00:00:08
[Applause]
00:00:19
[Music]
00:00:28
sh
00:00:31
[Music]
00:00:44
[Music]
00:00:48
without longdistance communication the
00:00:50
modern world would not function as it
00:00:52
does that's obvious take this equipment
00:00:54
for instance it's a receiving system in
00:00:57
contact with a navigational satellite
00:00:59
600 miles up circling the earth north
00:01:02
south so that as the Earth turns beneath
00:01:04
it the satellite covers the entire Globe
00:01:08
now as it comes over it broadcasts two
00:01:10
things it says where it is and it sends
00:01:12
out a continuous note at a very precise
00:01:14
frequency now if you compare that note
00:01:17
to the sound say of the whistle of a
00:01:19
train as the train comes towards you and
00:01:21
goes away the note Rises and then Falls
00:01:23
like
00:01:25
[Music]
00:01:28
this now the the way the note Rises or
00:01:31
Falls depends on where you hear it from
00:01:34
if you knew exactly where the train was
00:01:36
then what you were listening to would
00:01:38
tell you where you were because you'd
00:01:39
only hear it that way in that place and
00:01:41
that's what this equipment
00:01:44
does there's the receiver locking into
00:01:46
the signal from the
00:01:52
satellite now the computer is working
00:01:54
out the one location on Earth where a
00:01:56
satellite at that particular point in
00:01:57
space would give it the noise it's
00:01:59
hearing
00:02:01
okay here's where we are North 43° 42
00:02:06
minutes 12.1
00:02:09
seconds East 4° 43 minutes 18.8
00:02:14
seconds right you check those numbers
00:02:16
out on a map and this is where it says
00:02:18
we are south of France near the town of
00:02:21
AR at a position accurate to within 30
00:02:24
ft precisely there where it says there
00:02:27
is an ancient
00:02:28
aqueduct
00:02:30
there it
00:02:34
is telecommunications can pinpoint
00:02:38
somebody like that did or because he
00:02:40
picks up a telephone or because he's on
00:02:42
a computer data Bank we organize
00:02:45
ourselves better because of that the
00:02:48
question is how well organized will we
00:02:52
become too
00:02:54
well to a certain extent the modern
00:02:57
world would fall apart without that Oran
00:02:59
organizational ability the new community
00:03:02
of Nations that has grown up from the
00:03:04
bits and pieces of the old European
00:03:05
Empires the the French the English the
00:03:08
Dutch the Spanish the Portuguese is held
00:03:10
together because we can
00:03:12
organize but what will that
00:03:15
organizational Network that
00:03:16
Communications Network do to us
00:03:20
next well the answer to that question
00:03:23
may lie in the past because this kind of
00:03:24
Situation's happened before the last
00:03:27
time a world empire fell apart was about
00:03:30
1500 years ago then the empire was
00:03:34
[Music]
00:03:39
Roman now this is the accepted view of
00:03:42
the fall of Rome you know rape and
00:03:44
Village destruction the way Hollywood
00:03:46
does it but what really let the
00:03:48
barbarians walk all over the Romans was
00:03:50
something it won't take you a second to
00:03:52
sympathize with the taxes were too high
00:03:55
to pay for the army that was losing all
00:03:57
the battles and a bunch of freeloaders
00:03:59
in government and of course to pay for
00:04:01
thousands of civil servants so for the
00:04:03
Western Romans better the Barbarian you
00:04:06
didn't know than the tax collector you
00:04:08
did so the place fell apart the Imperial
00:04:12
provinces cracked up into small
00:04:14
Barbarian kingdoms and all that Big Time
00:04:18
stuff you have to have with Imperial
00:04:19
government you know super highways
00:04:21
theaters aqueducts were no longer worth
00:04:23
the upkeep that's why we're here outside
00:04:26
all this Aqueduct fed the biggest
00:04:28
industrial complex in Europe with water
00:04:30
to run the wheels of the great grain
00:04:32
mills at barbal 28 tons of flour a day a
00:04:36
technological Marvel perhaps to be lost
00:04:38
forever in the
00:04:40
chaos all through this period the
00:04:42
so-called Dark Ages the one organization
00:04:44
that still functioned internationally
00:04:47
still traveled the Roman roads where
00:04:48
nobody else would handling the king's
00:04:50
local and Foreign Affairs because its
00:04:52
members could still read and write was
00:04:54
the church it had a fully operational
00:04:56
network of communications from Bishop to
00:04:58
Bishop throughout Europe and that's what
00:05:00
held things together the church then was
00:05:03
like our telecommunications now and so
00:05:06
the knowledge that the monks had
00:05:08
accumulated gradually spread knowledge
00:05:10
like how baragil had worked with the
00:05:12
Great Water Wheel and the gearing system
00:05:14
that made it so efficient and in the end
00:05:17
by the Middle Ages look what they did
00:05:19
with that
00:05:21
wheel here's the wheel being operated by
00:05:23
water and here's the gearing system
00:05:25
turning the horizontal movement vertical
00:05:28
then horizontal again and then vertic
00:05:30
again in order to operate the millstones
00:05:33
here's another system operating a trip
00:05:34
hammer for bashing things like mineral
00:05:36
ore or cloth or leather soften it up
00:05:38
here's a system that operates a similar
00:05:40
trip Hammer device but it's to work a
00:05:41
suction pump for a water supply same
00:05:45
system again operating two levers
00:05:47
pressing on Bellows for a blast furnace
00:05:50
and finally over here a crank that turns
00:05:52
a circular movement into back and
00:05:54
forward movement for a
00:05:56
sawmill beautiful system so put put
00:05:59
yourself in their position the wars are
