Historian Reacts - History of the entire world, i guess

• history of the entire ...

[@RogueJyn]

Some historical context behind the "you can make a relig.. no dont" joke is that there was almost a religion formed behind Robespierre during the revolution 😂

[@Diego92Souza]

The Church of reason i think, yeah lol

[@Arkouchie]

@@Diego92Souza Yep that's the one

[@RaptorNX01]

I actually thought it was a reference to the idea that certain upper crust people wouldn't like it if the peasants decided to make it SOP to behead the elite if they get to uppity. lol

[@00Spiral007]

The Cult of the Supreme Being lmao. It was like...a couple months after he threw this big party to celebrate some kind of power acquisition inside of the revolutionary tribunal -- but the party ended up being really weird. He was going all secular toga with it, and was going on and on about deism. Think of a really pretentious frat party but everyone thought it was going to be a steak and wine dinner. And Robespierre was just smelling his own farts too much. It was one of the (many) reasons the tribunal eventually turned back on him. It's different from the Church of Reason -- they were far more sensible. The Cult of the Supreme Being didn't like the atheistic tearing up of concepts like "deities". So in a way, Robespierre was more of a moderate than you might otherwise assume on a first read -- he needed the concept of a god to tie his relationship with power to reality. This loose relationship with religion was common though amongst the educated "men of letters" -- regardless of what side of the atlantic. Remember Thomas Jefferson had his "secular bible". Similar in the sense they both liked having an appeal to a spiritual power to help shape their new national identities.

[@orpsae]

no fucking shot lmao

[@abraveastronaut]

You just know Bill Wurtz probably spent hours experimenting with the length of the pause after "That's how every it gets" to get it just long enough to feel awkward and not a second longer.

[@Driahva]

One second more or less and it just wouldn't hit the same.

[@atthecore4560]

This is a guy who has no musical training, yet used music bits he created as an element in his projects. He's definitely special lol.

[@ot7biasedmashups]

​@@atthecore4560sometimes geniuses who don't end up destroying the world are born

[@atthecore4560]

@@ot7biasedmashups I hope I can count myself as one of them lol.

[@NonEuclideanTacoCannon]

In a recent interview, he said as much. He really stresses things like timing. The guy is clearly a genius, like I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn he regularly publishes high level mathematics papers. But he's kind of weird and obsessive. Like any genius artist I suppose. He mentions how much time he spends matching chords to everything, makes me think he experiences extreme synesthesia.

[@SuddenFool]

Doing history class here in Denmark the explanation for why Iceland is called that is because the vikings arrived in winter so it was covered in snow. While at Greenland they arrived where doing summer it is nice and green. At least it's the best explanation we got.

[@HistoryBuff]

Makes sense

[@neroquin]

I heard they named Iceland to warn people of how dangerous it was, and that they named Greenland to attract more people to live there. I didn't really get why but if you take this into account too it makes sense

[@Reblwitoutacause]

Or maybe it was 🍄

[@daniel4647]

I Norway I learned in school that the guy that discover Greenland had made a lot of promises, going out to find new fertile land to settle on. So when he came back he basically just lied to everyone saying it was the greenest land and everyone should go, but most who did go just died. Have no idea how valid that story is though, but that's what the teacher said so I just always kind of assumed it happened that way.

[@clubardi]

Actually the reason why Iceland got called Iceland, was because of a norseman named Hrafna-Flóki Vilgerðarson, who hiked up a mountain in the westfjords and saw a fjord full of ice, and decided iceland was a good name, as a by-product of that name, it would also discourage people who thought it a good idea to settle there and/or attack. This is described in considerable detail in Landnámabók, which is a medieval Icelandic work which described the settlement of Iceland by the norse in the 9th and 10th centuries CE

[@hyliankirbythesecond]

"Spent a lot of money to learn I can binge-watch history videos on KZbin" Dude just summarized 4 full years of college

[@jp3813]

Heard something like that in Good Will Hunting.

[@LincolnDWard]

How much the Webb telescope discoveries are changing our cosmology sometimes gets over-blown by the media - they're huge, significant discoveries, but it's not like the whole history of the universe is being turned upside down. In this video in particular, the main thing that changed is the time between "a bunch of gas in space" and "it's a _STAR"_ (the Webb discoveries have shown that it actually happened faster than the title cards in here would indicate).

[@96Cthulhu96]

Nice, came down here to comment pretty much that :D

[@IceMetalPunk]

Yeah. When he said people are questioning whether the Big Bang even happened because of the JWST, I was like, "...no." All our estimates have error bars, that's how science and statistics work. Discovering something from about 13 billion years ago is older than we thought just shifts where in the error bars we focus, it doesn't somehow overturn all of the other evidence backing up the origins of the universe.

[@Jashtvorak]

This comment 👌

[@alexcole9325]

Good to know, I think, guess? It's interesting! :D

[@Blaze5x5x5]

This is why I love and hate space facts. It's always cool as hell to hear about, but anything in space takes so long that the information is barely relevant besides like proving theories or asteroids, and even then, we still miss MASSIVE asteroids. Odd opinion but I wish they put as much time into deep sea exploration as they did space considering the ocean is ON the planet and still hasn't been fully explored.

[@richtyty9416]

I love how the white screen catches everyone off guard like: Did I pause it?

[@yeahitsmikki5931]

“Someone with ADHD trying to explain big bang” I’m crying 4:19

[@alyssat7809]

As someone with a d h d I can say accurate

[@billolson8766]

⁠ive never been so offended by something i 100% agree with lol

[@-Luucy-]

Yeah, maybe that's the reason why I couldn't watch the original video. I stopped watching after 2 minutes. Kids these days... Or I'm just too slow lmao

[@escaped_cephalopod]

@@billolson8766 same lmao

[@MDBowron]

actually ants have practiced horticulture, by growing fungus and plants in their ant colonies, and have domesticated aphids and so are capable of agrarianism, living off aphids' sugary excretion, like how we use cows to get milk, or goats and sheep for wool.

