Original subtitles

2100 B.C...

a giant structure rises in Egypt.

2,000 years later...

another takes shape in Mexico.

A remarkable secret...

connects two of civilization's most mysterious mega-structures.

A secret only revealed by Big History.

We think of history as a timeline.

A series of events stretching a few thousands 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.

Once-mighty ancient civilizations...

leave their mark around the world.

Traditional history looks for clues about how the ancients lived.

But Big History reveals a strange pattern in the ruins.

From Egypt to Mesopotamia...

to India, China...

to Cambodia, Indonesia, to Central America.

Man's earliest mega-structures are pyramids.

isn't it extraordinary if you're looking as a big historian...

how the very large structures created by these civilizations...

are pyramidal in shape in different ways?

It's a profound mystery.

How do civilizations with no direct contact...

separated by oceans and continents, and often thousands of years...

create almost identical structures?

And Why?

Unlike roads and aqueducts...

giant pyramids seem like a colossal waste...

taking tens of thousands of workers decades of blood and toil.

The mystery is so baffling...

that some believe the only explanation is supernatural.

But is there a secret trait linking all humans together...

causing people around the world to build these mega-structures?

Big History connects this ancient mystery...

to our beginnings in the animal kingdom.

The peacock's tail is what scientists call a “costly signal.”

A costly signal is something that on its face seems useless.

Look at the peacock feather. It's a literal pain in the butt.

It gets in the way. it's huge. It doesn't help you fly.

But on the other hand, if you are gaudy enough and beautiful enough...

you're gonna get the female, and so your genes are gonna move on.

Everywhere we look, animals use costly signals to attract mates.

And the human animal is no exception.

With humans today, you need a flashy car...

you need a nice suit, you need a healthy bank balance.

There's all sorts of signals that go on. Nothing changes.

Humans are programmed to respond to costly signals...

not only for sex, but also for something else.

Big History connects our common evolution to our common engineering.

And returns to Ancient Egypt...

where the first pyramids appear 4,500 years ago-

enormous structures that are man-made costly signals.

The question is, what was the pharaoh trying to signal?

The answer is in the timing.

When you start taking a big history point of view...

what you start seeing is the really big mega-structures...

come right at the beginning of the state.

For the first time, an all-powerful pharaoh...

has millions of people organized under his iron rule.

Until recently, his subjects had a lot more freedom...

and the pharaoh is afraid they might want that freedom back.

There must have been a sense of giving something up...

to work under a leader.

There was a price to pay in terms of freedom.

The pharaoh needs to signal his power...

to prove to his subjects that it is futile...

or even dangerous to rebel against him.

A monumental mega-structure might be just the signal he needs.

“Look at how we can coerce so much labor, so many resources...

and build this enormous thing.”

In many ways, these buildings might be ultimately useless...

but they show, “Look what I can do.

Look how powerful we have become.”

So pyramids were one way for the earliest leaders...

to maintain absolute power.

The timing is key to unlocking a global pattern.

Giant structures appear at the moment...

when humans first begin living in large, permanent civilizations...

under one powerful ruler.

But early mega-structures have something else in common.

They're not just big, they're tall.

Height is key.

From a big history perspective...

in every society, the biggest and the most awe-inspiring structures...

tend to be the tallest.

What is it about building high versus massively horizontal...

that is a theme throughout history in construction?

Big History connects this basic instinct to our origins in nature.

An animal is attacked and rears up to seem as tall as possible.

In nature, height signals dominance.

Animals assess each other based on an instinctive respect...

for anything that towers over them.

In humans, the process starts early.

A child looks up at his parents and instinctively obeys.

That respect for height lasts a lifetime.

We even use the language of height when we talk about raising people up.

We put them on a pedestal.

We worship those on high.

Respect for height becomes imprinted in our behavior.

One of the things we want to know about in Big History

is what makes us human.

What do all humans do in any society, anywhere?

And one of the things we see is a desire to be awed.

Psychologists call awe a social emotion.

It happens in the face of towering things...

that make us feel small, insignificant and submissive.

Height inspires awe.

It gives us a feeling of something so much bigger than we are...

something that we can't control.

“This thing is bigger than me. I'm impressed by it.

It somehow must be more powerful or dominant than I am.”

So ancient leaders will try to awe and intimidate their subjects...

by building their mega-structures as tall as possible.

You don't realize this until you get a Big History point of view.

When you zoom out and look at the entire human race...

you see the same processes at work...

and you realize this is more than just culture.

This is humanity.

But there's still a mystery to solve.

Why are the earliest mega-structures the same shape?

What does the pyramid reveal about the secrets of the universe...

and the awesome, destructive power of nature?

Big History reveals the link...

between man's instinct to build mega-structures...

and our origins in the animal world...

where height awes and intimidates challengers.

Behavior that connects to how early rulers used massive engineering...

to cement their godlike power.

But a key question remains.

Why were our very earliest mega-structures the same basic shape:

the pyramid?

Big History travels back.

