0:02Yeah, see I I remember I listened probably like 6 years ago maybe, 7 years ago, listened to Dan Carlin's Yeah, Blueprint for Armageddon. Oh my god.
0:13>> favorite history podcast episode ever.
0:15>> [ __ ] incredible. And you're like, how are we ignoring this? And then to your point, the way that it closed up is what set the set the stage. You had everything from the Treaty of Versailles, which then basically like completely hamstrung Germany and allowed for a vacuum to suck up with their economy for someone like Hitler to then seize power.
0:39All the way to I I I hope I get the name right, like the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which just carved up the Middle East and set up the just like willy-nilly, you know, a bunch of dudes in an office in Europe like, "Oh, this will work."
0:51>> Yeah, you can trace back the whole current Middle East conflict to that, basically.
0:55>> Exactly. Balfour Declaration was back then, too. Like it's it's absurd. And then World War II, I'd love your perspective on this. Like history is written by the victors.
1:06There's no history ever that's 100% right. It's just a fact of life. I always cite the American Revolution as an amazing example. Like I studied the hell out of that war, it's amazing.
1:16There are literally things that are actually written in the history books that you'll read, whether it be H.W.
1:21Brands or some other brilliant historian from that era, that like when it's when the war is talked about or the documentaries made, they don't really mention that. So even the stuff like some stuff that's written down, they won't mention. And that stuff I'm referring to will be things that are like negative towards the revolutionaries in the United States.
1:37Meaning like, yeah, we did some stuff wrong in that war, too. But I, you know, I I'm not one of these like it's everything or nothing or like 5% wrong, so we're going to throw out the 100% baby out with the bathwater. But I can like look at it and say, "Okay, I'm very glad, all due respect to your people, that, you know, we did this revolution and were able to form this great country and these guys were amazing in the [ __ ] they came up with. But yeah, they did a few things during the war as well that probably wasn't totally fair to the British for sure and that and that certainly happened a lot in the other
2:08direction. And then yeah, like in the Constitution they [ __ ] that up and you know, didn't abolish slavery. Like meaning you can point to things and call it nuance without excoriating the entire thing. And what's really concerning me about society now with history in general, but I think we've seen a major aspect of it formulate around World War II is that we're looking at narratives that have been told to us before and people are plucking on, you know, that 1% that might be a little different than it was written and then they're pulling out that that bottom card from the house of cards and saying, "Look, the whole
2:44thing comes down. It's actually all fake." And they'll say, "You will literally hear people say things sometimes like, you know, Hitler wasn't great, but it was actually Churchill that was the bad guy." And you know, we should be you should be able to discuss anything. You should be able to hash things out. I don't want to like shut down conversation, but when people are running away with narratives like that and suddenly now using the internet and algorithms to push them and suddenly report them as truth. Do you ever get concerned about how we're discussing like even modern history? Yeah, I mean,
3:15historical revisionism it's it's worth it's worth exploring for sure as you say, but you you do have to be careful because as you say, when you when you start taking these narratives, you can like say this means this and then the whole thing falls down exactly like was Churchill the bad bad guy of World War II? No, like he wasn't a perfect guy, but he was a he was a man of his era, right? He was a he grew up in the at the end of the 19th century when Britain had the British Empire and was, you know, oppressing everyone around the world. Like Yes.
3:44British Empire had positives, but also there was definitely a mindset amongst the especially the elite of Britain that, you know, they were better than everyone else and Churchill was a product of that. And you can point to many things that he did that were, you know, not great. And the guy clearly thought that white British men were the best thing in the world, but at the same time, more than almost anyone else, I think, in the world, he was instrumental in stopping Hitler, right? Cuz if Britain had surrendered, and Britain was extremely close to surrendering to Germany in 1940. Yes.
4:17>> And Churchill was basically the guy that stopped that happening. Like, the British government wanted to have factions of the British government wanted to surrender when France fell.
4:26Yeah.
4:26>> For good reason. Like, you're looking at this you because you people always forget the context of World War I. Like, Britain and France and Germany had been through the most horrific, traumatic experience only, you know, less than 20 years or just over 20 years prior. So, all these people are still alive. All these people can still remember an entire generation of men being slaughtered, their kids or their brothers or their friends.
4:50Wiped out, dead. And you're thinking, "Fucking hell, lads. Last thing we want to do is do this all over again. And yeah, it's happening. Let's just call it quits." Like, this Hitler guy, like, yeah, he's a bit of a nutter, but is it worth wiping out another 3 million men from our population?
5:06But Churchill was like the one guy that was like, "No, we're not having this.
5:09We're we're going to fight this guy.
5:10We're going to beat this guy." So, when people say like Churchill was the villain of World War II because he, you know, didn't continue with the policy of appeasement or whatever. I'm not quite not quite down on the arguments why people but He clearly wasn't, and he clearly more than anyone else was the guy that kept Britain in the war and thus enabled the Allied cause to keep going, thus enabled America to eventually join the war, and thus enabled the Allies to win the war, and thus enabled Nazism and Fascism to lose, and for, you know, Western democracy, America, to become the prominent power, at least
5:44with the Soviet Union, then eventually defeat the Soviet Union, which is a preferable outcome to Yes.
5:52fascism. This and you're underlying an amazing point here, which is that a lot of people who will look at this I find with revisionism want to assume the world is a perfectly balanced place where the logical outcome is always going to win and then when they see an outcome that involves using logic where something has to lose, they cannot accept that that's the case. And what I mean is in this context Churchill made a decision that the fastest growing GDP in the world, which was fascist Nazi Germany that was starting a war on multiple fronts and taking over countries by the day he made a decision that that was the
6:28worst immediate problem. That doesn't mean that he didn't think the communists were were a problem. Of course in fact he protested like the whole time like oh we got to work with this [ __ ] Stalin guy. Like he knew that was a huge issue.
6:38He's the guy who invented the Iron Curtain and all that. But he made the best of two bad decisions at the time that unfortunately yes, World War II was the bloodiest conflict ever. Tens of millions of people died. That's terrible. I hate that that happened.
6:54The alternative of like the United States never getting into the war and me speaking [ __ ] German right now Well definitely me anyway, yeah. Like like that's worse. I'm sorry. It is. And maybe eventually that would have fallen, but there would have been even more destruction on the way and and you know, there's even miss understandings of like how Churchill eventually viewed like Chamberlain. Like he disagreed with what Chamberlain did, but Chamberlain gets more [ __ ] in history than he should. He tried for peace. He did it the wrong way. It didn't work out. Hitler was not a guy you should listen to, but like he made
7:31the effort and then what did he say?
7:33He's like if you break this I'm going to be the forced to declare war on you and he [ __ ] did.
7:37Yeah.
