Mankind: The Story of All of Us on The History Channel

from the same crew that did "The Men Who Built America" for The History Channel it's a three part series in it's 2 hour episode format or 6 parts in the 1 hour format (like "The Men..."). excellent overview of World History from the birth of civilization. watched episode 3 (which is the first of the two hour episodes) and it was VERY interesting.

think it's at least as good as "The Men Who Built America"

episode ref: https://www.history.com/shows/mankind-the-story-of-all-of-us

Episode 2 was VERY interesting in it's coverage of the "rise of religions" and the conflicts THAT caused. basically "The Crusades' were less about religion than they were about plunder. to bad the world didn't take to the model for religious tolerance, scientific research and learning in cities like Cordoba and Jerusalem before the Crusades. also covers the rise of the Arabs and Vikings after the fall of Rome

as an aviation buff, what really amazed me was that in the City of Cordoba in the 9th Century, Abbas Ibn Firnas actually flew a bird like glider and survived. this was almost six centuries  before Leonardo da Vinci's "hang glider" design which most historians record as "the first glider". I'm 67 year old retired airline pilot and studied aviation subjects since I was a pre-teen. this was the first time I had ever heard of Firnas

Abbas Ibn Firnas Wiki ref >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbas_Ibn_Firnas

there is also the "warning of the Roman Empire" and how their collapse was directly related to their military spending, which got as high as 50% of their GDP, AND their being the "world police" defending their empire. (sound familiar?)

Episode 3 - "Survivors". Genghis Khan and the Mongols. the Plague and the rise of  anti-semitism as the Catholic Church looked for a "scape goat" to blame for their not being able to stop it. the Plague as it was used as the first "bioweapon" by the Mongols

the importance of salt and why "it was worth it's weight in gold" as a preservative.

the "Golden Age of Africa" and trading cities that became seats of education and learning like Timbuktu.

introduction to the Inca Empire.

the rise of Venice and modern banking which financed The Renaissance.

the first Chinese guns and how they changed warfare. the Ming Dynasty and The Great Wall.

Gutenberg printing press and the first "information age"

introduction to Christopher Columbus and Episode 4 "The New World"

hopefully when they have done the whole "Mankind" series, they will do a marathon like they did with "The Men Who Built America" for those that missed the early episodes

Episode 4: "New World". the Vikings discover North America 500 years before Columbus  BUT murder the first native Inuit "Indians" they incounter and are in turn wiped out themselves when the Inuit retaliate

the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks leads to exploration as Europe tries to find a sea route to India and China which leads to "sailing west" and leads to Columbus "discovering America".

the Aztec Empire and Cortez. how the introduction of European diseases like small pox had more to do with the native Aztec's defeat than any Spanish "military strength or technology".

the plundering of the Aztec and Inca Empires leads to not only the discovery of gold and silver but new foods like corn. biggest silver mine ever in Peru produces Spanish "Pieces of Eight" which becomes the world's "standard currency"

the Dutch "Tulip Mania" becomes the world's first "financial bubble"

the Pilgrims come to America

the building of Taj Mahal in India

the rise of Sugar production in the Americas and how it lead to the East Africa slave trade

next up: "Revolutions"

LeRinkRat I have been watching this from the beginning and love itk.  As a matter of fact the History channel is basically the only channel I watch as it has replaced ESPN.  Not sure if that means I am evolving or what but nevertheless I love that vast majority of their programming.

What I have taken most from this series is how civilization evolves we often have to take a step back before we can take a step forward and that a lot of advancement often gets lost for centuries in the shuffle.  You mentioned the arab who first glided six centuries before DiVinci.  Well due to conquests and plundering these lost advances just get rediscovered time and time again.  Very interesting concepts really.  Hence the phrase those who do not learn from history will have the tendency to repeat it.

Hence the phrase those who do not learn from history will have the tendency to repeat it.

true statement esp when it come to "the middle ages". Medical Science during the Roman Empire was completely lost during that time and didn't reach the Roman's level of knowledge until the 18th Century

As a matter of fact the History channel is basically the only channel I watch as it has replaced ESPN.

I'm with you. only time I watch ESPN, or any other sports channel, is when there is a game on. the Discovery channels like History, History International and The Military Channel are the "default" channels I check when "there is nothing on"

I will agree. seemed to "jump around" quite a lot and "passed over" some important history esp in ocean navagation like not mentioning "The Longitude Prize" or the French involvement in the American Revolution. seemed like they tried to "stuff too much in one bag".  in any case, here's the summary...

Episode 5: "Revolutions"

Salem Witch Trials

early 18th Century a "mini ice age" leads to a great increase of the value of the fur trade which in turn leads to conflict between trader-explorers and the native populations in North america and Siberia. the Dutch colonize new Amsterdam as a fur trading post (which later becomes New York)

first mass production of the matchlock musket allows the average trader-explorer to overcome hostile natives they incounter.

John Flamsteed's  telescope charts the night sky and creates the "Mural Arc" map for ocean navigation (BUT they did NOT mention John Harrison's invention of the "marine chronometer" to determine a ships longitude which was probably even more important for safe sea navigation)

Captian James Cook sails the Pacific and discovers Australia, New Zealand, Tahiti, the Hawaiian Islands and charts the west coast of North America. botanist Joseph Bank discovers hundreds of plants and animals unknown to the western world.

