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Technology Videos 160 videos

History of Technology 1: Windmills
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History of Technology 2: Wheels
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How did people move stuff around before the wheel was invented? More importantly, why didn't they take a break for a few minutes from moving stuff...

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History of Technology 2: Animal Power 39 Views


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Description:

Animals were the muscle behind the wheeled vehicle revolution. They're also cute and so much better than people. What? That's a fact.

Language:
English Language

Transcript

00:03

transportation there's probably a lot of ticked off cows out there right [Cow looking annoyed]

00:07

now why well because animal power was an energy source we left out of the last unit

00:13

and that wasn't a hundred percent fair while animals were the muscle behind the [a fox bench pressing a 4x4 truck]

00:16

entire wheeled vehicle revolution and they took us places wheels couldn't go

00:21

in that long period between the invention of simple machines in the

00:24

steam engine humans owed most of their transportation to animals the next time

00:29

you see a cow placidly chewing its cud while staring into empty space thinking [a cow staring into empty space]

00:33

deep thoughts take a second to admire one of history's greatest figures. Yep

00:38

not all heroes wear capes well as it turns out humans and animals had been [Cow flying through the air with a superman logo]

00:42

hanging out for a super long time way before they had wagons to pull and roads

00:46

to build well some historians argue that humans and animals have spent the last [animal carrying a man through a crop field]

00:50

several thousand years co-evolving developing traits that benefitted each

00:54

other we've been codependent in all the best [man, woman and cow sat in a room together]

00:57

ways well that's especially true of dogs which were the first animals humans

01:03

domesticated about 12,000 years ago wolves and humans had a mutually [ancient man with a domesticated dog]

01:07

beneficial relationship wolves got the scraps from human hunts

01:11

and humans got some added protection and helped with the hunt some lucky guys in [wolf helping a human with hunting

01:16

the frozen north figured out dogsled's but most dogs weren't going to haul people's

01:20

stuff for him for that humans had to go bigger you know with cattle well cattle

01:25

were used for meat since around 8000 BCE but it wasn't until 4000 BCE that they [man eating meat]

01:30

definitely started hauling stuff for us the cows were like great..

01:34

first you eat us, now you make us carry your stuff around this seems like a [cow complaining]

01:39

super fair relationship - moo.. well before the wheel cows dragged sleds and plows

01:45

even that was a pretty big deal that required the invention of the yoke [yoke appears]

01:48

a wooden beam that goes over an animal's neck it's connected to whatever good

01:52

stuff our animal buddies are supposed to haul they're not complicated but the

01:56

process of training animals to use them ain't easy most of us went out in the [man teaching cow to sit and cow tramples on the man]

02:00

field with an Ox, a plow and a yoke, we're pretty sure we'd end up

02:03

trampled yeah some brave soul figured it out though again not all heroes where oh [man flying through the air with a blue cape]

02:08

never mind he's wearing a cape alrighty then, moving on.. After the

02:12

invention of the wheel cattle could do much more than just plow fields with [cow wearing sunglasses driving a car]

02:15

animals and wagons we could ship our goods to a distant city or haul manure

02:19

around our farms well, one of those things is much more fun than the other not

02:24

every place used the same big animals of course cattle were popular in Africa and [cow named Jerry sitting on a hotel bed]

02:28

Europe in South Asia the water buffalo could haul like a champ and all that [water buffalo pooping on the field]

02:32

heat and humidity in India elephants were okay sometimes they were rarely

02:37

used for transportation though there were more like giant tractors if [man riding on the top of an elephant]

02:41

tractors could navigate through jungles and we're also super-smart well the poor

02:45

americas didn't have any domesticated animals for hauling except the llamas in

02:49

a few places but the llamas just aren't very strong though they can beat a cow [Llama hauling a bale of hay]

02:53

in a spitting contest any day so there's that yeah good job there llama yeah

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