7:38>> You know, like that's what it is. And also people people ignore that Churchill gave the eulogy at Chamberlain's funeral in like 1940 or 1941 and and he talked about you know, this guy's going to be misunderstood in history. We had some disagreements, but like he tried.
7:52>> Yeah.
7:52>> And now this is what it is. Like people you have to live in reality.
7:57And reality sucks sometimes. But when you're looking at history, you also have the advantage of having some hindsight 20/20. Don't use that the wrong way and assume you could have magically solved the problem back then, you know? Mhm.
8:08And you can completely understand Chamberlain's position, as I said, cuz of the First World War, cuz of the trauma. You think let's do anything to stop this happening again. But at a certain point, Hitler's just he's going for it, mate. He's he's he's ignoring all the deals you make with him.
8:23He's attacking all these countries.
8:25You've got a you've got to fight him eventually. And Chamberlain did come round to that, but at the end he was the wrong guy. Churchill came in. Churchill was instrumental in keeping Britain >> Yeah. you know, in the war. Because if Britain had sued for peace, which they tried to do, well, didn't try to do, but factions of the government really wanted to do, then Churchill wouldn't have remained in power. There probably would have been Have you ever heard of Oswald Mosley?
8:46I don't think so. He was the fascist leader of well, the leader of the British fascist fascist party at the time. So, probably would have been someone like >> Oswald Mosley?
8:55>> Yeah. Okay.
8:56>> He's actually in Peaky Blinders, which I know Yeah.
8:59Yeah. Um so, yeah, he would have he probably would have been someone like him who would have been put in place in Britain, cuz Britain would have then presumably had like, you know, good ties with Nazi Germany. So, then you might have had a fascist Britain, whole fascist Europe.
9:12>> like Hitler.
9:14Yeah, I guess I think he's probably modeling himself on Hitler, cuz Hitler I guess was his ideological hero. Wow.
9:19>> But you know, Britain like it we weren't it wasn't like people think of fascism now is like, oh, it's evil. But it hadn't happened yet.
9:27So, people had just seen that as an alternative. And it's like, well, Mussolini's doing pretty well in Italy.
9:32Hitler's [ __ ] smashing it in Europe.
9:34Why don't we try this Mosley guy? So, someone like Churchill was the guy that kind of stopped that and led to democracy >> Yeah. winning. So, Also, shout out to the Brits, too, dude. I didn't cuz I didn't That was one part of World War II I hadn't done like a huge deep dive on.
9:52I've looked at it my whole life. It's so fascinating to me. But, like the Battle of Britain and that year, which is all prior to Pearl Harbor, by the way, and not just Churchill, but like the whole context of the bombing raids back and forth between Britain and Germany on each other. Insane, man. There were a lot of times where Britain could have folded there. And like you said, because of Churchill and obviously a lot of other brave people, they didn't. And that when you really look at like between that and the the evacuation at Dunkirk and everything, being able to like keep a standing army together. And
10:23you look at the pivot of being able to be like, all right, let's have a foot to stand on to win this war. That's really They deserve a fuckton of credit for that.
10:32>> Yeah, so interesting how history can pivot on like so tiny like things and tiny amount of individuals. Like cuz Britain's always been throughout history Britain was always a naval power, right?
10:42So, that kept Britain secure. And we could rule the seas through having the best navy. And that's what led to the British Empire being what it was and everything like that. But, by the time you get to the 1940s, that's kind of redundant because of air power. So, Britain had this amazing navy, but the Luftwaffe could just dive bomb it and destroy it. So, Britain was like, how do we defend ourselves now? So, they invented radar, effectively. And because they invented radar and radar was literally being invented at the time Mhm. that the World War II broke out.
11:13And the first test of British defense radar system was the Battle of Britain.
11:17And if they didn't have this invention, they wouldn't know when the bombers were coming. They wouldn't know where to send the very few fighters that Britain had to intercept these bombers. And the bombers were targeting all the airfields. And if the Luftwaffe bombers had wiped out the RAF, then the Luftwaffe could then wipe out the Navy and then Germany has free reign on Britain. So, without the invention of radar at the exact time by like I can't remember the guy's name, but there was like a one or two people.
11:41>> Invention of radar, we'll get it.
11:42>> So, the radar I think radar was a little bit older, but the development of the technology into a you know, sophisticated defense system literally happened because of necessity at that exact time.
11:52And if that hadn't hadn't happened, then the RAF would have been wiped out.
11:55And if obviously the bravery of the RAF I mean >> Yeah, they had a lot of inventions around World War II in the nick of time.
12:01Are you talking about Robert Watson-Watt?
12:02>> I'm not sure. I'm not sure the name. You know, I actually know his name.
12:06The British invention of radar, so that was the initial invention you're talking about when they figured out how to use it.
12:12>> Oh, yeah, no. It was Yeah, might be right.
12:14>> Okay, so the British invention of radar led by Sir Robert Watson-Watt played a pivotal role in winning the Battle of Britain. The Chain Home system was the world's first early warning radar network providing the Royal Air Force with crucial advanced notice of German air raids allowing them to scramble the fighters their fighters and effectively direct them to intercept the incoming bombers. Without radar, it is highly unlikely the RAF could have defeated the Luftwaffe.
12:40And then the system could detect approaching aircraft from up to 80 miles away. That's amazing back then.
12:45>> Yeah, and if like that hadn't that if that technology hadn't been just at that exact point where it was possible to do that, the whole history of the world would look different. And if that these people hadn't managed to do it.
12:56And and that's the thing you make an amazing point about how this was only like 20 years after World War I. So, people in Britain they had fathers, sons, brothers, friends who died in that war. People knew the cost of the the most brutal cost of war. So, and in the United States even getting in in the last year, they knew it very well too.
13:17So, totally understandable that there there were some isolationist feelings and then the war breaks out and Britain is getting attacked. So, they're forced to not be isolationist. But, one of the things that I really didn't understand just how deep it went was how isolationist we were in America. I read this book when I was telling you I was looking into this a couple years ago called The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson, which is about the one year of basically the bombing of Britain.
13:45And he talks about like the relationship with it's basically from Churchill's perspective. He talks about the relationship between Churchill and FDR.
13:54And FDR knew this was all a problem.
13:56But, beginning with the May 1940 bombings, when Churchill was like, "Please, help."
14:01FDR had an election on November 5th, 1940. And he was telling Churchill, he's like, "Bro, I agree with you.
14:08But, like my opponent is running complete isolationism. Stay out of this.
14:12So, I have to like try to run in his direction just to win an election. I don't think you understand. Like, the whole country doesn't support getting involved, so I can't really help." He couldn't even give Churchill a couple totally broken boats that Congress was about to vote on to destroy. Like, they were floating in the Caribbean useless. And Churchill was like, "Fuck it. I'll take them."
14:32FDR had to come up with some backhanded like secret deal to try to even get them there. It was that isolationist. And so, Churchill was like begging for a year.