[@erikperhs_]

There are also some ants that create "farms" of specific plants that they like by destroying the other plants around them, which is basically what monoculture is.

[@Streunekater]

... and let's maybe add that some animal species have high (individual or swarm) intelligence, complex languages and forms of communication, too... I guess we were just really lucky to be omnivorous, have opposing thumbs, langue and not too many predators all at the same time...

[@revangerang]

This is why I am terrified of ants, especially Argentine ants who apparently don't fight each other and instead become a massive mega-colony?? No thanks

[@zrc1514]

Yeti crabs do a similar thing but in their fur with bacteria and parrotfish tend to a personal garden of sorts made up of algae. Certain tarantulas also keep frogs as pets.

[@invisibleaccount9284]

I came here to say something similar. Humans aren’t magically better than any other animal. We just happen to be an animal with the right set of traits to build cities and develop technology without thinking-based help from other species. There is no line separating humans from other animals that isn’t made up by humans.

[@TheMilkMan8008]

Explaining how life came about is my favorite thing ever. Chemical evolution is so cool. To start you have to talk about the Urey-Miller experiment. Back in the 1950s these two biochemists did an experiment in which they took a containment chamber, filled it with water, ammonia, methane, hydrogen, and all the things you expect to find on any fledgling planet. All the things you would expect on any new Earths. They put a fire underneath so it would evaporate, go into another container to be zapped with electrodes, cooled, funneled back to the original container and cycles back through. They are simulating the patterns of an early Earth, and simulating all the elements you could find on Earth. You take early simple ingredients, get them hot, get them cold, zapped with lightning and other normal processes. They ran it for a while and when they come back they took samples. To their surprise, the water is no longer clear, but is a gross reddish brown. They test it and find it is now full of amino acids. Amino acids are the things that build proteins and make life happen. That is called chemical evolution. Very simple inorganic ingredients come together via totally natural means and form organic macromolecules. There are 4 macromolecules that make up life. Lipids, proteins, carbs and nucleic acids. Those are the 4 macromolecules that make up everything alive. Each one is a polymer meaning its a molecule that forms a chain. I'll explain each of these below: PROTEINS are made of chains of amino acids that fold up on themselves. A chain of amino acids is a primary structure. Then it folds into an alpha helix or a beta pleated sheet called a secondary structure. Then it forms a glob called a tertiary structure. Sometimes some globs come together and thats then a quaternary structure and so on. Thats how proteins work. Proteins make up skin, muscle, bones, and everything like that. CARBS are sugars. Long chain simple sugars such as glucose or fructose. If you stick them together you get sucrose. A bunch of those together makes a polysaccharide. This makes carbs like starche, cellulose and such. LIPIDS are fats. You have a twisted hydrocarbon chain that repels water and thats a lipid. There are various kinds like phospholipids where a long hydrocarbon chain comes off it to repel water and on the other end is a phosphorus group that attracts water. This makes a hydrophilic and hydrophobic end. One attracts and one repels water. If you take any lipid like cooking oil for example and put it in water it forms a bubble all by itself. Nobody has to tell it to do that. That's because a sphere is the smallest possible surface area and is the most energetically protected from the water around it. It would take more energy to make any other shape and the universe is lazy. Everything is always as energetically simple as possible. Lipids that naturally form out of normal stuff under normal circumstances, naturally form spheres. Amino acids which make proteins that naturally form out of natural stuff can get stuck in one of these spheres, and you now have something that practically represents a cell. All this stuff formed by totally natural means and naturally assumes the shape of a sphere can naturally come together and form a cell. You can do this in a jar. Now imagine that on a planet taking place over millions of years. The Urey-Miller experiment has been redone in different ways many times by putting other things in, leaving some things out, and hundreds of combinations and it just always works. Later, we figured out this happens in hydrothermal vents. They pump out acids and bases. These have proton gradients. Whats that? Well an acid is a chemical with a bunch of extra protons and a base is something that doesn't have enough and has too many electrons. When they neutralize they give off electrical charges that move one place to the next. This is how your cells make energy today. Mitochondria pass protons across a membrane. This turns a protein called ATP synthesis which makes adenosine triphosphate and thats how our body works. It's how most cells today work. Where can we find natural proton gradients right now? Hydrothermal vents. Where can we find the building blocks of lipids and proteins? Hydrothermal vents. We can even find amino acids, including all the ones important to life, in space. Just floating on asteroids. They form naturally all by themselves all over. You have the building blocks of life, the thing that makes energy in cells even today happening naturally all by itself in hydrothermal vents and all over the universe. Life then starts all by itself. Now we also have NUCLEIC ACIDS, the 4th macromolecule, which is DNA and RNA. We do debate what came first, but the most common consensus is RNA came first. I also follow the RNA world hypothesis. Let me explain why. RNA is cool because it isn't just something that carries information, but it also works as a catalysts to make reactions happen. A catalysts is something that lowers the activation energy of a reaction. It makes a reaction happen easier and faster with less energy. So RNA carries genetic information, it can also make more of itself, and it can make other reactions happen faster. Think about how proteins are made in your body today. It's like this. You have mRNA(messenger RNA) that makes proteins happen. How? It goes to a ribosome to be read. What are ribosomes made of? They are made of rRNA(ribosomal RNA), and aren't membrane bound organelles. In the ribosome something brings over amino acids to make the protein. What brings them over? tRNA(transfer RNA). So when your body makes proteins it uses RNA to tell RNA to use RNA to make a protein. Again, you can do this in a jar. That is why the major consensus is that RNA came first. RNA is something that is so unbelievably useful. Why do we have DNA then? Because once it happened to form DNA was/is really good at long term storage and it's far more stable meaning it stuck around better. You can divide it, make more of it, pack it into a tight wad and have it twist around proteins called histones to makes a tight rope called chromatin, and then chromatin forms a body called a chromosome. Thats how DNA works. It wraps around proteins, wraps into a thick rope, and those thick ropes form a chromosome. It's super easy to divide these and split them up. Is it so hard to believe that some of these naturally forming nucleic acids found their way into a blob of naturally forming lipids? THEN they split, THEN you have 2 sets of chromosomes in a cell THEN cytokenesis happens where actin filaments tighten around the cell in a contractile ring, and remember lipids form bubbles naturally, so once squished together you now have a cleavage furrow that then splits into two seperate bubbles! You now have dividing life out of literally "nothing". It's not difficult at all to say that very simple ingredients found all over the universe that naturally form organic molecules by natural processes then naturally stated making more of themselves. You then get a VERY early organism. Something so insanely simple. Not bacteria, that would be unbelievably complex in comparison. Just a very simple membrane, very simple genetic material and very simple proteins. The very basics of all of this. That is what we call LUCA. There was probably a ton of very early life, but LUCA is the one that stuck around. Everything that ever lived past that point is related to LUCA. We have a very clear picture of how everything evolved after that. I can gladly get into that if anyone want me to. I'm an evolutionary biologist so this tickles me all over when I get to explain it.

