Original subtitles

[ Man Narrating ] Font Knox, Kentucky.

Inside one of the planet's most heavily guarded fortresses...

behind a door that weighs 44, 000 pounds...

lies the most famous stash of metal in the world.

Big history reveals the mysterious power of gold.

We think of history as a timeline...

a series of events stretching a few thousand years into the past.

It's time to think bigger.

Instead of a line, imagine a web of infinite connections...

interacting over billions of years...

linked together to create everything we've ever known-

our universe, our planet...

and us.

When we consider our most epic moments through the lens of science...

we unleash a revolutionary new idea.

The movement of atoms steer the movements of men...

civilizations, galaxies.

History as we know it is about to get big.

[ Narrator] Fort Knox.

Rumored to contain gold worth almost a quarter of a trillion dollars.

But why is this metal worth anything at all?

[ Man ] The value associated with gold is entirely imaginary.

But people were motivated by that belief...

and that belief had a huge impact.

[ Narrator] The gold in Fort Knox comes from mines all over the world.

North and South America.

Africa.

Australia.

Traditional history tells us that wherever gold is discovered...

men always rush to dig it up.

But big history tells us why.

[ Narrator] James Marshall has failed at ranching and farming.

He now hopes to make his fortune running a sawmill.

One morning, Marshall sees something in the water.

[ Christian ] Gold is kind of magical.

It glistens.

[ Narrator] But what's the secret to gold's shine?

Big history zooms in...

to a single atom of gold.

When light hits the electrons orbiting the nucleus...

the electrons fly around and form clouds...

causing the light to bounce back...

into the eyes of James Marshall and everyone else who sees gold.

The science behind gold has a big impact.

Marshall and his partner, John Sutter, try to keep the discovery a secret...

but word gets out.

Traditional history tells us that forty-niners...

come from as far away as Mexico, Ireland, Peru, Russia and Australia...

to strike it rich in California.

But big history gives us something different.

Big history likes to consider a whole range of theories...

about our attraction to things that glitter with bling, if you like.

What's the origin of this attraction to glittering things?

[ Narrator] Could gold's shine be connected to our survival as a species?

To find out, big history links back almost 200,000 years.

These hunters are some of the earliest modern humans.

As they venture into new territory, their thirst deepens.

In this unforgiving landscape, they know one thing to look for.

The sparkle of sunlight on a stream.

For early humans, the glimmer means water, purity and survival.

That prehistoric connection is one we still make today.

[ Narrator] Humans are hardwired to seek out shine.

We want the chrome of cars...

the sparkle of jewelry.

Even our credit cards are sometimes sprinkled with gold...

just to give them that extra shine our brains are programmed to love.

[ Benjamin ] Big history is constantly connecting events from the past...

through to the present.

So can we trace in our collective cultural D.N.A...

our contemporary attraction to glittering things...

back to this ancient survival mechanism?

Perhaps we can.

[ Narrator] In the era of ancient civilizations...

gold is seen throughout the world as the king of metals...

and the metal of kings.

It shines like the sun...

and unlike other metals, it never rusts or tarnishes.

Gold seems eternal, like the gods and those who rule in their name.

If you're looking for something to advertise your status...

as an early king or an early emperor, gold is the way to go.

[ Narrator] There's another reason for the power this metal has over us.

[ Christian ] it's quite rare.

If gold were everywhere-you know, if it was like pebbles on the beach-

we certainly wouldn't value it.

[ Narrator] Then, over 2,500 years ago...

on one side of the planet...

a new idea about gold emerges.

[Chattering ]

The Mediterranean.

As trade routes expand, gold becomes money.

[Christian ] Gold seems to have value, so it makes exchanges much easier.

That makes it a natural form of money.

[ Narrator] But why turn to gold instead of other metals?

People of the ancient world only know of seven metals.

Gold, copper, lead, tin, silver, mercury and iron.

Iron is too hard. Lead is too soft.

Tin is weak, and mercury is a liquid.

Copper and silver are used for coins, but they tarnish.

To the ancients, nothing matches gold.

In Europe and Asia...

gold coins become symbols of the nations that mint them.

Gold coins let ordinary people hold the metal of the gods.

I think it's this combination of the glittering attraction of gold...

and the fact that when you link that to the power of a king's image on one side...

and the power of a god on the other, you've got, like, a triple whammy there.

[ Narrator] The power of money combined with the scarcity of gold...

will lead to blood and conquest...

despite one mysterious fact.

Gold may seem rare...

but Earth holds a secret supply.

There's not only enough for everyone...

there's enough to drown the planet.

[ Narrator] Big history uses science to change the way we see history.

It reveals why gold shines...

why the ancient world valued it...

and what connects all the gold rushes across the planet.

Which leads to a bigger mystery.

Why is this rare treasure found in some places but not others?

[ Benjamin ] Big history shows us that without understanding...

the origins of this extraordinary metal...

none of the uses of gold would have been possible.

None of human history would have made sense...

unless we embed it in this much larger context...

of the planet, the solar system, our galaxy-

indeed, the entire cosmos.

[ Narrator] Gold is valuable in part because it's rare.

But there's a lot more than we think.

Big history takes us back 4.6 billion years.

[ Narrator] Gravity is pulling together space debris to form our home.

Early Earth was molten...

and most of the heavy metals sank to the core.

There's enough gold...

that you could cover Earth's surface to a thickness of 12 or 13 feet.