14:41And then, it took Pearl Harbor to get the United States involved. Do you think Pearl Harbor was a false flag?
14:48Unfortunately, absolutely. I have had West Point [ __ ] commandos sitting there openly saying that as if it's common parlance. I have had a dude who wrote a book on the entire thing and the dude who was in the building that this picture on the wall is taken from, which is Rockefeller Center from MI6 during the build-up to World War II, whose sole job was to try to get the United States involved. There are cables that show that FDR knew it was coming and that, you know, that's what it was. And uh the ultimate poison pill there is that you know, hindsight 20/20 cuz I I I've never looked at a false flag before and
15:25been like, well, that was a good idea.
15:26It was [ __ ] horrible.
15:28You wonder though if that hadn't happened, if the world would look a lot different. Mhm. Because they knew it would force Hitler's hand cuz he was such a [ __ ] big dog guy to like declare war. Cuz the war was only declared on Japan. Mhm. But they knew that would get Hitler involved and give him an excuse to be like, okay, well, [ __ ] you, we're coming in, too.
15:48That's that's a tough one, man. Yeah. I mean, it's very plausible, I think. Not that it was a false flag, but that they allowed it to happen.
15:55>> Yeah. Yeah, there's also like there's financial things related to that with what they did with like the oil I forget it off the top of my head, but like the oil exports I think involving Asia that would have forced Japan's hand to do Fix me in the comments on that. I'm it's hazy, but there were a lot of things going on there and it get it gets weird, but you know, we we should talk about all these things for sure. You know, like I said, no war is is ever 100% on the up and up and all that, you know.
16:27Yeah.
16:28Interesting. Interesting time. But I mean, I think one thing that's probably underestimated in the West is the the World War II was basically won and lost on the Eastern Front, I think.
16:41I completely >> Hitler agree with you. Yes. Because that that's the that's where it turned.
16:47Yep. And because if Hitler had taken Moscow, if Hitler had knocked out the Soviet Union, he's in such a strong position even with America.
16:55But because you know, Stalingrad happened, because it turned on the Eastern Front, that allowed, you know, that allowed the allies to win effectively. And I think the Soviet Union probably don't get enough credit in the West, probably because, you know, they're so ideologically opposed to us and they're also the enemy they became the enemy. But without that contribution, Hitler probably would have won or at least wouldn't have lost and there would have been some weird stalemate.
17:19Maybe they would have sued for peace although probably that goes against Nazi ideology but >> Yeah.
17:24Yeah, I think that's underestimating the West cuz we have you know, we have this narrative like Britain and America together, we won the war. We defeated Hitler but I mean the real war was the Eastern Front, right? So It was all three and there's no doubt that the Russians because the war literally ended up coming onto their land, civilians and military alike threw the most bodies at the problem. I mean that's that's by a lot. Mhm. And that absolutely is true and again, it comes back to that you kind of had to pick the lesser of two evils to work with and at the time you know, Cold War wasn't great and all
17:56that but didn't drop 45 million bodies in that way, you know, on on battlefields and and with the civilians in the middle in a 4-year period or anything like that.
18:06Obviously, a lot of people died and there was destruction within the Cold War. I don't want to underestimate that but you know, these are the decisions that have to get made at the time and you can sit there and analyze them to death afterwards and I still think the the right overall decision was made by the allies and it was what it was. Yeah, it had to be done, right? Um it was the only logical decision at the time but yeah. It's just crazy how recent all this was as well cuz I think people forget that. This is only like you know, 60, 70 years ago. Shaped our entire modern world. Mhm.
18:36>> Yeah.
18:36>> Like our grandparents' generation lived through this. Had two guys sitting in that chair who fought in it. Really?
18:41Yeah. That's cool. Yeah, that's that's the kind of [ __ ] I'll tell my grandkids about and pull up the video and be like, "Look at that." Yeah. You know, but that shows you. It's it's not too too long ago. Real quick, Michael. This is going great. I just got to go to the bathroom and then we'll come right back. We got to talk some Egypt and stuff.
18:56>> Yeah, we do. I need to go to the bathroom too.
18:58>> Cool. We'll be right back.
19:00You know what's one thing I also I was just thinking about this on on the bathroom break but one thing I've never really looked at. There was this video I saw when I was going through like a hardcore ancient Rome phase maybe like a year ago where it showed a a CGI recreation of like Britain since the ancient Rome times and it takes you through like each era but I've never really looked at the history of your country before ancient Rome and like who was there. Have you done a lot of work on that? Not so much but I mean the Romans came to our country and basically made it good for a long time and then they left and we went straight
19:39back to I guess the dark ages but I mean before the Rome before Rome was basically just Celtic tribes I guess and just different locations there was no unification really I mean Have you ever heard of Queen Boudica or Boudicea? I don't think so. So she's pretty famous in Britain because she's >> Boudicea? Yeah um she's famous in Britain because she's kind of seen as like a heroine of British identity which is kind of a bit silly because we're not really the same yeah there you go.
20:07And she was like this warlord and obviously she's a woman so that like made it like ridiculous because that was >> Yeah they were ahead of the times. Very ahead of the times yeah and she like led some British tribe and she almost unified all the British tribes against the Roman forces in Britain and she almost won that's the crazy thing she almost took out the Roman occupation of Britain. Was she around when I didn't look at the years there was she around when Caesar was actually leading the armies there was this slightly after >> after I think what's the date here AD 60 yeah. Oh yeah that would have been after
20:38he's dead he's like 53 or something right? He's BC he's like when did he die? He died like 40 BC or something like that. Yeah that's good to know. So this is just in the start of the Roman Empire so that's maybe this is just after Augustus. Yeah 44 BC March 15th 44 BC.
20:55>> say? I was pretty close there wasn't I?
20:56Yeah you're right I think you said 43 yeah. There you go I'm impressed.
21:00Pretty impressive.
21:00>> It's it's [ __ ] up there bro you got an encyclopedia it's great. So this lady was trying to unify all the tribes against the constantly incoming Roman army, but the Romans at this point would have already been occupying. Mhm.
21:17>> Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
21:19But I mean, so yeah, I guess less is known about Britain before the Romans Romans because, you know, there wasn't we weren't really with it. We were just some random island on the edge of the known world. It like Britain was not a relevant place until quite recently in terms of historical Yeah, like the last thousand years.
21:35Yeah, well, even less than that. Like Britain was always just this outcrop on the edge of the known world. Like this crazy island where these tribal people lived and no one went. Like the Romans hated Britain because it was such a hard place to run because it was so far away from their central power and it was this place that you had to cross the sea to get there and full of crazy Celts and stuff like that.
21:57So, yeah. A bunch of Conor McGregor's coming at you. Yeah, basically. Terrible accent, but whatever.