[@TheMilkMan8008]

It is of course possible some organism alive isn't related to LUCA, BUT it would be different in some way and we just don't see major differences. It is reasonable to assume we all come from the same place and unreasonable to make the assumption non LUCA life survived. Why hasn't it happen again? It takes a long time for life to form. If there was an environment that could start life then that is an environment full of nutrients and absolutely ripe for new life to grow. If that existed on Earth today something already alive would swoop in and take advantage of all the nutrients before anything else could form. Life basically prevents new life from being formed. People around our age and older learned that tool use did seperate us from other animals, but we have actually seen tht this isn't anything unique to us at all. Tool use is super common. A large number of primates, birds, fish, cephalopods, crustaceans, insects and reptiles use tools. My favorite recent discovery is crocodiles putting sticks on their head to help better camouflage themselves.

[@HistoryBuff]

Holy crap! An evolutionary biologist! Super interesting information! I'll have to read it in full later!

[@PongoXBongo]

@@TheMilkMan8008 Ghillie gators?! Truly the stuff of nightmares.

[@aarondonald1611]

Best comment I've ever read on KZbin. Thanks for real! Learned a lot

[@WatashiMachineFullCycle]

This might be the coolest comment I've ever read on KZbin

[@tomenrico6199]

At the end, you said “props to them” for doing a good job. Actually, I think this entire video was made by one guy (Bill Wurszt (sp)). As I think somebody else already mentioned, he worked on it nearly a year. He has some other quirky videos, plus I think he creates original music videos.

[@nileprimewastaken]

it would still be correct to refer to bill wurtz as them if you didn't know his pronouns

[@GyzelE]

​@@nileprimewastakendon't be ridiculous. That's ridiculous.

[@nileprimewastaken]

@@GyzelE and i assume you are transphobic too? they/them have been used as singular pronouns for a long time.

[@chashubokchoy8999]

@@GyzelEeven if you are transphobic, could just be a woman with a slightly deeper voice. wurtz’s narration is pretty androgynous sounding

[@DerekHise]

@@GyzelE Person A: "I have a child." Person B: "Cool. How old are they?" The word "they" can be used to refer to people (plural) or a person (singular), without connoting any gender information. This has been grammatically acceptable for many many decades.

[@michaelbouschet5634]

Those discoveries with the James Webb telescope have been happening recently, and this video was made almost 10 years ago before we had any of this data to kinda disprove these theories. So when Bill made this video, it was pretty much the most up to date historical and scientific information.

[@IBeforeAExceptAfterK]

You're kinda stretching the definition of "almost" a bit. The video came out six years ago.

[@noahtekulve2684]

Just wait a bit

[@PrincessOfSwords]

By the way, if you watch History of Japan from the same channel, I know that's not your wheelhouse in general, but it pre-dated this video and he happens to go a lot more into a humorous description of the complicated start of WWI there.

[@daveking9393]

Well as I said I've seen that a dozen times and people react to that a dozen times too and you picked up on some of the best little nuances that so many people miss I was laughing right along with you Great job really enjoyed it Thanks for sharing

[@HistoryBuff]

Thats a great compliment. Thank you

[@artembentsionov]

The king of Mali was Mansa Musa. He got so rich by trading gold, salt, and slaves. He was also a devout Muslim and went on a hajj to Mecca with a ginormous caravan (tens of thousands of people and thousands of camels). Wherever he stopped, he would give out nuggets of gold to the people. Well, if you know anything about economics, you can figure out what happened. The value of gold plummeted. On his way back, he realized how much he screwed up and tried to buy up all the gold, but the damage to the economies was done. They wouldn’t recover for decades. He’s considered to be the richest man in history

[@Sir_Uncle_Ned]

It really is amazing how quickly things have changed since that video was made

[@StorymasterQ]

That must've been why bill was talking so fast... he didn't want his video he took a year to make become irrelevant too quickly.

[@arickbakken]

What has changed on the scale of 'history of everything" since AI?

[@petal_cult]

@@arickbakken i mean apart from the middle east oil wars, social media and smartphones, isis, orange man/qanon/jan 6 (you could make a religion out of this), yemen war, covid, ukraine war and ai, not that much lmao

[@LWolf12]

@@arickbakkenWater from meteoroids. Studys being done with probes have shown results that the water on meteoroids have different traces than water on Earth. Leading a lot researchers to think that the water on Earth was formed during the formation of earth. And as he said in the video, a lot of the James Webb imagery and research is showing the formation & early big bang information may be inaccurate. Plus, we still have information coming in from the Mars & Moon rovers & a lot of research satellites.

[@arickbakken]

@@petal_cult more than half this list was mentioned in the video.

[@metmanjeff]

I’m a Brit and was in my 30’s when I discovered that we occasionally lost wars. They didn’t teach us that in school! I think every countries education system has a different, err, slant on things.

