,947
by linking salt outposts like Timbuktu...
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00:07:26,030 --> 00:07:29,033
to other cities through trade.
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00:07:33,704 --> 00:07:38,835
Salt was so rare, it would actually trade
ounce for ounce with gold.
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00:07:38,918 --> 00:07:42,171
And then the beautiful thing is,
from a big history standpoint...
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once you had
this trade network built...
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you could transport anything.
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Salt has silently engineered
our global map.
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00:07:55,643 --> 00:07:58,938
But before that,
it Was the key ingredient-
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in one of the most revolutionary moments...
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00:08:01,858 --> 00:08:03,192
in big history.
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00:08:07,405 --> 00:08:10,408
Big history is a new Way to see the World.
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00:08:13,578 --> 00:08:15,580
It reveals how our cities...
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00:08:19,125 --> 00:08:20,626
our roads...
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our map...
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are all built on salt.
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00:08:34,765 --> 00:08:37,518
But Why is a simple molecule
so important...
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that man will move mountains to get it?
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Three billion years ago.
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The world is covered by one giant ocean.
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The Water is teeming
With elements and minerals...
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including 35parts per thousand of salt.
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In this chemical bath...
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life mysteriously appears.
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00:09:23,981 --> 00:09:26,817
For billions of years
in the history of the Earth...
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00:09:26,901 --> 00:09:29,070
there were only single-celled organisms...
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and they lived predominantly
in the oceans.
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00:09:36,410 --> 00:09:39,956
Life evolves over billions of years.
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00:09:43,000 --> 00:09:45,169
But even as continents emerge...
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life stays in the ocean,
clinging to Water and salt.
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00:09:54,845 --> 00:09:57,765
Some animals experiment.
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00:09:57,848 --> 00:10:00,518
They take their first steps on land...
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but return to the salt Water
to reproduce.
131
00:10:08,276 --> 00:10:10,611
The key to surviving on land?
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Bring the salty ocean Water With them.
133
00:10:19,870 --> 00:10:21,372
The solution?
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The egg.
135
00:10:28,004 --> 00:10:30,798
When we started crawling
onto the land...
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00:10:30,881 --> 00:10:34,093
certain creatures figured out-
birds, reptiles-
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00:10:34,176 --> 00:10:35,803
that they could lay eggs...
138
00:10:35,886 --> 00:10:38,723
that have a nice, hard shell...
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00:10:38,806 --> 00:10:43,477
that kind of keeps the salt water
contained in a small space for them.
140
00:10:43,561 --> 00:10:45,146
And even mammals today-
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00:10:45,229 --> 00:10:48,899
you can think about the womb
with the amniotic sac...
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00:10:48,983 --> 00:10:53,321
as sort of a little ocean
that the fetus can live in.
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00:11:00,745 --> 00:11:03,622
So all life emerged from salt Water.
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00:11:07,084 --> 00:11:09,837
All creatures need it, crave it-
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00:11:09,920 --> 00:11:11,922
and quickly die Without it.
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00:11:15,134 --> 00:11:17,845
If you think about that
in big history context...
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00:11:17,928 --> 00:11:21,223
we would not even maybe have life at all
were it not for salt.
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00:11:22,641 --> 00:11:26,687
That's one reason
for salt's oversized impact on history.
149
00:11:28,314 --> 00:11:30,608
It's a key to life itself.
150
00:11:32,568 --> 00:11:34,695
Cells need salt to function.
151
00:11:34,779 --> 00:11:37,281
Bacteria need it, we need it.
152
00:11:37,365 --> 00:11:39,200
All organisms need salt.
153
00:11:40,368 --> 00:11:42,953
It's a link We carry in our own bodies.
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00:11:43,954 --> 00:11:47,875
Our tears and sweat
reflect the same salt content...
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as in the ancient ocean.
156
00:11:57,468 --> 00:11:59,804
And salt rules our minds.
157
00:12:01,055 --> 00:12:04,683
Sodium helps transmit signals
between our brain cells.
158
00:12:05,810 --> 00:12:08,646
Our actual thoughts are made of salt.
159
00:12:09,939 --> 00:12:12,566
The actual
cerebral activity inside of your brain...
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00:12:12,650 --> 00:12:15,236
is just a bunch of sodium
and potassium ions...
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00:12:15,319 --> 00:12:17,738
going in and out,
in and out of cells.
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00:12:17,822 --> 00:12:19,907
Our consciousness itself
is made out of salt.
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00:12:27,498 --> 00:12:29,583
But if salt is so vital...
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00:12:29,667 --> 00:12:32,461
that We build structures
as small as the egg...
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and as large as a canal to get it...
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00:12:39,009 --> 00:12:41,011
another mystery remains.
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00:12:43,180 --> 00:12:45,349
Our bodies tell us We need food...
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00:12:46,308 --> 00:12:48,310
through hunger.
169
00:12:48,394 --> 00:12:51,522
We know We need Water through thirst.