00:06:01
all over there's loads of productive
00:06:02
land everywhere you've got water coming
00:06:04
out of your ears and an amazing machine
00:06:06
to use to harness the power what would
00:06:08
you do yes you'd have yourself a
00:06:11
medieval Industrial
00:06:14
[Music]
00:06:21
Revolution the great thing about these
00:06:23
wheels was that they were easy to make
00:06:25
and they'd work almost anywhere you
00:06:28
lived up a mountain Hollow a few trees
00:06:30
out and you had yourself a wooden
00:06:33
[Music]
00:06:37
Aqueduct horizontal Wheels didn't need
00:06:39
gears because they spun millstones
00:06:41
directly above you could turn a vertical
00:06:44
wheel with water falling from above or
00:06:46
flowing past Below in a river and with
00:06:48
gears you could slow down the effect of
00:06:50
a fast stream or speed up a slow
00:06:54
one water power made you a lot of bread
00:06:57
in both
00:06:58
senses but the star of the show was this
00:07:01
the
00:07:02
cam with a cam you can trip hammers to
00:07:05
pound things with harder and faster than
00:07:08
any human
00:07:12
being and build yourself Mills to work
00:07:15
Timber oil grain leather cloth iron beer
00:07:18
wire sugar coin you name
00:07:23
[Music]
00:07:28
it
00:07:37
[Music]
00:07:46
it took a lot of energetic monks to get
00:07:48
it all together now they were energetic
00:07:51
because in 1098 a bunch of benedictines
00:07:53
fed up with the luxury and the ritual
00:07:56
lit out for the wild country and the
00:07:57
simple life ANS and Benedict's original
00:08:00
idea that hard work was good for the
00:08:02
soul but it was the way these cians
00:08:05
organized themselves that turned them
00:08:07
into a medieval multinational and gave
00:08:09
Europe systems
00:08:13
management see each monry had to be
00:08:16
self-sufficient in food so they cut back
00:08:18
on the praying and added 6 hours labor a
00:08:20
day they went into rearing animals
00:08:24
clearing and draining land they went out
00:08:26
looking for new plants they could grow
00:08:28
and they wrote each other reports of the
00:08:29
latest developments like this one
00:08:32
growing vines on bad land Hillside
00:08:39
Terraces they used all the technology
00:08:42
available wine presses water Mills iron
00:08:44
foundaries a San Abbey was like a
00:08:47
corporation with the special advantage
00:08:49
that at the end of a hard day business
00:08:51
they served the house wine in the
00:08:52
company
00:08:55
[Music]
00:08:58
canteen mind you the food wasn't that
00:09:01
hot no meat they sold all that just
00:09:03
vegetables nettle soup a few Roots bread
00:09:07
and silence while you listen to
00:09:09
instructive selections from the
00:09:10
corporation handbook on getting
00:09:11
spiritual and managerial strategy right
00:09:14
otherwise known as the rule of St
00:09:24
Benedict well with this kind of
00:09:26
organization how could you fail within a
00:09:28
century the were nearly 600 cian
00:09:35
[Music]
00:09:40
monasteries these monks did everything
00:09:42
with fanatical discipline nothing got in
00:09:44
the way no fancy architecture or ritual
00:09:47
or color to distract from the corporate
00:09:49
image of efficiency and as their lands
00:09:51
and their management techniques
00:09:52
developed the news spread to the world
00:09:58
outside
00:10:01
[Music]
00:10:04
maybe their single biggest success was
00:10:05
their sheep rearing techniques cuz by
00:10:07
the 13th century they were producing the
00:10:09
best wool in
00:10:12
Europe
00:10:14
so there were the Europeans of the 12th
00:10:17
century with all that amazing water
00:10:19
power technology and and the red hot
00:10:22
industrial management systems worked out
00:10:25
by the
00:10:26
cians almost waiting for something to
00:10:29
happen
00:10:30
something that would generate enough
00:10:32
money to trigger the economy off into
00:10:35
high
00:10:36
gear and when that something happened it
00:10:40
was one of those examples of the way
00:10:43
change can come about quite
00:10:46
unexpectedly because the two inventions
00:10:50
that were to trigger the Great Leap
00:10:52
Forward could never have been foreseen
00:10:54
here in Europe because they came from
00:10:57
China the Arabs brought them to us and
00:11:00
what a gift they
00:11:03
were the first one of those Chinese
00:11:06
gifts was a new loom and it immediately
00:11:09
caused a problem it speeded up weaving
00:11:12
because the thread lifting business was
00:11:14
now done by foot pedals not by the
00:11:16
Weaver's hands anymore the new loom
00:11:18
produced cloth so fast they ran into the
00:11:21
problem of not enough yarn see up to
00:11:24
then you spun yarn in a way that hadn't
00:11:26
changed for centuries you teased the
00:11:28
fibers out of the mass and hand Twisted
00:11:31
them onto a spindle took hours then in
00:11:34
the 13th century the second Chinese idea
00:11:37
arrived and solved the problem because
00:11:39
it produced yarn fast enough to keep up
00:11:41
with a new loom it was the spinning
00:11:44
wheel early on they didn't have much
00:11:46
more than the wheel and the spindle foot
00:11:48
pedals came later but these two simple
00:11:52
bits of Machinery fitted together like
00:11:54
bits of a jigsaw and when they did the
00:11:57
places they were used got very very very
00:12:06
rich places like
00:12:14
[Music]
00:12:28
Brugge
00:12:30
Brugge was one of the richest of the
00:12:31
medieval cities built by the Woolen
00:12:33
trade and if you know anybody called
00:12:35
Draper boy were his ancestors well off
00:12:38
the cloth Merchants made so much loot
00:12:40
they didn't know what to do with it they
00:12:42
built roads canals guil Halls Cathedrals
