Original subtitles

[ Man Narrating ] The Earth from space is a blue marble...

cloaked in a shape-shifting skin...

that holds the planet in its grip-

an invisible structure with the power to move mankind.

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.

History as we know it is about to get big.

[ Rumbling 1

[ Narrator] A 9.0-magnitude earthquake...

unleashes a 33-foot wall of water...

crashing into buildings with the force of 100 Abrams tanks.

Water is the most common substance on Earths surface.

It is also the most destructive...

with an unrivaled power to crush...

[Crackling ]

- Freeze... - [ Wind Whistling]

And carve.

[ Man ] Water uses its erosive ability...

to shape mountain ranges, to cut deep river valleys and so on.

Water, it seems so soft, it seems so yielding...

and yet it can create something like the Grand Canyon.

[ Bird Screeching ]

[ Narrator] Water makes up 70% of the planet's surface...

and 60% of our bodies.

So while humans may cling to land, we live in a world of water.

To survive and thrive here on Earth, we must learn to control its power.

Traditional history tells us...

that mankind spends centuries trying to conquer the sea.

But big history reveals how our command over water...

depends on its unique chemistry-

properties that make this familiar substance so alien.

[ Narrator] We know that heavy objects sink in water.

Yet we still haul our heaviest freight by sea...

thanks to a property of liquids known as “buoyancy.”

Objects displace an amount of water equal to their own weight.

So if a 2, 000-pound boat displaces 2,000 pounds of water...

before the entire boat is submerged, it will float.

Other liquids are buoyant too, like oil...

but' their stickiness would make it' impossible to move mankind.

Water has a special property that makes it just right.

Big history zooms in to the microscopic world of water.

[ Man ] You have an oxygen atom. It's a bit like rabbit's ears.

You get sort of a hydrogen atom up here and then another hydrogen atom up here.

You get a positive charge at one end of this...

and a negative charge at the other.

[ Narrator] The opposite charges attract...

and the molecules of water lock together in a tight bond...

known as “surface tension.”

Instead of sticking to a boat, water molecules stick to each other.

It's like an invisible alien skin...

that allows ships to glide while they float.

It's not just weight and water.

It's surface tension...

to have something as large as a sailing vessel float in water.

[ Narrator] The chemistry of water solves an ancient problem.

Roads are difficult to build and expensive to maintain.

But water is a natural liquid highway.

For the last 10,000 years, the cheapest way of transporting goods and people...

was by rivers and by sea, if you could do it.

[ Narrator] So man's first cities...

rise alongside the Earth's greatest rivers and shorelines.

The Romans can move grain from Egypt to Rome-

a thousand miles by sea-

cheaper than from the Italian hill country to Rome, just 100 miles.

It's absolutely no surprise whatsoever that waterways...

are fundamental to the emergence of human civilization.

[ Narrator] But while water connects people...

it divides continents.

[ Narrator] Ancient vessels aren't built for the open ocean.

The Atlantic looms 4,000 miles across.

The Pacific is twice as vast.

So civilizations around the world develop in isolation...

until centuries of human innovation unite the world.

From the ancient Middle East...

the astrolabe is a tool the Greeks and Arabs develop...

to draw accurate maps.

From China comes a way to track the Earth's electromagnetic field:

the compass.

And from the Indian Ocean...

where the invention of a triangular sail allows ships to travel against the wind...

to Europe in the age of exploration...

when all these technologies converge and let us take on the seas.

What the technology of good sailing ships does...

is change the oceans from a barrier into a highway...

and takes these formerly poor places and makes them the richest places on Earth.

[ Narrator] The ability to conquer oceans...

causes a geographical power shift.

For centuries, the Middle East was the hub of world trade...

because everything moving from east to west had to pass through it.

Now, influence moves to the edges.

Spain, Portugal...

Holland, England.

Small nations with the power to navigate the open ocean...

build far-flung empires...

using the power of a microscopic bond...

that links together simple molecules of water.

[ Benjamin ] So the Europeans quickly master the sea...

apply sophisticated military technology to their ocean-going craft...

and are able to use this to subjugate large regions of the Earth.

[ Narrator] Advanced sailing technology...

combines with the unique chemistry of water...

to create a massive global circulatory system...

that moves mankind.

And it's still vital today.

Ships are our mega movers.

The largest aircraft carrier can transport almost 6,000 people.

The largest cruise ship more than 8,000.

Ninety percent of all world commerce still moves by sea.

But moving on water isn't enough.

To build the modern world...

we need to conquer water's ultimate power...

as a shapeshifter.

[ Narrator] Big history reveals...

how water's invisible skin...

turns our waterways into a global highway.

And while traditional history tells us that our mastery of water...

fuels the rise of civilization...

big history looks to geology...

to reveal how the ultimate power of water...

connects back...

to the birth of the continents.

[ Narrator] We are now deep within the Earth's core...

2.5 billion years ago.

Molten rock smolders at temperatures more than 2,000 degrees Celsius...