[@HistoryBuff]

Wow! "He who controls the past, controls the future. He who controls the present, controls the past." -Orwell

[@Lightkie]

Really? I remember one of the first jokes about the British I've heard when I was young was that they only talk about the ones they lost. Maybe that was meant as sarcasm then.

[@metmanjeff]

@@Lightkie huh. Interesting. Nope, not my experience. There’s still a lot of folk who think we have an Empire and rule the World. But I’ve never heard anyone mention when we lost. Still I’m only 1 in 60 odd million…

[@thebeaniestbeanboys5735]

Bro thought his ancestors just let america leave without a fight

[@metmanjeff]

@@thebeaniestbeanboys5735 nah, that was too recent to be considered history ;)

[@Ben_Kimber]

As a Canadian, the thing that stands out the most to me in this video is the complete lack of any mention of Canada.

[@DeathByHentai]

To be fair Canada, while they have nice blokes isn't all too important on the world stage

[@HistoryBuff]

I mean, to be fair, there was no mention of a lot of things. This is me reflecting months later, so I could be mistaken, but there was no mention of Ireland, Scotland, Scandinavia, vikings, etc.

[@Ben_Kimber]

@@HistoryBuff That is fair. However, vikings mentioned. I don't remember hearing anything about Ireland or Scotland though. Maybe some mention of the War of 1812 could have fit in the video? Canadian contributions to the Geneva Conventions in WW1? I get that he's quickly skimming over events, just giving a quick humorous summary of major events, but I do think some brief mention of either of the two I brought up could have been slipped in there in a humorous way. (I say "contributions to the Geneva Conventions" instead of "war crimes" because they weren't war crimes yet. As The Fat Electrician likes to say, "It's never a war crime the first time.")

[@DanielRyanScott]

They mentioned France. Same difference.

[@LittleLarryZellers]

What is this Canada you speak of ?

[@dmwalker24]

I'll be honest, I got a little worried when you were talking about 'disproving the big bang theory', but then I was reassured by your comments on evolution. I would say, that biologically there's nothing fundamental that separates us from animals. We are animals. Even syntactic language, arguably our greatest feature as a species, likely came from more primitive forms of language which predate humanity. As Tim Minchin once said, "We're just fucking monkeys in shoes".

[@HistoryBuff]

Yea, it's just that the beginning and size of the universe seems more complicated than we thought. I'd also say written language is our biggest triumph, which I actually meant to mention as a part of civilization. It allows us to pass down info horizontally and vertically through the generations.

[@dopaminecloud]

@@HistoryBuff The ability to record information consciously is definitely the key factor that makes humanity what it is. I'm not surprised in the slightest that while our civilizations engage in fruitless and shortsighted resource conflicts for millennia straight (and will never stop), that the background of our world is primarily just becoming a vessel for increasingly advanced ways to record and transfer information.

[@LWolf12]

Well to be fair, a lot of what James Webb has been showing has thrown the scientific community who keeps an eye on that stuff in a tizzy. Since it's not just pretty pictures.

[@TheNeonParadox]

"I basically paid for lot of money to learn what you can learn on KZbin in a few weeks." As someone with a degree in Classics, I relate to that a little too much. Lol. That being said, this video still gives me a history boner. I actually have the app on my phone that I often use at inappropriate times.

[@HistoryBuff]

🤣😂 I interviewed Brittany Slayes from unleash the archers on my channel and we both talked about how worthless our history degrees are! It wad basically a hobby. But people who are interested in, say WW2 and read books and watch all the movies know WAAAYY more than I do even though they expect me to know it all.

[@TheNeonParadox]

​@@HistoryBuff Agreed. The only downside to KZbin is all of the bias, alt-history, and pop-history. However, this is why we need to be teaching kids to check and verify sources, and identify signs of cognitive bias. I always tell the students I tutor to run their favorite history channels through the r/badhistory filter. It's an excellent resource.

[@ms_scribbles]

Actually, England had been pretty much unified for almost 140 years before William the Conqueror came. The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms had been welded together by King Aethelstan (grandson, I believe, of Alfred the Great). It hadn't always been ruled by Saxons, as some Danes ruled England for a few decades, but for the most part, it was a single, Saxon kingdom.

[@finalone24]

"I'm a historian, which really just means that I spent a lot of money to learn what you could learn binging youtube for 2 weeks" 😂

[@MasterTheTime_]

I absolutely love watching reactions to this video, it covers such a broad range of topics that everybody always has their own pieces of knowledge, I remember one person was a nuclear scientist of some sort and was able to go further in-depth about the beginning and big bang and then you have some historians like yourself that are able to explain the complicated history of humans in detail, its always so fascinating to listen to, the original video was a masterpiece, but the reactions to it are also so amazing!

[@TheMilkMan8008]

He JWST is actually changing our understanding of the universes age as well as some other stuff, but it isn't changing our understanding of whether or not the big bang happened. There have been quite a few misleading and clickbate news headlines saying such.

[@tristanridley1601]

It looks like maybe galaxies and stars were faster than forming than we thought. The only edit for this video is the "X Million years later" bit.

[@_burningshadow_8010]

Like you saw at the end he also did "history of Japan I guess" which is also pretty good and you could react to (He made it earlier but it actually gives some more details on certain global topics like WW2 and is relatively more respectful about the entire "extinction ball" situation)

[@alexandertiberius1098]

I've been singing "The Sun is a deadly laser" to myself for 6 years.

[@HistoryBuff]

Lol, especially here in Florida!

[@alexandertiberius1098]

@@HistoryBuff I live in London, the sun here is more like that old space heater you find in the back of the garage and are scared to turn on incase it catches fire.

[@yeshevishman]

Wow! What a great reaction to a classic video. As a jew, i found your offhand comment about the crusaders "killing a few jews" to he both kind of funny and important. Basically, they massacred whole towns of Jews in order to "let off some steam". It was honestly one of the many horrible moments in our people's history, and is still remembered by European descended Jews to this day.