00:12:45
they even had their own laws and in
00:12:47
spite of all that they still had enough
00:12:49
money left for high technology
00:12:53
[Music]
00:12:58
music not just this kind of toy the kind
00:13:01
you can still hear in the cathedral
00:13:03
Towers all over Belgium where the Kon
00:13:06
still
00:13:09
plays recognize the mechanism it's the
00:13:12
cam again tripping levers that pulled
00:13:14
wires that eventually pulled The Clapper
00:13:16
on one or other of a number of
00:13:18
differently tuned
00:13:20
Bells you set the cams in like pegs to
00:13:23
trip certain levers and ring certain
00:13:27
Bells now the the reason all the good
00:13:29
burgers had all these extra goodies was
00:13:31
because they'd found a new market for
00:13:33
their
00:13:35
[Music]
00:13:39
wool see all over Europe people now had
00:13:42
Surplus and surplus always looks for a
00:13:44
ready
00:13:45
Market South from Scandinavia and
00:13:48
England and Flanders came fur and wool
00:13:50
and
00:13:50
cloth North through the Mediterranean
00:13:53
through Genoa and Venice came silk and
00:13:55
spices from the far east east from
00:13:57
France and Spain came salt wine and
00:13:59
civan leather and from Russia fur I
00:14:02
suppose everybody's Crossroads lay in
00:14:05
the county of champagne at four little
00:14:07
towns where they set up the first
00:14:09
International markets called the
00:14:11
champagne
00:14:12
[Music]
00:14:18
fairs the biggest fair was held at tuah
00:14:21
in those days half the size of London
00:14:23
and Merchants turned up because they got
00:14:24
a special safe conduct from the King and
00:14:27
armed guards along the road of course
00:14:29
the town made a bit out of it too you
00:14:31
had to pay a license to set up your
00:14:33
stall and there was a sales tax isn't
00:14:35
there always and you had to pay to come
00:14:37
in and out of town not that any of this
00:14:39
bothered the merchants they just upped
00:14:41
the price funny how some things don't
00:14:44
change anyway this International
00:14:47
moneymaking went like a house on fire
00:14:49
especially among those able to turn up
00:14:52
with the very very rare stuff like like
00:14:55
Silk where you really made a
00:14:58
packet
00:15:06
most of the really fancy stuff was
00:15:08
brought by the Italians who practically
00:15:09
ran the place by
00:15:12
1275 there were no less than 15 Italian
00:15:14
cities who had consulates here in
00:15:21
tuah the reason the Italians mattered so
00:15:24
much was because when everybody got back
00:15:27
from a crusade in the Middle East
00:15:29
to their rather dull northern European
00:15:31
town all they could talk about were the
00:15:34
amazing luxuries of the mysterious
00:15:36
Orient silk cinnamon pepper elephant
00:15:41
tusks things which the Italians were
00:15:43
very well placed to provide at the fairs
00:15:45
the venetians the genoise and the
00:15:48
peasons all had trading colonies all
00:15:50
around the Eastern Mediterranean where
00:15:52
they could pick up stuff from as far
00:15:53
away as
00:15:54
China well there was so much money to be
00:15:56
made here and given the fact that the
00:15:59
genoes have always had a reputation for
00:16:01
being where the prophets are it's not
00:16:03
surprising that it was probably they who
00:16:05
came up with a way to keep the financial
00:16:07
ball rolling so to speak with this thing
00:16:11
it's an investment contract called a
00:16:12
commander now this is a copy but this
00:16:15
particular one was written on the 14th
00:16:17
of November
00:16:19
1244 and it's a contract between a
00:16:21
traveling Merchant called John of the
00:16:23
Parish of San jius and a draper called
00:16:26
Otto there's Otto who is in investing 81
00:16:31
genoise pounds as a share in a load of
00:16:34
purple cloth and gold silk that John the
00:16:36
merchant is bringing up here to the
00:16:37
champagne fairs the agreement goes on to
00:16:40
say that John can use his discretion as
00:16:41
to where and when he trades on condition
00:16:44
that when he gets back to Genoa Otto
00:16:46
gets detailed accounts and his share of
00:16:47
the
00:16:49
profits this Tatty bit of paper which
00:16:52
looks like an everyday thing you write
00:16:53
in the back of an envelope practically
00:16:55
represent a really fundamental
00:16:58
innovation
00:16:59
because it brought everybody rich and
00:17:01
poor who had any spare cash in on the
00:17:03
ACT and that spread the risk and that
00:17:06
encouraged more Merchants to go to more
00:17:08
places so the champagne fairs and others
00:17:11
places like this really
00:17:13
[Music]
00:17:22
boomed it looked as if good times were
00:17:24
here to
00:17:27
stay
00:17:30
and then at the beginning of the 14th
00:17:31
century came a change in the weather
00:17:34
freezing Winters and rainy
00:17:36
Summers Bad harvests followed and then
00:17:40
famine with little or no Surplus crops
00:17:43
to sell money became tight and the fairs
00:17:46
began to fail all over Europe people
00:17:48
tightened their belts and in this
00:17:50
weakened condition they were virtually
00:17:52
defenseless against attack and when it
00:17:55
came in
00:17:57
1347 the effect was devastating all the
00:18:00
more so because they had no defense
00:18:02
against the enemy it was a
00:18:05
[Music]
00:18:11
flea the flea carried the black death
00:18:14
and from when it arrived in Europe in
00:18:16
1347 on board ship from the Crimea to
00:18:19
when it receded only 4 years later it
00:18:21
killed maybe 40 million people 200,000
00:18:25
Villages were totally wiped out at the
00:18:27
height of the plague there were enough
00:18:29
living to bury the dead the flea sucked
00:18:32