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00:12:52,189 --> 00:12:54,900
How do We know When We need salt?
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What our body did
is sort of give us cravings for salt...
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00:13:00,197 --> 00:13:02,908
and we sort of got addicted to it.
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00:13:03,826 --> 00:13:06,370
You may not specifically
think to yourself...
174
00:13:06,454 --> 00:13:09,915
"I crave salt," but you crave...
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00:13:09,999 --> 00:13:13,878
that taste sensation
that salt gives food.
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00:13:15,379 --> 00:13:18,716
You could call
this craving our "salt sense. "
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00:13:19,383 --> 00:13:21,886
There's an evolutionary
component to this as well.
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00:13:21,969 --> 00:13:23,888
Some call salt "the primal addiction."
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00:13:23,971 --> 00:13:27,683
These are the sort of connections that
big history shows us very well, I think.
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00:13:29,560 --> 00:13:33,063
According to recent research,
our addiction to salt...
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00:13:33,147 --> 00:13:36,192
might be the root of all addictions.
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00:13:36,275 --> 00:13:41,363
So, it could be that a craving
for tobacco or alcohol or something...
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00:13:41,447 --> 00:13:43,574
is just an unfortunate side effect...
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00:13:43,657 --> 00:13:46,285
of these biologically necessary
addictions.
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00:13:49,622 --> 00:13:52,416
Big history reveals
that our salt addiction...
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00:13:52,500 --> 00:13:55,211
is the key
to some unexpected connections.
187
00:14:06,639 --> 00:14:08,599
200 B. C.
188
00:14:10,643 --> 00:14:12,728
More than one million laborers...
189
00:14:12,811 --> 00:14:16,106
are building the longest
defensive fortification in the World-
190
00:14:17,942 --> 00:14:19,693
the Great Wall.
191
00:14:22,071 --> 00:14:25,658
When complete, it Will stretch
more than 3, 000 miles...
192
00:14:25,741 --> 00:14:28,118
across China's northern border.
193
00:14:29,620 --> 00:14:31,622
It is a massive undertaking...
194
00:14:34,750 --> 00:14:37,795
and the emperor
has an enormous problem-
195
00:14:39,755 --> 00:14:41,382
how to pay for it.
196
00:14:42,800 --> 00:14:45,970
His advisers propose
a clever solution.
197
00:14:47,471 --> 00:14:49,431
Tax salt.
198
00:14:49,515 --> 00:14:51,267
The economists are saying
to the government...
199
00:14:51,350 --> 00:14:52,893
"We need to monopolize salt.
200
00:14:52,977 --> 00:14:56,647
You need to take control of salt
because this is incredibly valuable."
201
00:14:57,898 --> 00:15:00,109
Taxes make salt expensive...
202
00:15:00,192 --> 00:15:02,319
and salt addicts angry.
203
00:15:03,028 --> 00:15:05,155
But the people need salt.
204
00:15:08,242 --> 00:15:11,036
And the emperor gets his Wall.
205
00:15:14,415 --> 00:15:16,542
But a salt tax can backfire.
206
00:15:22,423 --> 00:15:25,092
In India in 1930...
207
00:15:25,175 --> 00:15:28,262
Where Mahatma Gandhi's march
against the British salt tax...
208
00:15:29,179 --> 00:15:31,348
ultimately leads to independence.
209
00:15:37,938 --> 00:15:40,983
In France in 1789...
210
00:15:41,066 --> 00:15:45,654
Where a crushing tax on salt
pushes the people to their breaking point.
211
00:15:48,866 --> 00:15:52,411
And this discontent
feeds into other discontents...
212
00:15:53,621 --> 00:15:56,957
and is at least partly responsible
for the outbreak of the French Revolution.
213
00:16:06,884 --> 00:16:09,261
The simple stuff of salt...
214
00:16:09,345 --> 00:16:13,015
sets in motion
the complex forces of history.
215
00:16:13,849 --> 00:16:17,686
But how does it affect everything
from the death of pharaohs...
216
00:16:18,479 --> 00:16:20,481
to the birth of civilization?
217
00:16:21,774 --> 00:16:25,569
The secret is in
the superpower of salt.
218
00:16:32,242 --> 00:16:35,371
We've seen that salt
led to the rise of cities...
219
00:16:39,458 --> 00:16:42,002
and the fall of kings.
220
00:16:44,922 --> 00:16:47,132
And it is the key to life itself.
221
00:16:51,428 --> 00:16:55,474
A tiny crystal With a giant impact.
222
00:16:56,558 --> 00:16:59,687
Because salt has a superpower.
223
00:17:07,903 --> 00:17:10,698
Egypt, 1213 B. C.
224
00:17:15,244 --> 00:17:17,579
Pharaoh Ramses has died.
225
00:17:19,623 --> 00:17:24,211
If priests can't preserve his body
before rot sets in...
226
00:17:24,294 --> 00:17:27,089
his soul Won't make it to the afterlife.