[@HistoryBuff]

Thanks! From what I remember, some of them also killed local jews as they were disembarking, targeting the ones who held their loans. Easy way to become debt free. Very terrible stuff. One of the next original videos I want to do is all about the 4th crusade. Talk about a cluster fu$&

[@yeshevishman]

@@HistoryBuff yeah. Those were individual murders as well, but weren't as bad as the massacres of complete strangers in towns such as Worms and Mainze. (Not sure if I spelled that right). Many of the greatest Jewish scholars and leaders of the time lived there and were among those who were murdered, as well as innocent men, women and children.

[@HistoryBuff]

@yeshevishman just terrible.

[@noahgray543]

Man, it took me two minutes of listening to you talk to decide that I like you and to subscribe. "I spent a lot of money to learn what you can find out binging on KZbin," and "I know a lot about a little and a little about a lot." Two minutes in, and you are dropping lines like that already? This is going to be good!

[@HistoryBuff]

Lol, that is one of the best compliments I've had! I really apologize for the audio quality in the video. It was the first time I recorded after moving and my mic was set to 100% gain. Hopefully you check out some other stuff, like the drunken crusades or the cuckoo bird one. Good times!

[@o07t28]

the "let's make a religion out of this!" joke almost actually happened, in the form of the Cult of the Supreme Being

[@RandomWeebAppeared]

10:05 Let's list the things that make us human: Speech: Lots of animals use verbal communication, ours is pretty refined, but not quite unique. Tool creation/use: Some crows will break apart sticks to suit their needs and some other animals use sticks and stones as tools regularly. Cultivating the land/farming: Getting a bit tougher here, but there are some ants that "farm" fungus, which I think counts. Animals are pretty great, name a thing humans do well and I'm sure there's an animal that does something similar.

[@HistoryBuff]

Similar, but nobody can argue that they have achieved close to anything that we have. One important thing that I forgot to mention, especially talking about civilization is the written language. The thing that has led to our relatively quick advancement is the horizontal and vertical transfer of information. Richard Dawkins would call it the meme, which would function just like the gene in informative and technological evolution. Other animals do not have or utilize this.

[@Pimpgamer101]

Are you trying to say other animals are just as good as humans? Even if one animal can do one thing as good or better, there isn’t a single animal other than humans that can do everything at the level of skill and efficiency that humans can. Also, the simple fact that we pass on knowledge. Other animals learn by instinct.

[@RandomWeebAppeared]

@@Pimpgamer101 Nah, all I'm saying is that we humans are just animals, even if we're a bit unique. Like the learning thing, it's already been proven that rats can learn from watching eachother, and lots of animals play fight with their kids in order to hone their hunting skills. Yes, it's the combination of all these factors that's behind our success, but in the end we also do a lot by instinct such as having kids, parenting and such.

[@Pimpgamer101]

@@RandomWeebAppearedparenting is not instinctual, it’s either learned or self-taught. Parenting comes from wisdom which is antithetical to instinct in every way. No one in the 21st century is blindly reproducing based soley on instinct. In fact, many countries are experiencing severe decreases in birthrates because people don’t want to have kids or be around other people in general. I’m not denying we are animals, we are literally Animalia Chordata Mammalia Primates I’m not going all the way down, but you get the point. We are a superior species though.

[@HistoryBuff]

@Mitchell Woroniecki I think the take away is that we are still an animal and part of the evolutionary chain. At the same time though, we are lightyears more cognitively superior in many different ways. I think it's easy to find folks way too far on either side of the spectrum where they say we are not animals or we are no different and nothing sets us apart. Like many things, there's a nice healthy middle ground.

[@absolutleynotanalien8096]

The guy that said the big bang was disproven has tried to disprove it and replace it with his own since long ago disproven hypothesis for years.

[@AngelWedge]

I spent this evening watching lots of people react to this video while trying to stop panicking. This one makes me interested enough to subscribe; would love to hear more about the crusades, and music reactions are always fun.

[@HistoryBuff]

"Panicking"? I'm hoping everything is OK.

[@SerOuroboros]

I just want to point out that the collection of books behind you is beautiful.

[@Chooopy]

The Vikings didn't really know about Greenland yet and Iceland was named before Greenland. Eric the Red and his family had to flee to Iceland because his father sort of had a temper and killed a man. While they were there in Iceland, Eric the Red also killed a man and felt the need to flee. Greenland was sort of known about at this time and there was just a strip of land enough to support a colony. So, he decided to gather up people to colonize this new land with him. However, not a lot of people were gonna just willingly take the risk. So he thought of this great idea to call the place Greenland to oversell how amazing the place was. And it stuck. There's actually a great podcast called "Fall of Civilizations" here on KZbin with an episode dedicated to the Greenland Vikings. I highly, highly recommend the channel if you want long form storytelling about past civilizations.

[@4louisMC]

Best part about it!... the video loops! The end and beginning answer each other!

[@theblackbutterfly48]

I really appreciate the commentary and additional color you gave to the video in your reaction

[@kenarbes]

I like watching these reaction videos. Learn something new each time, especially when the reactor knows something about history or science (or both). You only learn a particular focus of history in school, so Bill Wurtz's video is so cool because it covers parts of the world we're not taught, so we get a more balanced view. Mesopotamia and Egypt are always covered, but the Indus River and Norte Chico civilizations I've never heard of before this video (let alone the other kingdoms in Africa). I've learned more about the Crusades from historical fantasy (by Judith Tarr) than from school. Looking forward to your video about the 4th Crusade. I've read a little about the Children's Crusade. That was sad.

[@TresTrefusis]

Just from that intro you earn a like for me, monty python and medieval art in a python style animation... amazing.

[@HistoryBuff]

Lol, and I can't even begin to explain how it happened. It was something I came up with for my very first video and I'm never changing it. I've tweaked it a few times for interviews and guests to say different things. I even put Metallica shirts on the naked people to troll someone who was appalled by the nakedness. Glad you like it!