the disease in rat's blood and when the
00:18:33
rat died it jumped onto people and bit
00:18:35
them the effect was appalling from fever
00:18:39
to abscesses in the groin and armpits to
00:18:41
death inside 24 hours black pules spread
00:18:45
all over the body which was why they
00:18:46
called it the Black Death the effects
00:18:48
were particularly bad in the towns
00:18:50
packed with people busy making all that
00:18:52
money the plague ripped through
00:18:57
them
00:19:03
and a new face appeared in all the
00:19:05
pictures and for those with itchy feet a
00:19:07
new kind of dance you could unexpectedly
00:19:09
find yourself swinging to the dance of
00:19:15
[Applause]
00:19:22
death one grimly enjoyable thing came
00:19:25
out of it all the people who died left
00:19:27
their money to the people who lived all
00:19:30
they could hope for was that they'd
00:19:31
survived to enjoy
00:19:33
[Music]
00:19:35
it well no nightmare lasts forever by
00:19:39
1351 the worst was
00:19:41
[Music]
00:19:47
over when it was all over the survivors
00:19:50
went insane trying to forget the horror
00:19:52
they'd lived through life everywhere in
00:19:54
Europe became one long hysterical
00:19:57
shindig
00:20:03
people spent the money the plague had
00:20:04
given them on the wildest outfit they
00:20:06
could buy if you were Rich silk
00:20:08
embroidered with gold wire was the thing
00:20:11
the middle classes went into expensive
00:20:13
Little Numbers in wool and velvet and
00:20:15
The Peasants well thanks to that Loom
00:20:17
way back and the fact that flax is cheap
00:20:19
to grow linen was their thing well it
00:20:22
was everybody's thing really in hats and
00:20:24
shirts and bed sheets and especially if
00:20:28
you take an indiscret look up the
00:20:30
nearest girl's
00:20:31
skirt that underwear and just this once
00:20:36
that's the great historical trigger of
00:20:37
change what you're looking at now yes
00:20:40
frilly
00:20:42
[Music]
00:20:52
nickers this is the first result of the
00:20:55
great 14th century bed linen and
00:20:56
underwear Boom the guy who used to go
00:20:59
around collecting bones for fertilizer
00:21:01
now started collecting linen too he
00:21:03
became a Rag and Bone man why well
00:21:07
that's the second result of everybody
00:21:08
wearing linen because when they wore it
00:21:10
out they threw it away so there was this
00:21:13
great pile of linen Rag and guess who
00:21:16
went bananas about
00:21:19
that okay let me give you a clue the
00:21:21
first thing that happens to the linen in
00:21:23
this process is that they take it and
00:21:25
rip it against a knife to make the rags
00:21:27
even smaller
00:21:29
and what is shredded linen rag
00:21:31
absolutely perfect for making yes
00:21:37
paper so the paper makers got an
00:21:39
unexpected linen rag Bonanza pounded by
00:21:42
hammers tripped Again by the
00:21:51
C you bash the rag in water and gum for
00:21:54
48 hours and the sludge you get is paper
00:21:57
pulp slush that onto a wire mesh frame
00:22:00
count five and you've got yourself a
00:22:02
sheet of paper well a sheet of very wet
00:22:04
paper so the next thing you do no prices
00:22:07
is dry it funny coincidence the wire
00:22:10
mesh frame a lot of wire makers about
00:22:13
making all that gold embroidery people
00:22:14
had started wearing anyway the paper you
00:22:17
lay each sheet between layers of wool
00:22:19
and cloth to soak up the moisture looks
00:22:22
more like a sheet of porridge doesn't
00:22:27
it and when you've got a big pile of
00:22:29
wool and wet paper sandwiches stacked up
00:22:31
you call the
00:22:33
[Music]
00:22:36
lads all you do now is squeeze the pile
00:22:38
in a press until you've got nearly all
00:22:40
the water out of the paper when you hang
00:22:42
it up to dry and that's all there is to
00:22:44
it funny how it all comes together here
00:22:47
in the paper mill the water power to run
00:22:49
the cams tripping the Hammers to make
00:22:51
the pulp The Wine Press come linen
00:22:53
pressed to squeeze out the water and
00:22:56
thanks to the automatic Bloom the linen
00:22:58
that makes the p and because of all that
00:23:00
free linen suddenly the cheapest thing
00:23:02
around was
00:23:06
[Music]
00:23:18
paper this is one of those moments in
00:23:21
history when things come together like a
00:23:23
jigsaw to produce something something
00:23:25
entirely new look at the bits we've got
00:23:28
so far because of the linen we have
00:23:31
cheap paper the Black Death is just over
00:23:34
so the economy of Europe is on the up
00:23:37
and up Administration is expanding there
00:23:40
are many more Clarks needed to do all
00:23:42
the paperwork however the Black Death
00:23:44
has killed half the Clarks off so they
00:23:47
cost a great deal so we have extremely
00:23:50
cheap paper and the cost of a man who
00:23:52
writes on it has gone up astronomically
00:23:54
what do you need to solve that
00:23:57
problem yes
00:23:59
Printing and that's exactly what
00:24:01
happened but before the final bid of the
00:24:03
jigsaw could be put into place you
00:24:05
needed one particular skill the kind of
00:24:07
skill say a Goldsmith has if you come
00:24:11
upstairs with me I'll show you what I
00:24:17
mean you see printing had been around
00:24:20
for centuries in the case of the Chinese
00:24:22
for a thousand years but it was printing
00:24:24
with blocks like
00:24:26
this the trouble was those blocks being
00:24:28
made of wood would tend to wear down and
00:24:30
in any case they only did the one
00:24:32
thing now what our Goldsmith friend did
00:24:36
and by the way his name was Johan
00:24:38
Gutenberg and he lived in Ms in Germany
00:24:40
in the 1450s he used his expertise with
