Original subtitles

[ Man Narrating] Abilene, Kansas, is under siege...

by foreign invaders.

And Marshal Wild Bill Hickok can't stop them.

[ Cattle Bellowing ]

They've been on their way for two million years.

And they're not human.

But because of them, we are.

[Cowhands Shouting ]

[ Narrator] 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] A force 40,000 strong arrives in Abilene.

They're Texas longhorns.

[Cowhands Shouting ]

And they're here to be loaded onto trains...

to feed a growing country and a hungry world.

[Train Whistle Blows ]

Traditional history tells us that Wild West towns are built on cattle.

But big history reveals how cows build something more important...

something that makes us who we are.

Big history connects back two million years...

[ Insects Buzzing ]

To a time before humans...

when our ancestors, known as Homo habilis...

rely on plants and leaves for 98% of their calories.

But a vegetarian diet is a disadvantage.

To get the energy they need, these early humans...

would have to chew greens for up to nine hours a day.

We have the ability today to subsist as vegetarians...

because we have access to this diverse array of plants.

But subsisting as a hunter-gatherer or scavenger-

to get all of the key nutrients you need...

it's very difficult to do that on plants alone.

[ Narrator] It's time to change the menu.

And when early humans begin to eat meat...

they spark an energy revolution...

that transforms how we're built.

Our early ancestors' round, flat teeth are still apelike...

designed to chew and mash plants.

To break down the fibers found in meat...

they create external teeth.

First, stone tools.

And later, fire.

And this changes the way our ancestors' bodies work.

Chopping and cooking begins to digest the meat before they eat it...

so their digestive system has less work to do.

It gets smaller because it needs less power to run...

and that frees up energy for something more important-

the brain.

[ Man ] As a sort of basic rule of evolution...

if one organ is going to expand...

you need to find the energy for that from another organ.

[ Narrator] When we switched to meat...

our brains grow 35% bigger.

[ Christian ] Meat is highly concentrated energy...

so you've got more metabolic energy so you can have bigger brains.

[Waguespack] Compared to other species...

our brains are insanely huge for our body size.

[ Narrator] And as our brains get bigger...

we get smarter.

So it's one of the fundamental things that makes humans human.

[ Narrator] Today, meat makes up nearly half of the U.S. diet.

And it takes some 33 million head of cattle to feed that hunger every year.

But when people first ate meat, beef wasn't such an easy meal.

[Crowd Cheering ]

Modern bulls are a danger to any man who steps into the ring.

But these bulls are smaller and tamer...

than the cattle that early humans hunt.

Big history connects back 200,000 years...

before cows were cows.

The ancestors of today's cows...

were once as deadly as great white sharks.

This is the wild aurochs-

[Aurochs Roars]

[ Man ] Aurochs were ferocious creatures.

Two meters at the shoulders.

Their horns spanned further than my arms can stretch.

[ Man ] They were tremendously aggressive-

so aggressive that the males herded separately from the females...

because all they really wanted to do was fight.

[ Narrator] Hunters looking for beef have to fight, and maybe die, to get it.

But the risk is worth the reward.

A successful hunt yields half a {on of meal'-

enough protein and iron to nourish the entire tribe.

[ Flies Buzzing ]

But to take down the aurochs, prehistoric hunters need a strategy.

And before they put their plan into action-

- [ Chattering ] - They put I! into words.

[ Rimas ] Our forms of communication evolved out of our need...

to communicate with each other during the hunt.

[Speaking Primitive Language]

An aurochs could take out any number of people if they hadn't thought it through...

and really come up with a plan on how to bring it down.

[ Primitive Language]

[ Narrator] Big history reveals that our first tools-

our big brains...

and our language-

all connect back to an appetite for meat that helped make us human...

an appetite that's still growing.

Today, the world consumes over 130 billion pounds of beef every year.

But imagine what the world would be like without burgers or steak...

or even milk.

150 years ago, the world's cows are threatened...

by a silent killer that wipes out everything in its wake.

[ Cow Bellows ]

[ Narrator] Big history uses science to see the world in a new way.

It reveals how eating meat allows our brains to grow bigger.

And with big brains, we develop language.

[Chattering ]

Eating and hunting meat transforms mankind.

[ Bellows ]

But there's another player at work in the story.

Big history connects man's ability to access meat...

to a key moment 23 million years ago.

Earth is getting cooler and drier...

paving the way for a plant that can thrive in those conditions-

grass.

Grass spreads over nearly every continent.

From Europe...

across the steppes of Asia...

the African savannahs...

and the pampas, plains and prairies of the Americas.

Where grass grows, animals evolve to eat it.

[ Man ] Grass is pretty low-nutrient stuff.

It doesn't have a lot of value to it, but it's in abundance.

So cows evolved in order to make use of this fairly marginal resource.

[ Narrator] Cows thrive across the vast, grassy plains of Asia...

Africa and Europe.

But on the other side of the world- in the Americas-

millions of acres of grasslands lie in wait.

There are no cows here, but they're on their way.

Thanks to Christopher Columbus.

It's Columbus's second voyage...

and, this time, the Spanish have come to stay.