[@TresTrefusis]

@@HistoryBuff ha ha that's awesome.

[@az_atheist]

My favorite part is the Majapahit name bit because I remember having trouble with that name when learning about it.

[@chickennuggies906]

i mean this in a helpful way: if your microphone has a gain knob turn it down, add volume in post production to get rid of the crazy distortion. or just keep it if this is intended :)

[@HistoryBuff]

Lol, thanks for the tip! I just moved into my new house and set everything up for the first time in about a year. I made 2 videos without knowing how to fix it. I ended up putting several filters on it with no help. I finally turned the gain from 100 to 70 and it's perfect now. I've made around a half a dozen more videos and the problem is cleared up.

[@chickennuggies906]

@@HistoryBuff im glad to hear you fixed it!:)

[@iansahleen1173]

Definitely a good fit for the channel

[@Mwinslow1467]

10:00 I like to think most of our early advantages boiled down to our abilities to abstract thought. It is a great interest to me of where this came from, as we seem to do it so much better than any other animal (if they can even do it at all. a chimp might understand a sharp knife cuts better than a dull one, but does it know what sharpness is?)

[@cofi45]

Nice book collection! Beautiful

[@najrenchelf2751]

11:51 - I think about this little throwaway line a lot, because it really is the meeting point of 3 continents!

[@zacharyking3374]

This is the first video of yours I have seen, and right off the rip I saw the UTA poster and subscribed.

[@HistoryBuff]

Nice! If you like UTA, check out the interview I did with Brittney! Best hour of my life!

[@zacharyking3374]

I will do that! There are quite a few music reviewers I have seen interview Britt and I've been searching for another.@@HistoryBuff

[@SiqueScarface]

21:25 This was already a topic in the Icelandic sagas and eddas, for instance in the Greenlandinga Saga, where Bjorni Hrulfsson complains that Leif Eriksson misled them all by calling the new land Greenland to lure settlers. 29:15 In a certain way, the Lutheran Reformation at first was a conflict between the Duke Electors of Saxony (the Ernestinians) and their cousins in neighboring Meissen (the Albertinians), as Martin Luther hailed from Eisleben, Ernestine Saxony, and Johannes Tetzel, one of the main protagonists of the Indulgence, came from Pirna, Albertine Saxony. Apparently, Frederick the WIse of Saxony didn't like money floating from his taxpayers to Rome to construct St. Peter's Cathedral instead of filling his coffers.

[@b1xssom838]

I got a ad break at the beguninnning of the video and right after they played through I just hear History Buff say “Dude, I’ve never gotten ads on here…” and I was genuinely freaked out 😂😂

[@taylorrae3947]

So I can't get over when he says "now we can eat sunlight and there's air now" because I learned the other day that a bacteria that gave off oxygen as a waste product was so prevalent that they changed the atmosphere and created a rust belt inside the Earth. The wording could be reductive and semi accurate, but knowing that I do not understand how it went directly from photosynthesis to "we have oxygen now!" 😂

[@vexile1239]

The oxygenation that occurred lead to at least 2 mass exitiction events which also caused an ice age or 2

[@ANDI3niable]

Just stumbled upon this video and subbed! Love the background. I would like to see your reaction to most of OverSimplified videos, specifically their The First Punic War - OverSimplified videos.

[@HistoryBuff]

Welcome! I'd definitely like to check those out!

[@djalexander968]

love just that side comment abt the james webb cause even that alone made me remember that i can be as openminded as i like but if the only thing i "know" is what i already believe it doesnt tell me anything new, learning more about what we dont understand whatsoever is actually really important because that might help me find something new and interesting at the very least, and the more minds thrown at a problem right? i typically turn my nose to that kind of thing due to the fact we dont understand it, but thats faulty reasoning

[@PH16]

Great explanation, thanks for this. The only comment I would make - people started using copper first, hence the Copper Age came first, followed by Bronze Age. The Metal Age comes after the Bronze Age

[@eddiegreenheart]

Loved this and your reaction. If you're interested, Bill Wurtz has another video in the same style based on the history of Japan. Would love to see what you think. Thanks!

[@Libithina]

Just here to comment on your LEGO medieval blacksmith in the background, that's such a cool piece.

[@HistoryBuff]

Thanks! I actually did a livesteam when I started building it. I just saw the Rivendell set at Disney springs yesterday! $500!!

[@dabloonkitty]

im not a history person AT ALL but history of the entire world i guess is like my favorite video and i know almost all the words and i love watching peoples first reactions to it HAHAHAHA

[@Rice__Eater_]

Am i the only one whos able to be like "yes that is how every it gets"

[@HistoryBuff]

You don't even need a where

[@Rice__Eater_]

@@HistoryBuff that's how *every* it gets

[@HistoryBuff]

@Rice__Eater_3000 pause.....pause...pause....(did my fucking computer freeze?) Pause....pause...

[@GoldenTV3]

The James Webb isn't making cosmologists question the big bang, it's just revising the timeline that we have.

[@HistoryBuff]

Sorry, I must've worded it weird because I've had to make this distinction a few dozen times. Not the entire theory itself, just the working parts. Like age and distance. Galaxies are way older and the universe is possibly much larger than we once thought. I'm pretty sure the old theories only account for a very small amount of matter that should be present, which is what pushed the "fix" of dark matter. I can't stress enough there is little disproving (since nothing was really "proved" in the first place). Just more questions.

[@badunius_code]

7:10 primordial soup is debated if not disproved already. Lots of factors makes it much harder to make cells or even just simple replicators in a soup. Now trending is primordial pizza/sandwich.

[@HistoryBuff]

Um...wow....sorry for my inconsistent representation of...wait, what were we talking about?