00:24:43
precious metal he knew what that was the
00:24:47
Hallmark and he knew that the Hallmark
00:24:48
was made with a punch so he took a punch
00:24:51
and he carved a letter on the end of it
00:24:53
and using the punch he punched that
00:24:55
letter into a soft copper bar then he
00:24:59
designed a mold in two bits so that it
00:25:02
comes apart you put the mold together
00:25:04
like that you slide into the mold the
00:25:07
letter you want to make any
00:25:09
letter close it tight with a Big
00:25:12
Spring turn it
00:25:14
over and then very very carefully you
00:25:18
put molten lead alloy into the mold like
00:25:25
this leave it for just a few seconds
00:25:29
and then you break the
00:25:32
mold and the letter is there
00:25:37
ready to print
00:25:40
with and that letter A will go anywhere
00:25:43
on the page you want to put a letter A
00:25:44
it will go in the place of any other
00:25:46
letter A the mold makes all the letters
00:25:48
so they're all the same size it makes
00:25:50
all the spaces so they're all the same
00:25:51
size so the printing is uniform but it's
00:25:53
the interchangeability of the letters
00:25:56
that is at the heart of gutenberg's
00:25:57
invention
00:26:00
if you think about it it was a a good
00:26:02
deal easier for a European to do than
00:26:04
say for a Chinese because the Chinese
00:26:07
language has thousands of characters and
00:26:09
if you made every one of them you need a
00:26:11
space as big as this printing room in
00:26:13
antp just to store them in whereas the
00:26:16
the Latin alphabet of the time only had
00:26:18
23 letters to be
00:26:20
made as for the printing itself well
00:26:22
that was a bit of a cinch this press was
00:26:26
just an adaptation of linen press that
00:26:30
had been around for centuries as had the
00:26:33
ink and the
00:26:35
paper this
00:26:38
is the first dated piece of printing we
00:26:42
know of it's there may be earlier ones
00:26:44
but this one has a date on it and the
00:26:47
people who did it were very proud of
00:26:48
what they' done it's the introduction to
00:26:50
a book of Psalms and the text says this
00:26:54
work adorned with the magnificence of
00:26:57
capital letters
00:26:59
was fashioned with the use of a
00:27:00
mechanical process for printing and
00:27:02
making letters without the use of a pen
00:27:05
and then it says the name of the two men
00:27:06
who were so proud of what they' done
00:27:08
yahim forest and Peter Sheffer and then
00:27:12
the date 14th of August
00:27:21
1457 the coming of the book changed
00:27:25
everything perhaps the most obvious
00:27:27
change was the appearance of the
00:27:29
Bookshop where you could come in and buy
00:27:30
anything you wanted to read knowledge
00:27:33
was no longer the private property of of
00:27:35
the priest or the prince or the scholar
00:27:38
if you could pay and you could read it
00:27:41
was all
00:27:42
yours the new books also standardized
00:27:46
spelling They Carried an author's name
00:27:49
and they encouraged accuracy because the
00:27:51
books could be widely read by people who
00:27:53
knew more about the subject perhaps than
00:27:54
the author
00:27:55
himself but perhaps most fundamental all
00:27:58
the new books gave birth to the
00:28:01
specialization that is the the blessing
00:28:03
or or the Bane depending on your point
00:28:05
of view of our modern world because you
00:28:07
see The Architects and the engineers
00:28:09
started to write about what they knew in
00:28:11
terms that only their co- professionals
00:28:13
would
00:28:14
understand the generation that first
00:28:16
read these new books could as easily
00:28:18
turn its hand to the lute or the sword
00:28:21
or the architect's drawing and because
00:28:23
of printing they were the last
00:28:25
generation to be able to do that the
00:28:28
coming of the books must have seemed as
00:28:30
if it was going to turn the world upside
00:28:32
down in the way it spread and and
00:28:34
democratized
00:28:36
knowledge and one of the few men
00:28:39
responsible for that spread was an
00:28:41
Italian called oldest manutius and he
00:28:43
realized that what people needed and
00:28:45
wanted was cheap standard books that
00:28:49
they could carry with them anywhere they
00:28:50
went in their saddle bags and so he
00:28:52
produced the world's first Pocket
00:28:53
Edition and he did so in what by 1500
00:28:57
was the capital of Europe
00:29:17
Venice used to blow their own trumpet a
00:29:20
lot the 16th century venetians well you
00:29:22
couldn't blame them there were after all
00:29:24
more millionaires per square inch here
00:29:27
than anywhere else in Europe
00:29:28
biggest Navy biggest overseas commercial
00:29:30
empire biggest bank balance Venice was
00:29:33
Queen of the Seas of course there was
00:29:35
nowhere else she could have been queen
00:29:36
of not much land in
00:29:42
Venice she was a city full of
00:29:44
businessmen and because of her
00:29:46
connections with Constantinople she was
00:29:47
also full of Greeks refugees from when
00:29:50
the Turks invaded it in
00:29:52
1453 and it was the Greek connection
00:29:54
that gave the printer Aldis manutius his
00:29:56
big chance
00:30:05
because oldest got the Greek refugees to
00:30:07
work for him and because of that his
00:30:09
books gave the world a taste for the
00:30:11
knowledge and the style of ancient
00:30:14
Greece he turned out dictionaries and
00:30:17
grammar books first so his customers
00:30:19
could learn Greek and then of course
00:30:21
they could move on to reading the Greek
00:30:22
books he would sell them no fool he well
00:30:26
the new books got everybody turned on to
00:30:28
matters ancient one of the earliest
00:30:30