22:03We'll go with it. Are you are you someone that's also like fascinated with ancient Rome? Do you study that a lot or Yeah, so basically that was my degree was a lot about ancient Rome. Um, I really I'm really interested by Rome cuz, you know, it's a just fascinating civilization, right?
22:17Like the whole Roman Empire is so interesting and yeah, so I I know a lot about it. I find the period from the transition from Republic to Empire uh very fascinating, you How so?
22:30Because it was just a crazy time in world history, right? Where Caesar See, so do you know the story of it?
22:39Of Caesar getting whacked? Yeah, and and like then the whole beef that happened after that and then what led to the formation of the Roman Empire.
22:45>> now it's been a while, but that was like when they had the the tripartite thing >> Yeah, you know your stuff. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, so yeah, I mean, I find that whole period of history so fascinating because you had this Roman Republic and they were very you know, they they were really proud about their identity of not having kings. You can almost make the comparison to the to the modern day with the no kings protest against Trump.
23:09But um not quite the same thing. Not to be clear, not quite the same thing. But they were they were terrified of dictators cuz they used to have kings way back in the very early days days of Rome of Rome and then they uh they became this republic and they were like we're never going to have a king again and then eventually they had these more and more powerful individuals and Caesar was one of them and Caesar effectively wanted to take control of all of Rome and he was becoming so powerful and he had this he basically conquered all of Gaul and you you could say he almost conducted a holocaust in Gaul but that's a maybe
23:42that's a different topic of conversation but he was amassing all this power and they were terrified of him in the in the Senate because they didn't want a king and he was acting like a king. So they were like you can't come back here with an army. You can't you got to stay out there and then he crossed the uh [ __ ] what's it called?
24:00Is it the Rubicon? Yeah, that's it. It's like a famous phrase and I forgot the name of the river. But he he crossed the Rubicon with his army and that was basically him declaring war on on Rome and then there was this big civil war which he eventually won.
24:12Um and then he he wasn't an emperor but he was almost the first emperor in spirit because he kind of took control of Rome. But then obviously people weren't happy about that and so then he was assassinated by you know all the the senators and that's that famous story.
24:26Um and he's like "Et tu, Brute?" which I don't think he ever said but that's a that's a Shakespeare line. Hey, it's a good line.
24:31>> It's a good line, exactly. So you might as well just take it as a historical fact.
24:34>> get in the way of a good story. Exactly.
24:37So he was assassinated and then you had this power vacuum and you had his adopted son who was Octavian. Mhm. Um you had Mark Antony who was Caesar's right-hand man and you also >> banging Cleopatra, right?
24:49>> They were both banging Cleopatra. Yeah.
24:50Different times but they were both banging Cleopatra. Fair play.
24:54Um and then you had What was the other guy called?
24:58That's pretty bad.
24:58>> Octavian and Mark Antony and then who was the third guy?
25:01>> he was Lepidus Lepidus I think that's right.
25:04>> Something like that.
25:04>> familiar.
25:06Um Mark Antony, Octavian and third guy.
25:11That should bring it up. I got Google AI should be smart enough. Grok will definitely be smart enough. Was it Lepidus?
25:17>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. God, I should have more confidence in myself.
25:20>> That's fine.
25:21Yeah, so they um they basically had this massive civil war which um Octavian eventually won at the Battle of Actium.
25:30And then that led to Mark Antony and Cleopatra committing suicide. Lepidus got knocked out earlier on. He was a bit of a irrelevance.
25:38And and then Octavian became Augustus and he was like, I am the first emperor and he ruled for ages.
25:46He ruled for like, you know, like 60 years and that was >> Peace time. Yeah, and it was like a very peaceful and prosperous period and he became the first emperor and Yeah, it's just a fascinating time cuz it's a transition of how they structured their society from republic to empire and then they had that was the Roman Empire from then on and it lasted for quite a while in a in a good way but then it did go kind of go south later on but fascinating period. Um I don't I don't I'm not sure too many people understand the distinction there but it was a a very different society I think once it became an empire because
26:20you know, the power was all concentrated in this one guy, this this emperor who who ruled basically the entire known world which is an incredible uh thing to to do and so much power and you had some pretty bad emperors as well that really abused that power and led to Rome I guess eventually collapsing. But you also had some good ones as well. Like you have a Meditations up in up in your little room next door. Exactly, he was a good one but The brilliance. I mean, I I I would actually legit read those like once a day. Mhm. And like you're you oh my god.
26:53Bar, bar, bar. Like every single thing, it's it's it makes you look at yourself and be like, [ __ ] he's right. [ __ ] he's right. Like that guy was amazing.
27:02Yes, you have some real wise ones like him, but then you have some crazy people like Caligula, Caligula, the guy that made his horse a senator. I think basically as a massive [ __ ] you to the to the Senate.
27:12Um, and then also Nero, who was a bit of a crazy dude, and yeah, fascinating period of history, man.
27:18It's one of those things, like there was a trend on maybe this was worldwide, it was in America, so it's probably in the UK, too, but there was a trend online a couple years ago where it was like, how often do you think about the Holy Roman Empire or whatever?
27:29And I remember when it came up, I was like, all the [ __ ] time, actually.
27:32Like, I don't know if that's like a weird thing to say, but I think about it all the time. And there's a D, if I always ask for this and I never have it ready to go, but the map of the map of Europe that shows blood veins from the ancient Roman Empire, it's one of my favorite visuals ever cuz it basically shows how the cradle of, you know, modern civilization in the developed world all leads to Rome.
27:58Yeah, no, that's not it, but that's close. It literally It looks like a butt like a human body. Mhm. But it starts in in Rome and then leads out like a bunch of veins, goes all the way to England and all the way to the east and stretches far and wide. Sorry, I should have it ready. It's like a Twitter.
28:17>> I found it. You found it?
28:21Oh, no. No, it's a human body. I was close enough. Yeah, I mean, it gets the visual across. If people have seen it on Twitter, like it like all Google all roads lead to Rome veins.
28:34Let's see if that does it. I don't know.
28:36We'll give it one crack, but like I just I'm a real visual person. Yep, there it is. Boom.
28:41All right, pull that bad boy over.
28:45Yeah, you're That's right, I'm using that. You see what I mean? Oh, yeah.
28:49>> It's like it's like a Damn it.
28:53There it is. That's fine. That's fine.
28:55It's It's It's like a a symbol of humanity itself that that was built right there. And obviously there's been empires since then, it fell, and that's a whole story in and of itself, but what we know of like, you know, quote unquote, you got to be careful you say these this these days, but like, you know, world order, if you will, kind of emanates from some of the examples that they set. And also to to be very fair, like there's a lot from ancient Greece, too. There's a lot from a lot of different civilizations. It's just this one kind of like amalgamated it, if you know what I mean, all together.