[@username-gs2tp]

If you haven't already I recommend reacting to Sam O' Nella Academy! He does Videos about history in a comedic but informative way like this

[@badunius_code]

13:20 Göbekli Tepe is circa 12k BCE, it's presumably a religious complex but the people who built it ought to have a settlement, probably a less sturdy so it didn't make it. Still we have evidence of permanent settlements in Anatolia and Levant as far as 10k BCE

[@tristanridley1601]

The theory that it's for religious purposes is based entirely on circular logic and assumptions by the person who led the expeditions. I like the conjecture that we first made cities like that for brewing purposes. Lol

[@cheesehands3112]

"... almost single-handedly..." The word 'almost' is doing a LOT of heavy lifting there, since his Dad literally did everything from building the Macedonian army/war-machine from scratch, creating a massive northern Greek state, dominating the other Greeks, AND planning the invasion. Really the only thing Alexander did was have his father killed (allegedly). (But I absolutely believe he did, it was a very common Macedonian pastime.)

[@madeofmandrake1748]

21:14 iirc the reason for the flipped names was because Iceland was found first and was where people got banished to if they broke the law. Greenland however was found later and the guy who found it wanted to get people to live there, hence the more appealing name.

[@winterunterseher8937]

10:03 I'd say a pretty good candiate for that question is our cooperative collective/accumulated knowledge or memory that our species has acquired over the time we've been here, taking what we had before but always building on and adding to it instead of just more or less staying the same or having that knowledge become a collective accumulation, instead of remaining only an individual one, where each new generation more or less has to start over and only keeps what is passed on to them by parents (a lot mostly already instinctual though), whereas we take what was passed to us, use it as a foundation and continually build on it generationally. Language is a also a big one of course too in communication. One of my fsvorite KZbin creators Vsauce actually has a really cool episode on a show he did MindField about the language and memory tradeoff we made with our genetic/evolutonary neighbors which is very interesting.

[@dracaroni.n.cheese]

1:50 that actually makes a lot of sense. I’m the same but with early 20th century and key civilizations but I want to know more about the middle east

[@rudolphmiller]

Yup oversimplified will be just your cup of tea

[@CasualVideoGamer]

The best thing about science is that it's always open to be changed/improved when new information is introduced. I don't think the Webb telescopes is necessarily disproving the incidents that happened, just that they either happened earlier than initially thought and/or faster than initially thought. It's similar to dinosaurs - at one point thinking they were related to lizards, but after more research realized they were closer related to birds. What's interesting is though Egyptians were MUCH older than the Greeks, the two were still regularly connected with one another. Greek Goddess Hecate was a very early Goddess of Witchcraft (amongst other things) and was actually borrowed from the Egyptian pantheon. The Egyptians also have a story in their pantheon telling their perspective of the War of Troy. I just think it's neat to see societies doing things like that and as time happens, other cultures develop/borrow their own versions of other stories. Usually because of situations like the Persians, Alexander the Great, Romans, etc conquering their known worlds and spreading their influences. I love talking about this stuff, but I don't wanna spam your section with a whole essay lmao.

[@justsomegirlwithoutamustach]

Shelf in the back is awesome 👌

[@Link-from-hyrule]

"From the far lands of tin land i dont know my dealer dosent tell me where he gets it"

[@sabrinaevans8746]

You have to watch it a few times over to hear all the inside jokes

[@coreydean6540]

Sabaton just released a cover of Motorhead's "1916". It is both superb and a tearjerker.

[@YukoValis]

I wouldn't say the James webb is disproving the big bang, simply making us recalculate the timing. Big bang theory is still pretty sound. In a simple explanation energy cannot be created or destroyed. All of existence was always there, it was just condensed to the size of an atom. With so much inside, that kind of energy is unstable and eventually the atom split. BOOM.

[@freakie1275]

I had to go back to realize he got an ad too, so when he's like "I've never had ads before I genuinely thought he was talking about he ad I also got at that same time. I'm like "How did he know?"

[@mannistef]

That is a fun video, thanks for checking it out :)

[@jackyfriedman1963]

Great reaction.

[@iansahleen1173]

6:50 Nightwish has a song featuring Richard Dawkins called The Greatest Show on Earth

[@HistoryBuff]

I am slightly aware. Check out the second video I ever posted

[@gozomj]

Like, been there, done that 👍

[@mmgfilmz3298]

Bro had to make sure I was still listening 😂😂😂 4:01 Great video btw 👍 Also wanted to mention that I learned a ton of interesting information from your explanations and additions to info from the video. I love history (just not the class in school) and I thought the eye contact was great. I felt like you were talking to ME which helped me listen and retain more of what you taught. Keep it up ❤

[@HistoryBuff]

Lol, thanks a lot for the compliment!

[@MDBowron]

basically this is a speedrun version of Big History, which was invented by David Christian while he was in my country (Australia)

[@momentary_]

"Kudos to them" What if I were to tell you that one man alone made that video? Bill is pretty amazing.

[@DontMindManda]

I'm late to the game here, but I usually avoid historian reactions to this video because the ones I've seen have felt pretentious and like a lecture. I started your video because it wasn't as ridiculously long as the other historian reactions. And I found that this is the perfect balance for me. Added commentary with great info and genuine human reaction. Glad to see you enjoying one of my favorite videos!

[@TheHentaiLord]

Funny thing you said about a line beetween animal and human, some animal do have impact or change their surrounding like ant and termite which also had an hierarchy, Orca's had been known to use a "language" base on their clan, some animal show sign of sentience like orca and elephant. i think its commons sense to divide us with animal but there some animal that sit on the the line and waiting there next step toward us. i believed that we are animal by nature and evolution prove it.