227
00:17:28,298 --> 00:17:30,342
And salt is how they do it.
228
00:17:31,135 --> 00:17:33,887
The Egyptians used a type of salt
called natron...
229
00:17:33,971 --> 00:17:35,222
to preserve the human body.
230
00:17:35,305 --> 00:17:38,559
It's probably the most effective
preservative ever made in human history.
231
00:17:40,018 --> 00:17:42,730
It's a funny thing to think about...
232
00:17:42,813 --> 00:17:45,149
but if you look at-
there are recipes-
233
00:17:45,232 --> 00:17:48,569
how they made mummies, and it's...
234
00:17:48,652 --> 00:17:52,948
very much the same recipe
as how you preserve a fish.
235
00:17:53,031 --> 00:17:55,951
You remove the entrails
and you pack them with salt.
236
00:17:56,034 --> 00:17:57,828
It's a human codfish.
237
00:18:00,873 --> 00:18:03,500
Why does salt preserve things?
238
00:18:05,335 --> 00:18:09,089
Because salt has a superpower
over Water.
239
00:18:12,551 --> 00:18:17,514
Big history zooms in
to the microscopic World of salt.
240
00:18:21,518 --> 00:18:23,812
We 're looking
at a clump of salt molecules...
241
00:18:23,896 --> 00:18:26,190
in tissue that's filled With Water.
242
00:18:27,900 --> 00:18:32,488
As the Water molecules float by,
they lock onto the salt...
243
00:18:33,405 --> 00:18:35,491
and pull it apart.
244
00:18:35,574 --> 00:18:40,037
The salt molecules separate
and draw the Water out of the tissue.
245
00:18:43,832 --> 00:18:48,337
Without Water, the microbes
that cause decay die...
246
00:18:48,420 --> 00:18:52,800
and the dry tissue
lasts for months or years.
247
00:18:54,259 --> 00:18:57,513
The disco very of salt’s power
to preserve meat...
248
00:18:58,180 --> 00:19:02,226
fish, vegetables and even mummies...
249
00:19:02,309 --> 00:19:05,312
Was a great step forward
for civilization.
250
00:19:09,107 --> 00:19:14,363
In a World before electricity,
salt Was mankind's refrigerator...
251
00:19:14,446 --> 00:19:19,201
the key Way to preserve food
from one harvest to the next.
252
00:19:20,327 --> 00:19:22,496
One of the great problems
for agricultural societies...
253
00:19:22,579 --> 00:19:25,415
is how to preserve things,
and salt is the answer.
254
00:19:26,416 --> 00:19:28,335
The Word "salami"...
255
00:19:28,418 --> 00:19:30,546
an ancient form of salted meat...
256
00:19:30,629 --> 00:19:34,258
comes from the Latin Word sal
or salt.
257
00:19:34,341 --> 00:19:39,429
So do the Words "sausage, "
"sauce"and "salsa. "
258
00:19:41,598 --> 00:19:45,269
Since salt saved both food
and people...
259
00:19:46,019 --> 00:19:48,105
so does the Word "salvation. "
260
00:19:51,108 --> 00:19:56,029
And since salt Was so valuable that
the Romans paid their soldiers With it...
261
00:19:56,113 --> 00:19:58,782
so does the Word "salary. "
262
00:20:03,871 --> 00:20:06,623
We've seen that salt
is so essential to life...
263
00:20:06,707 --> 00:20:09,084
that humans became salt addicts.
264
00:20:13,380 --> 00:20:16,049
That this tiny crystal built our roads...
265
00:20:16,800 --> 00:20:19,636
our canals, our cities.
266
00:20:22,639 --> 00:20:27,060
That it preserved our food,
saved us from starvation...
267
00:20:27,144 --> 00:20:30,439
and allowed civilization itself to arise.
268
00:20:36,111 --> 00:20:40,157
History transformed
by the simple chemistry of salt...
269
00:20:40,908 --> 00:20:45,245
and the invisible Way that salt
draws moisture out of things.
270
00:20:46,330 --> 00:20:49,458
Salt is a really cool example
of big history because...
271
00:20:49,541 --> 00:20:53,170
through the crystal
of one grain of salt...
272
00:20:54,922 --> 00:20:57,549
you can see all of history.
273
00:21:00,844 --> 00:21:04,056
But the story of salt
is just the beginning.
274
00:21:04,139 --> 00:21:07,100
There's a much bigger puzzle
hidden in big history.
275
00:21:07,184 --> 00:21:09,353
Each episode unlocks a clue.
276
00:21:10,187 --> 00:21:12,189
Everyday things like flight...
277
00:21:13,857 --> 00:21:15,275
gold...
278
00:21:16,026 --> 00:21:18,278
and mountains hold the key.
279
00:21:19,196 --> 00:21:23,158
Watch them all, and you'll see
this grand mystery revealed-
280
00:21:23,867 --> 00:21:26,703
the big history of time, of space...
281
00:21:27,454 --> 00:21:29,790
the big history of us.
22357
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