[ Man ] They're going to create a little pocket of Spain there...

and that means bringing over European crops to farm...

and, especially, European animals.

And the cattle are some of the most important ones.

[ Narrator] The first cows to ever set hoof in the Americas...

arrive not by evolution, but by ship on the coast of Haiti.

Because they're rare, cows are in demand.

And within 40 years...

they spread from the islands of the Caribbean to the mainland...

when Spanish governors in Mexico capture the native peoples...

enslave them...

and trade them for cattle.

Once in Mexico, the cows grow fat...

in a new world of grass.

And they begin to spread across two continents-

north from Mexico to the American Southwest...

and south to Argentina.

Soon new settlers bring more cows across the Atlantic-

from Portugal to Brazil...

and from northern Europe to the eastern seaboard.

In just 500 years, what starts as a small handful of cows...

explodes to over 400 million head of cattle.

It's the world's first cattle boom.

And while the cow now thrives everywhere...

the Atlantic separates them into two distinct populations-

east and west-

a difference of geography that will shape the destiny of the cow.

In the Old World, a plague is coming...

that threatens to wipe out all the cattle in Europe.

Big history connects the spread of a microscopic killer...

to an epic invasion...

by the mightiest empire in the world.

[ Rimas ] The Mongol army under Genghis Khan's sons and grandsons...

is besieging the Russian city of Kiev.

They brought cattle with them, 'cause the Mongols ate cattle.

They had so many cattle that the noise of the cattle...

actually drowned out the screams from the townspeople...

as they were putting people to fire and sword.

[ Narrator] While man attacks man on the battlefield...

an invisible army attacks the livestock.

Big history zooms in...

to a single cell that will upset the balance of power in the world.

The Mongols' cattle carry a virus called rinderpest.

The virus spreads through the air-

[ Bellows ]

From the Mongol horde to the Russian livestock.

Once infected, they die in as little as six days.

[ Rimas ] Within a short period, rinderpest has spread into Europe...

and decimated the cattle population.

And it would recur throughout history.

[ Narrator] In 1865, a new outbreak of rinderpest...

kills 200 million cattle across Europe...

devastating the food supply.

[Shouting ]

But the virus never crosses the Atlantic...

so the cattle in the New World survive.

And as big history reveals...

timing is everything...

because the cattle that cross an ocean...

escape the devastation of a microscopic virus...

that leaves one side of the world with a huge demand for beef...

and the other with a booming supply.

So big history shows us why the New World will now feed the Old.

And cattle towns like Wild Bill's Abilene...

spring up all across the Americas...

to meet the need for beef.

[ Fraser] Big history allows us to draw a cattle disease in Europe...

and the development of the Wild West all together in one common narrative.

[ Narrator] The rinderpest outbreak makes beef more vital than ever...

to the economy of the Americas.

But a secret encoded in their D.N.A...

reveals a hidden link between man and beast.

Big history shows us that the humble cow...

is a key to what makes us human-

connecting the meat that energized our brains...

to Earths early grasslands where cattle first emerge...

and a series of journeys where people spread cattle around the world...

and save them from a deadly plague.

Big history reveals that the connection between man and cow...

is much deeper...

and it's hidden in their D.N.A.

Every cow on every farm...

every filet mignon or fast-foot burger...

over one billion cows around the world...

all trace back to one place...

and one herd.

[Cowhands Shouting ]

Most people don't think of the cow as a human invention...

but it is.

Big history tracks the D.N.A. evidence back to the origin of cows...

10,500 years ago.

The grassy steppes of Eurasia between Turkey and Iran.

The fearsome aurochs roams wild.

[ Bellows ]

But some brave farmers decide to tame them.

You have a monster that's really a symbol of primal strength and fury.

Soto actually domesticate it...

would have been a pretty crazy undertaking.

[Narrator] 80 how do you get' a monster to do what' you want?

Change the monster's D.N.A.

To do that, you start small- capture some calves.

[ Christian ] if you can get it to breed...

then it will have several offspring.

You can pick the most docile of those-

the one that is less dangerous- and then breed that one.

[ Narrator] These Stone Age herdsmen...

take evolution into their own hands.

They transform a wild beast into docile domestic cattle.

Every cow alive today...

is a direct' descendant' of this single herd of 80 aurochs.

Yeah, we made cows.

[ Narrator] When we invent the cow...

we 're not only controlling an animal In a corral...

we're harnessing energy from 93 million miles away.

[ Christian ] Food is energy that comes, ultimately, from the sun.

It's seized by plants. Herbivores eat the plants.

Humans can't eat grass...

but humans can eat animals that can eat grass.

And humans divert energy through the food chain to their own use.

So we herd cattle.

We've concentrated a lot of food energy in a small area...

and it's stored and ready for us.

[ Mooing I

[ Narrator] When the ancestors of humans...

first hunt the ancestors of cows...

it unleashes a web of connections that' stretches across thousands of years.

Meat makes us human.

So as cattle help us evolve...

we master the process...

and turn a ferocious beast into an easy meal...

that now depends on us...

while we depend on them for food.

The big history of beef links man and cow...

in a common story of transformation.

But the story of beef is just the beginning.

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

Each episode unlocks a clue.

Things like secret codes...

the sun 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.