bestsellers was a Roman thing on
00:30:32
architecture that got people into big
00:30:34
Prestige building projects people like
00:30:47
Michelangelo thanks to aldus and the
00:30:49
Venetian printing presses in 1500 only
00:30:51
50 years after Guttenberg there were no
00:30:53
less than 20 million books in existence
00:30:56
in 15115 alest
00:31:01
[Music]
00:31:09
died alest manutius was laid to rest
00:31:12
with his books heaped around him as a
00:31:14
mark of respect for what he'd done which
00:31:16
was to print every major Greek classic
00:31:18
in existence and invent a new kind of
00:31:20
letter type for his Pocket Editions it
00:31:23
was a kind of print that would pack a
00:31:24
lot into a tight space we call it italic
00:31:27
so now now the world could start
00:31:28
worrying about something it had never
00:31:30
had to worry about before the small
00:31:37
[Music]
00:31:45
print but above all thanks to books the
00:31:48
world learned about Greek
00:31:50
science this was one of the books that
00:31:52
made the greatest impact of all by the
00:31:53
Greek hero of Alexandria it details how
00:31:56
to make machines using the natural
00:31:58
forces of air or steam or water as power
00:32:02
sources it's really talking about
00:32:03
complicated toys but this book and
00:32:06
others like it put the world of Greek
00:32:09
science and the ancient past into the
00:32:11
hands of the armorers and The Architects
00:32:13
and the engineers working for the
00:32:15
princes and Bishops of 16th century
00:32:17
Italy and look how the armor is
00:32:18
immediately begin to work in the antique
00:32:20
Style on this tapestry this bunch of
00:32:22
soldiers they're using the latest in
00:32:24
handguns and yet they themselves are
00:32:26
dressed like Caesar
00:32:28
uans as the the wealth of the mysterious
00:32:31
East and West began to pour into Europe
00:32:34
and the population began to soore the
00:32:36
princes also began to embellish their
00:32:38
growing cities with elaborate water
00:32:40
supply systems operated by the same
00:32:43
Mechanical Devices as were shown in the
00:32:45
Greek and Roman books and in their homes
00:32:48
the aristocrats would hang tapestries
00:32:50
like this one containing scenes of
00:32:52
fantastic inventions like the flying
00:32:53
Throne being carried into the Sky by
00:32:55
winged beasts that can never quite make
00:32:57
make the piece of ham above their heads
00:33:00
or the mythical story of Alexander the
00:33:02
Great exploring the oceans on board a
00:33:05
submarine what the princes wanted were
00:33:07
things toys that would show off their
00:33:10
their wealth and position in a way that
00:33:12
would amuse and impress their friends
00:33:14
and now their armorers and their
00:33:16
Engineers had the techniques to do it
00:33:19
one of the most famous armorers of the
00:33:20
time fellow called barthol mui switched
00:33:24
for example from making this rather
00:33:25
complex armor Gauntlet to making things
00:33:28
like this it's A Clockwork tortoise
00:33:32
carrying the god Poseidon and it was
00:33:34
used at the dinner table because they
00:33:37
would set it
00:33:38
down and it would take toothpicks from
00:33:41
one guest to another around the
00:33:43
table the Vogue for automatic machines
00:33:46
spread everywhere and with the help of
00:33:48
the hydraulic Engineers it spread in a
00:33:50
form that would bring people hundreds of
00:33:53
miles just to take a
00:33:56
look
00:33:57
[Music]
00:34:06
this is one of the best ones still
00:34:07
working the castle of hellbrun outside
00:34:09
salsburg built in 1615 so the prince
00:34:12
Archbishop and his guests could have a
00:34:14
little waterp powered fun and
00:34:16
games the whole place works on water
00:34:18
turbines running the familiar cylinder
00:34:20
with pegs in it operating a 16th century
00:34:26
Disneyland
00:34:30
[Music]
00:34:32
the name of the game was to get the most
00:34:34
unexpected things to spurt water all
00:34:36
over the suckers who come to dinner
00:34:38
everybody laugh haha cuz the host was a
00:34:40
prince and besides you got a free meal
00:34:43
out of it all well that's not all you
00:34:45
got out of
00:34:46
[Music]
00:34:56
it
00:34:58
of course haha you couldn't get up until
00:34:59
the prince did and of course haha he
00:35:02
didn't need
00:35:04
to The Craze for automatic Machinery
00:35:07
that spread through Europe came here too
00:35:09
of course here the pegged cylinders run
00:35:12
an entire Village of mechanical puppets
00:35:14
working like the Caron in Belgium did on
00:35:16
wires and levers the whole thing's only
00:35:18
18 ft wide and they packed 113 little
00:35:21
people into that
00:35:25
space over the top of all this water
00:35:27
powered Wizardry there was a mechanical
00:35:28
organ to drown the Machinery noise and
00:35:31
as you left the prince would politely
00:35:34
raise his
00:35:36
[Music]
00:35:49
hat mechanical organs and things might
00:35:52
have stayed just that if it hadn't been
00:35:53
for another craze sweeping Europe a
00:35:55
Mania for Chinese Fashions particularly
00:35:57
in dress when at the beginning of the
00:35:59
18th century very complicated patterns
00:36:02
became All the Rage especially in France
00:36:04
and particularly in
00:36:07
silk by the beginning of the 18th
00:36:09
century the demand for this kind of
00:36:11
pattern was giving the silk Weavers of
00:36:13
Leon a real headache because silk
00:36:15
weaving isn't just the simple over and
00:36:17
under business of ordinary weaving it's
00:36:19
much more complicated I mean take a look
00:36:20
at this this already complicated pattern
00:36:22
if you follow it across there you see
00:36:25
suddenly for about five thread