[ Filippenko ] But that's a vault that can't be opened.

We can't go down to the core of the Earth.

[ Narrator] Our planet is the ultimate version of Fort Knox...

guarding its gold supply under 1,800 miles of rock.

But a new shipment of gold is on the way...

carried in meteors that drive into Earth's crust.

[ Explosions]

- [ Rain Pattering ] - [Thunderclap ]

[ Narrator] As endless rains seep underground...

great heat boils the water to steam...

bubbling the gold from the meteors up closer to the surface.

Earth cools.

The gold hardens to form veins and ore.

For millions of years...

all this treasure ls hidden under a global sea.

Early on in Earth history, our planet was covered with water.

It really was a water world.

[ Narrator] But once again, things are about to change.

Over time, plate tectonics-

the presence of plate tectonics began to build continents.

[ Narrator] Land masses emerge...

lifting the Earth's stash of gold...

taking it on another wild ride.

Most will remain hidden beneath the sea floor.

But as mountains rise, they will bring the treasure within reach of men.

Then, what was once a single, sprawling land mass splits apart

Water fills the gaps.

Continents begin to move through plate tectonics...

shifting this metal all over the planet-

sometimes sitting on the surface, sometimes in streams...

sometimes the edge of a seam just jutting up above ground.

[ Narrator] So gold surfaces, but only in some places on Earth...

ready to one day be found by us.

[ Narrator] As we've seen, we're hardwired to seek gold.

But as civilizations develop...

we seek gold in different ways.

[ Narrator] There are two sides to the ancient world.

On one side of the planet, gold is used for money.

But the civilizations of the Americas don't have coins.

There, gold is used only to create objects of beauty and worship.

Gold remains a divine me tel, reserved for gods and kings.

[ Man ] Native people were totally fixated on it...

in terms of what you could make with it.

It was really neat stuff, but it wasn't money.

[ Chattering, Laughing ]

[ Narrator] In Europe, the thirst for shininess...

has turned into an all-out obsession with money.

[ Grunting ]

And it is that lust for gold that will drive Europeans across the Atlantic.

From the big historical perspective...

what you're looking at is a collision of two types of value systems.

[ Narrator] The big history of gold...

of the planet, of us...

will never be the same.

[ Narrator] Big history has connected the story of gold...

to an inevitable collision on a global scale.

Molten gold bubbles up on early Earth...

deposited like a buried treasure under the surface of the planet.

The treasure moves with the continents as the planet splits in two.

On one side, gold coins are used for trade.

On the other, gold statues are used for worship.

These great civilizations in the Americas, as impressive as they were...

had not yet reached a stage in civilizational development...

that required coinage to facilitate large-scale exchange.

Gold is being used just to create these images of our gods...

for its symbolic, elite imagery.

[ Narrator] Now, after thousands of years apart...

these two civilizations will meet and clash.

[ Horse Whinnies ]

Columbus leads the way.

Thousands follow.

One side is gold hungry...

the other gold rich.

[Grunting, Shouting ]

[ Gunshots ]

[ Narrator] The scramble for wealth connects both sides of the planet.

A threshold is crossed, and there's no going back.

The Americas become an outpost for the Spanish conquistadores.

It is the start of the first truly global gold rush.

[ Mann ] Almost all the gold that the Spaniards got initially...

came from melting down statues.

And to the Spaniards, these statues were sort of ugly and worthless.

Where there was worth is when you packed it down...

into the smallest lump you possibly could and put it in your ship.

'Cause then it could be melted down into coins.

[ Narrator] Today, many locations...

still bear names given during the Spanish conquest.

Like San Diego.

Or Sacramento, a city just miles away from where...

in 1848, James Marshall seized those shiny bits in the water.

The discovery of gold in California...

absolutely caused men to go mad with the gold fever.

[ Narrator] Once again, the effects are global.

Once you've identified all the gold fields in California...

if you're a gold prospector, what do you do?

Next is Australia and then Africa and then Siberia and then the Yukon.

[ Narrator] The California gold rush...

triggers gold rushes throughout the world.

Russia.

Australia.

South Africa.

[Shea ] The reason people speak Afrikaans and English in South Africa...

is because the gold fields in those areas were attractive.

They didn't go there to have an attractive place to raise goats.

They were looking for gold.

It was a global search for gold.

[ Narrator] Between 1492 and 1900...

the search for gold transforms the populations and civilizations...

of one-third of the planet.

Yet, for all its staggering impact on mankind...

all the gold ever mined throughout history...

would make up 80 feet of the Washington monument.

All the gold currently in Fort Knox- less than three feet.

But a little gold has had enormous consequences.

[Christian ] Gold is one of those many topics that we love in big history...

because you can follow it from astronomy to geology...

and then eventually into human societies.

Why does it have this sort of magical quality...

for so many human societies?

This is a great big history question because it's a question about...

the shape of large eras of human history.

[ Narrator] From fragments in space-

[ Explosion ]

To bars in Fort Knox.

From a symbol of divinity...

to a symbol of wealth.

The big history of gold is the story of a world...

ripped apart by geological forces...

and then reconnected by something even more powerful-

the human imagination...

pursuing an object it believes to be valuable.

But the story of gold is just the beginning.

There's a much bigger puzzle hidden in big history.

Each episode unlocks a clue.

Everyday things like beef...

weapons...

and cell phones hold the key.

Watch them all, and you'll see this grand mystery revealed.

The big history of time, of space...

the big history of us.