[Steam Hissing ]

And rises to the surface...

[ Rumbling 1

with enough force to divide and move the land...

lifting mountains into the sky.

Mountains that control the air by driving it upwards.

As the air rises, its temperature drops.

And the water inside it becomes a shapeshifter.

[ Narrator] At high altitudes, mountain air condenses...

releasing water as vapor that hangs in the sky as fog and clouds...

and returns to earth in the form of rain.

[ Narrator] Water has the power to transform.

It's the only substance on Earth's surface...

that exists naturally in all three states.

Cold turns it into a solid.

Heat creates vapor.

And in between, it's a liquid...

a state of matter with potential energy...

that's unlocked by gravity.

If you take something like water out into space...

beyond Earth's gravitational pull...

as astronauts know, it's gonna just float freely in the atmosphere.

But it won't flow downhill.

[ Narrator] Here on Earth...

the constant pull of gravity means that water always flows downhill...

gaining power as it falls.

Power that mankind will harness.

Big history connects back to man's first hydro-engineering.

[ Narrator] The Middle East, 300 B.C.

An early farmer discovers that a raging river...

holds ready-made kinetic energy.

The water turns a wheel...

that spins an axle...

that turns a gear...

that gets a job done.

Big history reveals that the water wheel is a critical innovation...

that connects us to the energy of the cosmos.

It's very tempting to think that the power somehow resides in the water...

but that's really an illusion.

Remarkably, the power comes from the center of the sun.

Because what's happened is that sunlight peering on the surface of the Earth...

has done the heavy lifting, literally.

It's lifted water molecules up into the sky.

Once it's up into the sky...

then gravity will do the rest of the work.

And gravity will bring it down in the form of rain...

and then gravity will drive it downhill.

[ Narrator] Centuries later, this same power will light the world.

Speeding water can drive turbines, it can drive propellers...

and it can generate electrical energy.

[ Narrator] But in order to create that power...

we have to control the raw power of nature...

and fight gravity to move water where we want it to go.

We build dams, aqueducts, canals.

A massive man-made water infrastructure...

that reveals a mysterious pattern-

a secret that connects the way the Earth works...

to the salvation of mankind...

and the invisible engine that rules us all.

[ Narrator] Big history has shown us...

how the most common substance on Earth's surface...

has an uncommon chemistry...

that drives the history of mankind.

Water is a shapeshifter with an in visible skin...

and the power of continuous motion.

Every living organism, from an amoeba to an elephant...

relies on the perpetual motion of water.

Humans use about a quart every day to circulate waste out of our bodies.

We see the same pattern on Earth...

when water evaporates and gets recycled as fresh rain...

to keep the planet running.

But what happens when the water flows in but not out?

[ Narrator] Like any organism...

a city needs to circulate water to survive.

Man's earliest cities rely on rivers or primitive aqueducts to bring water in.

But there's no system for flushing dirty water out.

[Valle ] Bacteria loves water.

Small microorganisms love water. They can go anywhere in it.

[Chattering ]

[ Narrator] Because of organisms like these...

more people die throughout history from drinking contaminated water...

than any other single cause...

until a breakthrough in microbiology.

Big history connects forward...

to 19th-century London...

where an outbreak of cholera claims hundreds of lives in one neighborhood.

Doctors trace the contamination to a single water pump.

It's the first time we recognize that water can carry a silent killer.

[Valle ] At that point, you begin to realize...

that water can breed disease, it can be spread anywhere.

So you start noticing that, you know, digging a simple irrigation ditch...

or a sewer tunnel...

can bring a whole host of different beneficial aspects to the world.

[ Narrator] London builds the world's first modern sewer system.

And by reengineering our cities to work the same way the Earth does-

circulating clean water in and dirty water out-

we increase the average human life span by up to 30 years.

[ Narrator] Water is the lifeblood of our bodies...

our civilization and our planet.

And while water is unique among all the substances on Earth...

it's also unique in our solar system.

Earth is the only known planet where water can cycle from solid...

to liquid to gas.

[ Laughing ] Earth lies nicely in this habitable zone.

Mars is out to the cold end. Venus is certainly to the warm end.

It's no coincidence then...

that the Earth is the only planet in the solar system...

that has liquid water in stable form for long periods of time.

And it's no coincidence that Earth is the one planet...

that is completely encrusted- covered with surface life.

[ Narrator] It's our precise position in the solar system...

just the right distance from the sun...

not too hot or too cold...

that allows water to exist as the ultimate shapeshifter-

endlessly morphing across forms...

in a cycle of transformation that keeps the planet alive.

[ Birds Calling ]

Water provides the great Goldilocks environment...

for rich chemistry...

and we are the product of very rich chemistry indeed.

It dominates human history...

as something that humans have traveled across.

It dominates human history because you cannot live...

unless you have access to water.

[ Narrator] But the story of water is just the beginning.

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

Each episode unlocks a clue.

Everyday things like caffeine...

mountains...

and weapons 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.