00:36:28
that particular orange so it comes in
00:36:30
say at thread 530 and it disappears
00:36:33
again at thread 535 now if you get that
00:36:36
one thread wrong you've blown it let me
00:36:39
show you on this little model Loom here
00:36:41
how they crack that problem every thread
00:36:45
runs through a tiny ring on a cord so
00:36:48
that if you want to lift the thread you
00:36:50
pull the cord up the thread lifts and in
00:36:52
this case the crossing thread would go
00:36:54
underneath and in the final pattern not
00:36:55
be seen now if if you tie together all
00:36:59
the cords for all the threads that you
00:37:00
want to lift into one bunch then one
00:37:03
pull will lift them all like
00:37:09
this now in a complicated pattern there
00:37:12
would be a lot of those cords to pull
00:37:14
and the children whose job it was to do
00:37:16
it would get tired and pull their own
00:37:17
cords and maybe ruin a week's work so in
00:37:21
1725 a Leones Weaver called basil bushon
00:37:24
solved the problem because his father
00:37:26
was an organ Builder
00:37:28
because his father used these things for
00:37:30
his automated organs remember the organs
00:37:33
used the same cylinder with pegs in it
00:37:35
to make music as they'd used in Belgium
00:37:38
to work their Bing in carryon and they'd
00:37:40
originally got that idea from the cams
00:37:42
set onto the shaft of the paper mill
00:37:45
Buon saw that the piece of paper that
00:37:47
you give to the carpenter to tell him
00:37:49
where to put these pegs on the cylinder
00:37:51
was in
00:37:52
fact a kind of control mechanism so he
00:37:55
put it on a Lube
00:37:58
look each control cord comes over and
00:38:01
down here and whether or not it's moved
00:38:04
depends on this horizontal needle
00:38:10
here okay now for the control mechanism
00:38:13
part what basil bushon did was put a
00:38:17
roll of perforated paper up against the
00:38:20
needles across needles and where there
00:38:23
was a hole the needles stayed put cuz
00:38:24
they came through the holes and where
00:38:26
there was not a hole as in the case of
00:38:28
these four needles here the paper pushed
00:38:31
the cross needles so that all four
00:38:32
needles and all their threads operated
00:38:34
simultaneously like
00:38:41
this and to change the pattern you
00:38:43
simply moved the paper along one row of
00:38:44
holes but the paper tore and the Weavers
00:38:48
placed it in the wrong position so
00:38:50
around 1740 another Weaver from Leon
00:38:52
called Falon came up with this idea he
00:38:55
put each pattern on a separate C card
00:38:58
now the card was more durable and you
00:39:00
couldn't really mistake how you should
00:39:01
position it around 1750 one of the
00:39:04
greatest machine makers of all time a
00:39:06
man called Von who was also the
00:39:08
inspector for silk factories automated
00:39:10
the entire process he put the perforated
00:39:13
roll around a cylinder and mounted the
00:39:15
cylinder on a chassis which went
00:39:16
backwards and forwards on water power
00:39:18
like this and as it did so it clicked
00:39:21
forward one row of holes automatically
00:39:23
each
00:39:24
time now that was limited to much paper
00:39:27
you could put around the cylinder and it
00:39:29
put men out of work so for nearly 50
00:39:32
years this Loom moldered unnoticed here
00:39:35
in the Paris Museum of Arts and Crafts
00:39:37
until just after 1800 another Weaver who
00:39:40
happened to be here at the time was
00:39:41
asked to put it together and Ino so he
00:39:43
made a few changes he put Von's idea
00:39:47
together with Falcon's cards and came up
00:39:49
with
00:39:50
this it's automated and it has the
00:39:53
advantage that if you want to increase
00:39:54
the pattern you simply add more cards
00:39:58
now for that minor Amendment he got all
00:40:00
the glory because to this day the entire
00:40:03
concept is named after this man this is
00:40:05
a jaar loom and boy what a success that
00:40:10
was well not in France because the
00:40:12
revolutionaries decided they didn't like
00:40:14
fancy aristocratic patterns but in
00:40:16
England where the loom ended up making
00:40:18
things like Paisley Shaws very
00:40:21
popular and where these cards got picked
00:40:23
up for a very different reason they got
00:40:26
used to control automatic riveting
00:40:28
machines that by the mid 19th century
00:40:31
helped to build the Great new iron ships
00:40:33
that were to make the crossing of the
00:40:34
Atlantic safer and faster just in time
00:40:38
to handle the biggest load of passengers
00:40:40
that any Shipping Lines have ever
00:40:41
carried the poor huddled masses of
00:40:45
[Music]
00:40:48
Europe and though they didn't know it
00:40:51
these immigrants were to trigger off the
00:40:52
development of one of the modern world's
00:40:54
most extraordinary
00:40:56
invention
00:40:59
by the 1870s the immigrants were
00:41:01
stepping ashore on American soil at a
00:41:02
rate of over 7,000 every day the journey
00:41:06
across the Atlantic had taken anything
00:41:07
from 12 days to 3 weeks and most of them
00:41:11
traveled in conditions that varied from
00:41:12
bad to appalling many of the bigger
00:41:15
ships were designed with only one thing
00:41:16
in mind to carry as many immigrants as
00:41:19
possible and so they came in filth and
00:41:24
degradation packed in like cattle
00:41:26
treated much the same the vast majority
00:41:29
came to New York at first to the
00:41:31
immigration Depot at Castle garden and
00:41:34
then later here to the place that was to
00:41:37
become a symbol both of everything that
00:41:39
America offered and the terrible fear
00:41:43
that at the very Gates of Freedom they