[@HistoryBuff]

Yes, I know. This is a very common comment. And that's why I said "it's interesting" because it is a good discussion without a perfect line. If I took the time to give all the exceptions and parenthetical statements to be "right" it would've been a much longer video. There are things that immediately come to mind. Language, yes, some have a rudimentary form of it. Religion, some animals mourn their dead and seem to have burial rituals (elephants, etc). Using tools, yes Bluejays use tools to help them reach things or open food. Farming, livestock, yes ants farm aphids and fungi. Art/abstract thinking, some animals can be taught to paint or sculp. The list goes on and on, but there is absolutely no comparison between what we can do in these categories. I agree though that some, especially creationist Christians, say that we are absolutely NOT animals and that simply is the case. We are evolved animals. At some point though, our brain faced and explosion in evolving at a logarithmic rate compared to others. The other trap I feel is going to further in the other direction that says there is literally nothing that makes us unique. That is a very flawed statement and usually at the forefront of a political agenda.

[@TheHentaiLord]

@@HistoryBuffthanks for telling me your thougth, glad you open to discussion like this. ill be looking foward to your nest content mate

[@GamingwithAccent]

Fun Fact about the Video. If you count the time in the nothing and remember it then you can get why most human stuff is just so fast.

[@seansinger640]

Your description of Martin Luther's take on Catholicism and the feelings at the outset of the Protestant Reformation is almost exactly how, as a Jew, I think of Jesus. He was just a badass dude with great morals who came in, trimmed the fat and bureaucracy (Pharisees), distilled the antiquated and convoluted company-culture manifesto down to a more actionable mission statement (from 10* Commandments down to 2: love Him as the one true God, and love your neighbor), and brought himself in as a relatable and charismatic figurehead to really embody the corporate philosophy in a meaningful way. Jesus was totally just trying to be John Tapper and Bar Rescue Judaism out of the dark ages and make people stop hating us, but then our guys got all mad and his guys were all like "we're leaving" and then they took over the world for a long time and pretended Jesus wasn't one of us so they could hate us but love him.

[@HistoryBuff]

Lol, great way to put it!

[@najrenchelf2751]

30:05 - 30:38 Seeing these three chapters back to back so briefly makes you realize how cause and effect happen across a longer period of time... I don't think it clicks that these chapters are cause and effect because they are different units in history class and probably also out of order - these little 30 seconds demonstrate how one "chapter" of history has immediate after effects to completely different societies!

[@jacob1107]

Just curious, have you checked out the Fall of Civilizations podcast? Bit too long to react to, but it's one of my favorites to listen to for history content.

[@HistoryBuff]

No I have not

[@jacob1107]

@@HistoryBuff Definitely recommend, maybe the Han Dynasty episode my favorite at the moment.

[@evanirvana500]

Have you reacted to oversimplified videos? You should start those with revolutionary war and civil war and go from there. You'd love it

[@hyperf1sh161]

“Heeeeeeey said the Romans” I love that part

[@crimsonhermit9383]

13:07 The earliest city founded by the Mesopotamians is actually Mallaha founded in 12000 BCE (-12000) in what is today Palestine. The second was Mureybet in 8000 BCE (-8000) right in the center of the Euphrates river. The site doesn't exist anymore due to it being flooded by the river. Finally, the third village was Catal Hoyuk in 7000 BCE (-7000) in what is today Turkey. It was known for being the catalyst to Mesopotamian polytheism with the inhabitants of the village being the first to worship the fertility gods. 13:23 The first forms of writing was actually discovered in 3300 BCE with the use of stone tablets in Mesopotamia right at the end of the paleolithic ages and the start of the neolithic ones.

[@ashleycook6025]

I'd Love to see him come out with a V2, V3 etc as time goes on and scientists, anthropologists, sociology, historians and the like can prove/disprove/discover new info and so on

[@lort8334]

The jumpscare of that buzzy mic!! Oh lord… 😂

[@martinsandt1135]

howdy from Germany , Thx for Your Reaction

[@slyscafe]

The original video is literally Gen Z's sense of humor in a nutshell.

[@AskiFin]

10:20 What truly seperates humans from animals, is kinda 2 things.. 1) Intelligence.. Ex. chimpanzees are intelligent, so it doesn't truly leave us the only one standing... alot of animals are sapient, again it intelligence alone isn't what seperates us.. (but also, we are way smarter than anything right now, but talking about baby steps.. not modern human vs modern animal.. talking about the time we seperated into "higher beings").. Intelligence is for sure one.. 2) Teaching... We teach our young.. and our young learn from elders.. second smartest animals (arguable) chimpanzees don't teach their young.. "Monkey see monkey do" is how they learn stuff.. Humans specifically create situations to teach our young.. Chimps learn by watching others doing stuff for themselves.. Those 2 things are the things that elevated us.

[@petermcnamara5347]

Just a light fun fact but ants also do have “corrals” in a sense for aphids which they use like we do cows

[@SparkimusPrime]

Speaking and using tools and solving problems. Ravens will rule us all one day 😂 I love this video lol 🩵

[@MDBowron]

personally I like "The Ancestor's Tale" by Richard Dawkins which shows how all life is supposedly related to each other

[@ghostbirdlary]

yea jwst is nutty, like turns out galaxies formed hundreds of millions of years earlier than we thought

[@MikeandGinger]

This is…surreal

[@badunius_code]

18:55 mother. I don't remember anything noteworthy about his wife but his mother was Helena. Later canonized as Saint Helena. And her name is too Greek so I imagine it was her who influenced Constantine.

[@HistoryBuff]

Yea, my wife (who also has 2 masters in history lol) corrected me about that. It's funny because clovis and Constantine's conversion story are so similar, I often get then confused. I'm pretty certain it was clovis' wife.

[@mckenzie.latham91]

Enrico Dandalo literally sacking Constainople instead of the turk lands is literally a real historic "game of thrones" moment

[@MikkoRantalainen]

10:00 I think the most important skill of humans has been ability to transfer information to both people around you, and even more importantly, to next generation.

[@charliereader3462]

Actually England had been a single entity from 927, when it was unified under Alfred the Greats grandson Æthelstan. Whilst England did change hands a few times before the Norman invasion, it would from 927 always be ruled as a single unified Kingdom

[@HistoryBuff]

Yea, I realized later I totally left out all the Anglo Saxon lines

[@gozomj]

Ok that was super weird but hilarious😂