29:29And it it's it's truly incredible to me.
29:31Yeah, they they they kind of were the first to almost unify Europe, I guess. I think that's probably a fair thing to say.
29:38Which is an incredible achievement at such a time. Um But obviously it was a really hard thing to maintain because just for obvious reasons, and that's I guess eventually why it fell.
29:49But they did They had a They had a good run, mate. They had a good run.
29:53So, very interesting civilization. But yeah, they were heavily inspired by the Greeks, I think. Heavily inspired. Like they really saw themselves as the inheritors of the Greek legacy and Greek culture.
30:03And the Greeks then saw themselves as the inheritors of Egyptian civilization in many ways. And obviously both Greece and Rome ruled Egypt for many many centuries. And yeah, it's quite an interesting continuity there. They were both pretty obsessed with Egypt. Like it's documented obviously like it became a part of the Roman Empire at one point and everything, too. But, you know, it's they looked at I don't know. You could almost extrapolate it by years in history, too.
30:30Like they looked at Egypt the way that we look at them Yeah. in a lot of ways.
30:35It's kind of like, you know, the 30,000 ft view of the 30,000 ft view, which is always pretty cool to me.
30:41But actually on that note we said we were going to do this before the break, so let's get to it.
30:47In Egypt Ben Van Kerkwijk, I know he's been making waves recently on a bunch of podcasts. I think he went on Joe Rogan and some others as well with like some new information on the pyramids. I have seen absolutely none of it yet. I haven't gotten around to it. So what exactly you were talking about this like what exactly apparently has been found here and what does it tell us?
31:10Yeah, so it's not the Giza pyramids.
31:12It's a different pyramid called Hawara, which is further south in the country.
31:16Um so what Ben has been talking about and he's done a great job uh talking about it. I I'd recommend everyone watch his video on his channel and he spoke about on Rogan, so a lot of people would have heard of it. So there's always been this almost tale of the labyrinth of ancient Egypt, the lost labyrinth of ancient Egypt and ancient writers from Greece and Rome wrote about it and visited it. So the most The first example is Herodotus. Have you heard of Herodotus?
31:40>> Mhm. Greek historian wrote the very famous histories, almost seen as the father of history, the first historian in many ways.
31:47He's claimed to visited the lost labyrinth of ancient Egypt at Hawara.
31:52And he said some pretty outlandish things about it. Like he said it was greater than anything that his people, the Greeks, had ever achieved both in grandeur and in expense, which is quite a mad thing. He also said it surpassed the pyramids of Giza in terms of its like achievement. So you know, the Great Pyramids of Giza are perhaps the most impressive construction in in all of antiquity, right? And they still confuse us to this day. Like how were they built? Why are they so big? Why are they so precise? What were they for?
32:24They're just massive and they're ridiculously impressive. And he said that this labyrinth surpassed that in grandeur. So it's a more impressive achievement than the Egyptian pyramids, which is a big thing to say.
32:36So he went there and he said, know, all this and he said he went in it and like had a detailed description of all of it. But, he wasn't the only one. There was also the Greek geographer Strabo who said he went there, said it was incredibly impressive. There were a few Roman writers like Diodorus Siculus who went there and Pliny the Elder who went there. And Pliny Pliny the Elder made the um interesting claim that the labyrinth was constructed over 3,600 years before his time. So, I believe he was writing in the era of Augustus. Um.
33:05As we were just talking about the start of the Roman Empire. So, 3,600 years before his time would put it before the first dynasties of ancient Egypt. So, before the Egyptian civilization dynastic Egypt Egypt arose. So, that's a mean that's quite a confusing thing. How they How are they constructing something that surpasses the pyramids in grandeur before the beginning of Egyptian civilization? Right. That's pretty crazy thing.
33:28So, we have all these classical uh authors that say they visited the labyrinth, say that it was like this incredible construction. But, that was it. And then it kind of faded away into obscurity and everyone thought it was just, you know, this legend and these ancient writers were talking about it.
33:45So, then you fast forward to the modern day and you get the the European explorers um visiting Hawara.
33:51Um first notable one I guess is Napoleon Bonaparte, you know, the famous French general. He was obsessed with ancient Egypt. He He loved ancient Egypt. He He once spent a night in the King's Chamber of the Great Pyramid and said that he never spoke about it. But, apparently he was, you know, quite shocked by his experience in there, which is a weird thing. But, he spent a night in the King's Chamber, which is pretty crazy. So, yeah. And he brought a teams of scientists and scholars to Egypt and some of them went to Hawara and they said that they could see some like foundations and some ruins at the base of the the pyramid there.
34:24And that was kind of the first modern identification of the labyrinth's potential location. But, that's kind of all it was. And then you fast forward to some British explorers like uh most notably Flinders Petrie who's the famous British Egyptologist. Um, he was the first one to kind of conduct any serious excavation there. And so he drilled into the pyramid and under the the base there and he came across this uh kind of uh base that he assumed was the foundation of the labyrinth that was all that was left of it. And he he had this like he found this massive base and he was like, "Okay, the labyrinth was here
35:01and I found all that's left of it, this this massive base. So the labyrinth was real, these ancient writers weren't making it up, but it's gone now, you know, that there's nothing left of it other than this base." And that kind of was the theory that for forever basically about this labyrinth was that it was real, these writers weren't making it up, Petrie found the base of it, that's the end of the story, right?
35:24And that was the case forever.
35:27In recent years, in the 21st century, a couple of independent researchers have thought maybe that's not the true that's not the the full extent of the story, right? So there's this interesting expedition in 2008, I believe, called the Mataha expedition which was led by a Belgian researcher called Louis De Cordier and he went to Hawara with the permission of the Council of Antiquities in Egypt's the Egyptian authorities led by Dr. Zahi Hawass, who I'm sure you've heard of.
35:56And two times.
35:57>> Yeah, so they went so they went there and they had the permission of Hawass and the Egyptian authorities and they basically they tried to conduct some scans using I think ground penetrating radar.
36:08Um but what they discovered was not that the labyrinth was gone, but that the labyrinth was still there. And that they came back with these results that showed these vast subterranean grids beneath the sand of Hawara completely untouched and still existing.
36:25And they wanted to release this, right?
36:27Cuz obviously that's an incredible find.
36:29Like you found the lost labyrinth of ancient Egypt. This elusive discovery that's been known about since antiquity, but no one's ever found.
36:36But apparently according to Louis de Cordier and his team Hawass and others weren't um they didn't want to release it. They were like, "You can't put this out there." They said it was a a national security issue to >> Oh. start talk to to release this data and they basically kept finding themselves getting blocked.
36:55And um eventually after years and years of this, they were like, "You know, [ __ ] this. I'm I'm putting it out independently." So they released the the scan data to the world on the website that he made.