00:41:45
would be turned
00:41:46
away here at Ellis
00:41:56
Island
00:41:59
it took only a few hours to be accepted
00:42:01
or rejected how much of that time has
00:42:04
spent confused and bewildered waiting
00:42:07
clutching their cardboard suitcases tied
00:42:09
up with
00:42:10
string everything they possessed some of
00:42:14
them those who could write even left
00:42:16
their names on the walls as if to say
00:42:21
look I made
00:42:26
it
00:42:34
and then came the Moment of Truth the
00:42:36
point at which they either passed or
00:42:39
failed the test to become American what
00:42:42
none of them could have known was how
00:42:43
easy that test was a quick look at the
00:42:46
eyes the hands and the throat and then
00:42:48
the writing down of their particular
00:42:50
details the point at which many of them
00:42:52
lost their old names because the
00:42:53
inspectors couldn't spell them and they
00:42:55
couldn't write them so they became came
00:42:57
Smith Brown
00:43:00
Jones eight out of 10 people passed the
00:43:03
test but with one inspector handling 500
00:43:05
people a day it was almost a case of if
00:43:07
you could walk you were
00:43:11
in in the 30 years between 1850 and 1880
00:43:15
nearly 8 million people got in and as
00:43:17
the country grew and the Frontiers
00:43:18
pushed West the immigrants were
00:43:21
swallowed up to disappear in the vast
00:43:23
Open Spaces of this enormous country the
00:43:25
trouble was every 10 years the
00:43:27
government had to find them all again
00:43:29
for the national census and as the
00:43:31
population soed the paperwork for doing
00:43:33
that became
00:43:34
unbelievable and then in 1880 an army
00:43:38
surgeon called John Shaw Billings who
00:43:40
was working on the census was watching
00:43:42
the mountains of paperwork being
00:43:44
shuffled when he happened to mention to
00:43:46
his young engineer assistant that he
00:43:48
reckoned that the Jaa cards with their
00:43:50
punched holes ought to be able to carry
00:43:52
information you know if a man was
00:43:53
married you'd punch a hole and if he
00:43:55
wasn't you wouldn't
00:43:58
the young engineer Herman holth worked
00:44:00
on the idea and came up with
00:44:02
this it's called a tabulator and it
00:44:05
works on cards like these the size of a
00:44:08
dollar bill of the period now holth
00:44:09
chose that size because they already had
00:44:12
holders for dollar bills and what that
00:44:14
meant was he wouldn't have to design and
00:44:15
build one himself no fool so you put the
00:44:19
card in here now let's say we're talking
00:44:22
about a white male aged 35 who is single
00:44:26
lives in m
00:44:27
and came originally from Russia right
00:44:30
you
00:44:31
punch
00:44:33
white
00:44:35
male
00:44:38
35
00:44:39
single the code for the
00:44:42
state
00:44:45
Maine and
00:44:47
finally
00:44:49
Russia now you take the card out see the
00:44:52
little holes and put it into this press
00:44:55
now when you push this press down
00:44:57
these little needles here with springs
00:44:59
on them either go through a hole or they
00:45:04
don't remember jakar and if they do go
00:45:07
through a hole they make electrical
00:45:09
contact down
00:45:12
there and that triggers these counters
00:45:14
up here one click forward now depending
00:45:17
on what you want to count you program
00:45:19
the counters say you just want a general
00:45:21
population figure then all these are the
00:45:23
states and territories of which that is
00:45:25
Main and that one in the corner is the
00:45:27
grand total so our man in Maine would
00:45:30
add one to Maine and one to the grand
00:45:32
total like
00:45:37
this and thebel told you You' done it
00:45:40
now the sensus involved much more
00:45:43
detailed analysis than that so holth
00:45:46
also designed a sorter this cabinet with
00:45:48
lots of boxes in it connected to the
00:45:49
tabulator now let's say you want to take
00:45:52
a particular look at all 35-year old men
00:45:55
what you do is program the tabulator so
00:45:57
that when one of them comes under the
00:45:59
press it causes a particular box to flip
00:46:01
open like
00:46:03
this and you pop the card into the
00:46:06
box and at the end of the day you took
00:46:10
out all the 35y olds and ran them back
00:46:14
under the press to see where they all
00:46:16
lived and to see how many of them there
00:46:17
were and you could do that with any bit
00:46:20
of information on a card or any mixture
00:46:23
of bits of information on a
00:46:25
card well the the 1880 census had taken
00:46:28
or over 7 years to complete with a new
00:46:31
tabulator the 1890 census was finished
00:46:33
in half that time and they checked the
00:46:35
total twice 62,939
00:46:57
and the linen It produced that made
00:46:59
paper so cheap it spurred the
00:47:00
development of printing of books that
00:47:03
interested people in things like
00:47:04
automated organs whose pegged cylinders
00:47:07
gave the French silk Weavers the
00:47:09
opportunity to run their Looms with
00:47:11
perforated cards that holler used to
00:47:14
count Americans who had once passed
00:47:15
through this Hall in Ellis
00:47:18
Island gateway to the one country that
00:47:20
more than any other would fall apart if
00:47:22
it weren't for holl's card used to
00:47:25
program the computers without whose help
00:47:27
the entire massive structure of the
00:47:29
modern world would fall
00:47:32
down most of the ancestors of the
00:47:34
computer brought people pleasure what
00:47:36
will it bring
00:47:40
us that is precisely the issue that EG
00:47:42
Marshall and his guests are about to
00:47:44
Grapple with and they'll do so in just a
00:47:55
moment
00:47:59
[Music]
00:48:42
a