Egypt’s pharaoh demands a tomb that soars to the skies.

His young civilization has never attempted anything quite like it...

But nature has.

Like all early peoples...

the Egyptians notice that the tallest things on earth...

are actually natural pyramids.

You look at the shape of a mountain...

regardless of how it was formed, by plate tectonics or a volcano.

this very stable, wide base...

that tapers to something at the top.

That would have been a logical place to start if you want to build tall.

To build big and tall, like the Earth's mountains...

ancient engineers had to unlock the secrets of the universal force...

that causes the planets to orbit...

holds the Earth together...

and threatens to topple anything tall:

Gravity.

That's the number one thing that you have to overcome...

especially in very, very tall structures...

and if you're unsuccessful, collapse.

Gravity shapes mountains.

On a mountainside...

gravity is pulling objects both straight down towards the center of the mountain...

and also on an angle, down the slope.

When slopes are too steep, the forces pulling things down the mountainside...

are greater than the force holding things steady.

So gravity rips those parts away.

Eventually, the angle becomes so gentle that the gravity holding things in place...

outweighs the gravity pulling down the slope...

leaving a broad base and a thin, tapering top.

So for early man, natures lesson is clear.

If you want to defy gravity and build something tall...

and you don't have centuries of experience to fall back on...

build a mountain.

But humans soon realize that pyramids have a drawback.

They're solid, with almost no interior space.

So over generations, people begin experimenting...

with better ways to defy gravity-

the dome...

the double vaulted ceiling, the pointed arch-

that transfer stress into the ground...

creating open spaces within enormous structures...

transforming what it means to build big.

To build something like a great medieval cathedral...

you're going to need a heck of a lot more expertise...

the kind of expertise that will only have come...

through thousands of years of collective learning.

Eventually, we develop new materials like concrete and steel.

But to get to today's massive mega-structures...

even they are not enough.

So man looks to nature again...

and notices a key difference between insects and dinosaurs.

[ Roars I

Our earliest buildings carry their weight like the external skeleton of an insect...

on outside walls.

80 there's a limit to how big these buildings can grow”

before gravity pulls them down.

But nature reveals the secret to gaining size.

An insect's exoskeleton is 60% of its body weight...

compared to about 15% for creatures with internal skeletons.

This external weight is so great that it keeps insects small.

That same problem limits the height of buildings with external skeletons.

Bu! steel lets builders mimic a design on a much larger scale.

The structure of nature's mega beasts, like dinosaurs.

When you look at a dinosaur with an internal skeleton...

their size could increase greatly.

And that's the parallel with modern skyscrapers.

Technologically, it took the switch from these very massive external walls...

to an internal steel skeleton for that to happen.

Big History reveals that nature is the ultimate engineer.

Its designs are the hidden blueprints...

for mankind's biggest structures...

from pyramids to skyscrapers.

But could they contain the secret code that built the entire universe?

Big History links our desire to build big...

to a powerful human instinct...

that pushes us to defy gravity.

And decodes the hidden pattern of mega-structures across the world...

and through time.

Now, Big History reveals a deeper connection...

that links mankind's mega-structures...

to the mysterious engineering of the universe.

In the ancient world, and even today...

mega-structures are magnets of activity.

They rise up in great population centers...

and attract even more people around them, and within them.

Even if they were built for awe-inspiring reasons...

they become a place where people come together.

They become a hub for society within a town or a city.

These hubs become places...

where the energy flows of the human race meet...

and out of this come often unexpected and wonderful results.

It's a pattern we see across all scales...

from cells clustering together to form creatures...

To human mega-structures that pull people together into great cities.

It all connects to something even more gigantic...

hubs of energy in the cosmos.

As the early universe cools, its first mega-structures appear...

stars, solar systems and galaxies.

Most of the universe is just empty space...

or not very much activity.

Where you get the interesting things, you get the hubs...

where you get a lot of matter concentrated into one particular zone...

where you get stars, you get planets circling it.

Then you get a bunch of interesting things going on.

On Earth, man's mega-structures...

echo this universal law.

Things happen where complexity exists.

So we can look at it from the perspective of a city or a mega-structure...

or even from a much bigger, broader perspective, really, of the universe.

Big History tries to connect events...

that are occurring on the scale of the universe...

with events that are occurring on the scale of the planet...

the biosphere, if you like, and humans.

And one of these key themes that seems to run through all those processes...

from all those perspectives, is evolving complexity.

The evolution of more complex structures biologically...

of more complex structures in the universe.

Clearly the appearance of mega engineering, or monumental architecture...

is another example that humans have crossed another threshold of complexity.

Big History shows us...

that although humans have always built giant structures...

to inspire awe...

cement social power...

and mimic nature-

It also connects us to a profound mystery-

how humans build civilizations...

that echo the very structure of the cosmos.

But the story of mega-structures is just the beginning.

There is a much bigger puzzle hidden in Big History.

Each episode unlocks a clue.

Everyday things like beef ..

Weapons...

and water 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.