37:06At the same time as this, a different team uh from a company called Merlin Burrows and a man called Tim Akers also conducted uh I think satellite scans of the area. So uh Tim Akers was a he's dead now, but he was a ex-British military satellite scanning specialist.
37:24So legit guy. Worked with the British military. Knows his stuff.
37:27They conducted scans of the same area and it came back with similar results.
37:31There you go. Exactly. Right on cue.
37:34So they they found the uh a similar thing, which is these scans of um you know, vast geometric grids in the right area. They were also identified by Petrie and people with Napoleon.
37:45And it appears to look like a a vast, you know, labyrinth.
37:49>> Yes.
37:49>> Still intact. Hidden beneath the sand.
37:52And combine that with the uh results from the Mataha expedition and you start to think, you know, there could be something incredible down here.
37:59This could be like the most you know, shocking and you know, important discovery in archaeology of >> Sure. our generation, right? If it's true.
38:10Um they also made the the interesting claim that they found an object in there that was shaped like a Tic Tac and gave off a metallic signature. Which is a pretty extraordinary thing to say. That feels a little, shall we say, not earthly, but Yeah, but exactly, but especially when you combine it with all the kind of UAP stuff and right. So, I mean, obviously, this is this is what they're saying. I I'm just kind of reporting what they're saying, but this is Yeah, this is a serious people saying this.
38:38Um and they they Yeah, they can't really explain They didn't know what it was.
38:41They're just like, yeah, that this this object that's shaped like a Tic Tac down there in this labyrinth that's possibly metallic cuz it gives off a weird signature and to the radar-trained eye, it looks like not stone. It looks, you know, possibly metallic, which is an interesting thing to say.
38:58And that's kind of where we are with it because there's no excavation is allowed there.
39:02The Egyptian authorities don't want to do it. There's also the problem of water.
39:06The water? Yeah, so the whole area is flooded. So, in Victorian times, they dug an irrigation canal through the area uh basically for agricultural reasons for local farmers and stuff. And there's like big flooding around the area and there was always the worry that the labyrinth had been flooded and if there was anything left, it's, you know, destroyed by water damage and stuff, but these scans seem seem to suggest that while there's water damage at a certain level, the labyrinth is beneath that level. So, the water damage is kind of below I mean, above the foundation or the roof that Petrie thought was a foundation and actually
39:44maybe a roof.
39:45And the water's above that, but the labyrinth below and whatever this Tic Tac object, which they nicknamed Dippy after the skeleton in the Natural History Museum in London, they uh they think that that's still intact and the whatever is in this labyrinth is possibly still preserved since antiquity. And that raises, you know, a whole load of possibilities, right? Like, at very least, it could be an incredibly important discovery for our understanding of Egyptian civilization and Egyptian construction and you know, could be an extremely important discovery just within the mainstream narrative of Egyptology. At
40:21very most, it could be a completely you know, paradigm-shifting discovery.
40:24Like, how was this thing built so long ago? How was it built before the Egyptian dynasties if Pliny the Elder is correct with his date? What the [ __ ] is Dippy, this potentially metallic object that's a tic-tac shape? So, it's very exciting.
40:37That's kind of where the story is at the moment, but they're not allowed to go try to excavate cuz the government's stopping them. So, you can't even Yeah. Well, the government The Egyptian authorities don't really want to, I think.
40:51Probably cuz of of cost rather than any kind of conspiracy that's cover-up kind of thing. I think it'll be very expensive to get all the water out.
41:01You'd have to It would have serious implications for local farmers and stuff like that. You'd have to redirect that canal.
41:07So, it would be a tough thing to do, but you know, the archaeological potential of the site is extremely interesting.
41:15Have they talked at all or is Do we even have enough to be able to go off to ask questions about the ability to build it where they did? And what I mean by that is when you look like the pyramid of Giza and some of the other pyramids, there's there's a lot of evidence to state that like the stone that's used would have to come from X number of miles away. It weighed this much. How the [ __ ] could they have even gotten it there? Would have taken this much time if they even could have physically at the time. Is there anything about this that also runs into those problems? Well, yeah, the fact that it's underground.
41:49I mean, how would you construct something so sophisticated underground?
41:54Because you When you start looking at the ancient testimonies with this data and you say, "Okay, this is real."
42:00And their descriptions of it are incredible. They're like, I can't remember off the top of my head, but what they say about it is you know, that it's like this vast maze of these huge columns and pillars and like it's a really incredible thing and so I can't remember their quotes off the top of my head, but if people should watch Ben's video or I did a video on it as well and things they say about it just make it sound like an incredible construction. The fact that it was all done under the earth implies some seriously sophisticated construction techniques, right? Because how do you do that underground if you're
42:31you know, pre-dynastic Egypt, they're not supposed to have had anywhere close to this kind of level of technology if it really is that old, so it's certainly a very interesting site.
42:38They've just found what Herodotus wrote about this, so I'll read this for people.
42:43And this would have been, you know, between 44 and 425 BC when he was alive.
42:47The Egyptians made a labyrinth which surpasses even the pyramids. It has 12 roofed courts with doors facing each other, six face north and six south in two continuous lines all within one outer wall. There are also double sets of chambers, 3,000 altogether, 1,500 above and the same number underground.
43:05We learned through conversation about the labyrinth underground chambers through conversation. The Egypt caretakers would by no means show them as they were. They said the burial vaults of the kings who first built this labyrinth and of the sacred crocodiles.
43:20The upper we saw for ourselves and they are creations greater than human.
43:26That's a crazy quote.
43:27>> That's a Yeah, that's like a I want to put like a Jay-Z after that.
43:34The The exits of the chambers and the mazy passages hither and thither. Does that say thither? Yeah, hither and thither. Through the courts were an unending marvel to us.
43:45Overall, this is a roof made of stone like the walls and the walls are covered with cut figures and every court is set around with pillars of white stone very precisely fitted together. Near the corner where the labyrinth ends stands a pyramid 240 ft high on which great figures are cut. A passage to this has been made underground. So with I was thinking this when you were saying underground labyrinth and how you know, it's underground. That's really hard.
44:13Am I thinking about this totally wrong in that they could have they could have dug like a a giant hole and then built from there and then kind of covered it up or is that They Yeah, maybe, but that would have been a pretty sophisticated construction project for a society that was apparently, you know, just coming out of >> they didn't have any they didn't have any like, you know, caterpillar [ __ ] cranes and [ __ ] Interesting.
44:37Did he say Can we go back to that quote real fast? He said he learned it through conversation, right? We learned through conversation about the labyrinth's underground chambers.
44:47>> Yeah, so he wasn't allowed into the actual underground part of the labyrinth itself.
44:51>> he says the upper we saw for ourselves.
44:53Okay, that makes sense.