Ben Franklin "discovers" that lightning is really static electricity which leads him to make the lightning rod. the episode then jumps to the modern "electric world" implying that "it all came from Franklin"  

how "The Scientific Method" undermined the power of authority figures like the King and the Church.

The Boston Massacre sets the stage for the American Revolution. a major "Colonist vs Crown" conflict is over timber rights. The Boston Tea Party. "The Shot Heard 'Round the World" @ Lexington. the Declaration of Independence. the Americans defeat the British @ Yorktown (BUT NO mention of help from the French)

the American Revolution spreads to France, Greece, Poland, Belgium and Haiti.

The Industrial Revolution. the invention of the cotton thread spinning machine and looms leads to the first factories and makes Britain an industrial and trading power.

steam coal and the railroads lead to a quantum leap in the speed of transport. Ben Latrobe and the B&O railroad tunnel thru the Allegheny mountains joining the east coast with the midwest. the danger of being an Irish immigrant worker while building railroals

the rise of cities and the resulting sanitation and disease problem they create. the 1854's London cholera epidemic leads to Dr John Snow developing the science of epidemiology. Cholera spreading from India as "the new Black Death" in Europe, England and America until it's cause was contained by the development of city sewer systems to limit water contamination.

the British-Chinese "Opium War". opium brought from India to China by the British hooks 30% of the Chinese population and is the most  lucrative business in the empire in the early 19th century providing England with 1/6th of it revenue. the British control Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Burma, India and Africa from Egypt to South Africa giving rise to the phrase that "The Sun Never Sets On the British Empire"

The American Civil War as "the first industrial war". at the Battle of Gettysburg, Union soldiers with Sharps repeating rifles using Minie ball ammunition are able to defeat the Confederates using mostly muzzle loading muskets. also the north's railway system allows them to bring more troops more quickly to the battle. the first ever "field hospitals", the use of anesthetics, mostly chloroform, and the use of women nurses doubles the survival rate of wounded troops from previous wars

Emancipation Proclamation frees the southern slaves.

Next Episode: "New Frontiers" (the final chapter)

Episode 6  :"New Frontier". last episode in the series from the end of the American Civil War thru the present.

the Civil War ends at Richmond, Virginia

mass production and  inovation leads to the industrial revolution

modernization changes Japan from a closed feudal society into an industrial giant in asia

The Titanic - 1912. rise of early Marconi wireless radio communication

the steamship powers migration from Europe to America

Charles Goodyear discovers the "vulcanization" process for rubber leading to it's commercial use. the Congo raw rubber trade leads to Belgium atrocities against the population. British missionary Alice Harris "blows the whistle" by documenting  their actons with an early portable camera. mass media reporting pressure forces King Leopold to quit the Congo and rubber trade.

WW1. new weapons like the Howitzer, the Machine Gun and the Tank (NO mention of the airplane ) change war forever. they said 8 1/2 million died when it was actually more like 17 million (10 million military and 7 million civilian) .

Dr Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin in 1928. modern antibiotics transform the treatment of disease.

the World population grows more in the first 50 years of the 20th century than in ALL of human history

thw American Midwest "Dust Bowl" in 1935 leads to the development of "hybred" corn seeds and nitrogen (nitrate) fertilizers

story of the building of the ALCAN highway from Alaska to the US West Coast leads into the the story of Interstate Highway system in American and similar roads worldwide (but NO mention of the German "Autobahns" built in the 1930's which really inspired President Eisenhower to build the American interstates in the 1950's )

the "Little Boy" A-Bomb @ Hiroshima followed by the "Fat Boy" A-Bomb @ Nagasaki ends WWII. the rise of using nuclear power for electricity production

the first heart transplant in 1967 made possable by the heart-lung life support machine.

the Selma Alabama voting rights march and media coverage of the police response jump starts the Civil Right Movement. TV becomes the main source for news world wide

series ends with speculation about future space exploration

overall I think the series was a good "cliff notes" of World history BUT the last 2 of the 6 were NOT NEARLY as interesting or informative as the first 4 about "The Ancient World" probably because there has been SO much coverage of 19th and 20th Century "Modern World" history over the years.

History Channel re-running all six of the two hour "Mankind" episodes Saturday December 22nd starting @ 7 am pacific time for those who want to record  

first four were definately more interesting to me than the last two. there was a LOT of info in the "ancient world" segments that I had never seen before.

I have studied a lot of aviation history since I was a child BUT had never heard of Abbas Ibn Firnas who survived flying an early glider in the 9th century almost 6 centuries before Leonardo da Vinci's "hang glider" design which I had always been taught was "the first experiment in flight". also had a lot of anchient asian and middle eastern history I had never heard before.

like I said previously, the last two seemed to be pretty much "cliff note" highlights of the 19th and 20 centuries and missed a LOT of important history but SO MUCH has happened in human history the last 200 years that they could probably do a 12 hour series just about that. the first four would definately be worth showing in a world history class.