44:54>> So he saw the upper and thought that was ridiculous, you know, not even human and he wasn't even allowed into the potentially more impressive bit, which was the subterranean part.
45:02So it's interesting and then you have So you have these classical accounts and then they align perfectly with the modern data that shows that there potentially is still a labyrinth down there and you think, "Yo, this is a potentially crazy archaeological discovery that we could make if the, you know, the will is there to to do such a thing, if the funding is there."
45:21And that's why what Ben does is such important work because he's bringing this to light. He's bringing this to the masses and you know, Absolutely. Yeah, it's exciting. Yeah, and Ben does it in like a very calm, collected, evidence-driven, kind of like sober way, which I really like because I think that it's going to be really important when you try to bridge these divides between, you know, the academics and people actually trying to uncover some things here. You know, your your the way you say it and the way you present the evidence, I think is very important. He's like to me, like I remember when he first went on Danny
46:00Jones podcast, like he's he's just he's a cool customer. And and I think I think that's great. And it's another guy by the way who was like inspired by other people that came before him to like get into this. He was he was a normal dude and really started studying it and you know, has made some amazing certainly some amazing claims and and I would say some some pretty impressive discoveries about what we don't know down there that's now you know, it's cool to see like Joe Rogan bring that to the mainstream so that people can hear about it. But you know, I I had Luke in here November 2024. We didn't put out the
46:34episodes until the end of January and then beginning of February. We did it we did a couple episodes that you know, one recording where it basically turned into the 27,000 year history of Egypt. And when you start to really when you start to really I think I literally called it like 20,000 year history of Egypt part one and then part two. It's really amazing stuff. But when you start to like actually go through the full length of what we know and then they inject in the pyramids like kind of out of nowhere and I'm going to [ __ ] up the years. So I'm not going to try to be exact with the years. But then talk
47:07about like how quickly they could have made some of these structures. We already mentioned how difficult it would be to get some of the stone from the river all the way to where the pyramid is and everything.
47:17It's like you don't need to run right away to like oh, the aliens did it or something like that. But what other outside of that like what other explanations are there for something like the pyramid of Giza being able to build in the time period and and you know, the length of time it took to actually build it to what it was built into.
47:37I mean, I would argue that the conventional explanation for the construction of the entire Giza plateau doesn't really make sense. Like according to the conventional argument, the Giza pyramid was constructed in at most 20 years, I think. Mhm. I think that's right.
47:53>> Ridiculous. And then if you do the maths of like how many stones there are, it's something like they had to can't remember the exact maths, but it's it's a crazy like they have to place a stone like every 3 minutes for 24 hours a day for that entire 20-year period. And like transport this to quarry the stone, transport the stone, lift the stone, precisely place the stone like every 4 minutes for 24 hours a day for I'm not sure that's the correct maths, but it's something like that.
48:17There was an AI video last year that showed a bunch of giants lifting the stones. I thought that made a lot of sense.
48:23Something like that, I'm sure. But I mean, yes, it doesn't make sense. And then if you extrapolate out to the entire Giza Plateau like according to the conventional explanation, it was all constructed within the reigns of a a couple of pharaohs over like a 60-70 year period. And it's like, really? You cuz that's a level the whole thing flat, right? Which is a ridiculous thing on itself and then build the three pyramids and the Sphinx and Yeah, it's it's very odd. And then there's the whole question about the dating of the Sphinx and the water erosion hypothesis, which is really interesting. Yeah, you want to dig into
48:56that a little bit. I've talked about that with Matt LaCroix and and Luke in the past a bunch, but Yeah. Some of the pictures there Yeah. I mean, it looks like water erosion, right? But the paradox there is that there was no rainfall in Egypt since the time of the Green Sahara, which was you know, a lot earlier or at least the level of rainfall would have been a lot earlier, which suggests that the Sphinx is a lot older because otherwise how would that weathering occur? And the conventional explanation isn't that it's just wind and sand, but I don't know. It it doesn't really look like wind and sand. Obviously, I'm not a
49:30geologist, but there are geologists who have looked at it like Dr. Robert Schoch and they say that is water erosion.
49:35That's clear signs of water erosion. And then there's also the the fact that the Sphinx was buried by sand for like the vast majority of like when Napoleon discovered it and other people discovered it, it was buried in the sand. Even the Egyptians excavated the Sphinx when it was covered in sand. So if it was covered in sand, then how did the wind and sand erode it when it was covered in sand? You know, I've never really seen a explanation for that either, but >> Isn't that the one where they where there's like a secret entrance that's blocked off, too? Or a couple of them?
50:05What, to underneath the Sphinx?
50:07I think there's one like up top, too.
50:09That's what people say, yeah.
50:10>> remembering that right. There was a picture we looked at, I want to say that was episode 153 with Matt LaCroix. I did 153 and 154 with him. I feel like there was a picture towards the end of that first podcast that we looked at. Maybe actually maybe I'm mixing some things together, but maybe it's like a picture where Zahi Hawass is standing outside of it or something. But there's like a picture, I'm seeing it in my head, towards the top of the Sphinx where there's like a a manhole, and you can't go there.
50:41Oh, yeah.
50:43Yeah. Can you Google aerial shot Sphinx entrance.
50:51Let's try that.
50:52I might be misremembering this. Go refer to episode 153. I remember Matt talked about this and had some images.
51:01Uh might be that first one.
51:08I want to say that's it.
51:12But I also don't want to say for sure.
51:17I don't know. Refer to episode 153, but there's something weird there where they won't let people in certain areas. And again, like you know, it could be like an explanation like the other thing we're talking about where they're like, "Oh, it'd be too much money." Or shit's got to get moved, or there's too much water, that whatever it might be.
51:36But it's also not a good look cuz it makes you look like you're hiding something. Or makes you look like something's going to be different. And I don't know, maybe I'm I'm at this way too simply, but I've always thought, like if there's more insane history at a place, that's a lot more tourist dollars that are coming going to come into your economy. If if you can prove something like that, so why wouldn't you? I mean, maybe I'm thinking too much dollars and cents, but You think so, wouldn't you? You think the more mystery Well, maybe maybe it's the opposite. Maybe the more mystery the better, right? Maybe they don't want to
52:07rule it out, so that people keep coming back. I don't know. I don't know, but Yeah, there's so much mystery in Egypt, so much mystery at Giza. And hopefully as you know, the generations go past uh there's that quote um from Max Planck, the physicist, like science advances one funeral at a time.
52:27Yeah, no, that's good. I've heard that one before.
52:29>> Once the old generation die off, you know, maybe these things will change, but we'll see. We shall see. Do you believe Atlantis existed? I believe Atlantis is a very interesting story in relation to the wider flood myth?
52:46So, I don't necessarily I don't I mean, I wouldn't rule it out, but I don't necessarily say it existed, but I think in conjunction with the flood myth, which is, you know, a consistent story across cultures all across the world.
53:00Atlantis is yet another one of them. Yet another famous story of a flood wiping everything out, which like, you know, so many cultures across the world have that story.
53:10And it's interesting because Plato puts the date of Atlantis, you know, as many people have said, right during the Younger Dryas, right? He says it's a God, I've forgotten. He says he says it's 9,000 years before his time, I think. W- W- Either way, he says it's you know, if you do the calculations, it's during the Younger Dryas.
53:27Which is interesting. Um I wouldn't rule out Atlantis existing, but that would that would then be the lost civilization, right? So, >> Yeah.
53:35>> you can't say there's evidence of it, but it's an interesting story, for sure.
53:39>> What What do you think of Jimmy Corsetti's Richard Strie- I always pronounce that wrong.
53:44>> Richard Richard, yeah.
53:45>> Richard Striezel's theory. It's a good It's a I really like how he does it. I really like the videos. I've watched the videos on it. Um it's really interesting because, you know, it matches up in so many ways to Plato's description, right?
53:56Um but I don't Again, is there any evidence or is it just a good way of putting a story together, you know?
54:05>> Yeah. But he's fun. I already enjoy his videos. I really enjoy the way he does it.
54:09And I wouldn't rule it out, but I'm not sure you can say that that definitely is Atlantis, right? But Yeah, I'd like to think something like that existed and obviously like there's a lot of writings in ancient Greece among some of the philosophers where they refer to it. I wonder sometimes though if it's really like some of the you know, clearly not true stories from the Bible. Think of like a dude being swallowed by a whale and then, you know, living there and being spit out. Stuff like that. Was that Job? Yeah, yeah.
54:37But like I wonder if it's something like that that's more supposed to be a mirror for ourselves as a civilization to look in and aspire to be rather than something that's real. Whereas it seems like there's significant evidence for something like an El Dorado that exists based on written history and what would make sense over there. But Atlantis, it's like they don't even know it could be here, it could be there, it could be there, it could be this, it could be that, could you know, it's all over the place. So I don't know, but that's one I always like that's one of my favorite ones to kind of riff on cuz it's like it could
55:10be a lot of things. Yeah, well, I mean the conventional idea is that Plato was just, you know, creating an allegory to talk about his own civilization, right?
55:18But that doesn't mean there's no truth behind it. And Plato isn't the one who came up with the idea. He got it from Solon who was who was passed down through his family from Solon to Plato. And Solon got it from Egypt, right? And Egypt's this mysterious place. And apparently these Egyptian priests were telling him about this civilization that existed and was wiped out in a single day and night.
55:40You know, it's an interesting story. It certainly is. Are you working on any cool videos right now on some places around the world? Um yeah, I mean I've got a few in the pipeline. Um Where are you looking?
55:53I've just done a video that's not come out yet, which is about uh this uh genetic bottleneck we see um it'll be out by the time this episode comes out, but this genetic bottleneck we see in the late neolithic or around 5,000 to 7,000 years ago where basically 95% of men were wiped out, but no women.
56:14Which is really interesting because you we see this massive bottleneck in the Y chromosome, which is the line that was passed down from father to son. Lucky it's 5% of all time. Yeah, but that's who we're all descended from, right?
56:25Because they were the survivors of what the conventional explanation is was a massive like cultural violence in the late neolithic of basically mass prehistoric war where all the men were going around killing everyone else and taking the women, right? So there's no So there's no bottleneck in the mitochondrial DNA, which is the mother.
56:43But 95% of the men were wiped out at this in this period.
56:47Where's the evidence that they that they found this? It's in genetics It's in our in our genes. Oh, that's it. So they're just looking at our genes saying, "Oh, that had to be at that period right there." Yeah, and you can see the bottleneck and it it it happened there.
56:59We literally dropped right down to 5%.
57:0295% of men were wiped out in this period. But the females weren't connected. And then you line it with archaeological finds and there's all these like massive pits of bodies with weapon wounds and horrible injuries and people being slaughtered and it's a quite an interesting period.
57:18Yeah, I haven't heard that. Can we Google this?
57:21Genetic bottleneck 95% of men exterminated. Yeah. What, 5,000 to 7,000 years ago you said? I think so, yeah.
57:33Yeah. That's also like a wide range, too. So, it happened over time. Yeah, but it's across all of Asia, Africa, and Europe.
57:39So, like the whole of the world except for the Americas.
57:43How large was the population of Homo sapiens at the time, approximately? I'm not sure off the top of my head, but it was getting big because this was after the agricultural revolution, right? And that's what That's the theory of what it is is that we apparently settled down and Here you go, 95%. Here we go. We settled down and we had something to fight for. We had like property rights for the first Oh, potentially for the first time in history. And Yeah. Okay, so the forgotten prehistoric war that killed 95% of all men, how a brutal conflict 7,000 years ago left only one in 20 men alive.
58:16Within every single one of us lies a biological time capsule, 3.16 billion base pairs of DNA. These strands don't just dictate eye color or height. They hide dark, twisted secrets from humanity's past. One of the most chilling, a forgotten prehistoric war so catastrophic it nearly wiped out men entirely, leaving women outnumbering them 17 to one. This wasn't a minor skirmish or a regional feud. It was a global slaughter spanning continents, reshaping our genetic code, and burying evidence of its horrors in mass graves until now. The story begins with a genetic mystery. Researchers analyzing modern human genomes stumbled upon a
58:50shocking anomaly, a drastic bottleneck in male genetic diversity dating back roughly 7,000 years. During the Neolithic period, the effective male population across Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East collapsed by up to 95%. Imagine a world where 3.9 billion men vanished overnight, leaving only 200 million survivors. This wasn't a plague, famine, or natural disaster. The culprit was far more sinister, unbridled sy- systematic violence. While mitochondrial DNA passed down through mothers showed stable diversity, Y chromosomes passed from father to son revealed a near apocalyptic drop. Nature doesn't
59:25discriminate by gender when wiping out populations. Volcanoes don't target men, storms don't spare women. This Oh, wow.
59:31Okay, so that makes a ton of sense. This was a human-made catastrophe, a coordinated eradication of males so extreme it left scars in our genes. But where are the bodies? Turns out they're everywhere. Over 250 late Neolithic massacre sites have been uncovered in Europe alone. Skeletons tell gruesome stale tales. Skulls shattered by axes, arrowheads embedded in ribs, bones stripped of flesh. At the All right, yeah, click to read the full story. But that actually that last part answered a question I was going to ask. Are there I was going to say like even in other parts of history are there biological
60:09diseases and things that could discriminate by gender? Do we know of any examples of that?
60:13>> I don't think so, no. Thank you guys for watching the episode. If you haven't already, please hit that subscribe button and smash that like button on the video. They're both a huge, huge help.
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