A two-hour special that caps off the 16-episode first season of H2's "Big History", the program illustrates the eight major "thresholds" or turning points that have made our universe and life on our planet possible.
At critical moments in history, our second place metal was the most important metal on Earth. Big History reveals how silver's place in our minds was determined by the heat of exploding stars, and how this one metal saved democracy, gave us the dollar, and had a secret power to connect the world.
Eating meat made us human...by giving us bigger brains, better tools, and spoken language. The human need for beef has driven history across the hemispheres, but how did we turn an ancient mega-beast into the cow we have today? Big History traces all the beef on earth back to a single prehistoric herd.
How does the cellphone in your pocket link to the Big Bang, the evolution of human memory, and even the Titanic disaster? Big History reveals how cosmic forces conspired to give us the tool that has revolutionized the planet. From the dial pad to the way we write phone numbers, there's a hidden science behind the cellphone.
Flight takes more than wings. We need the right kind of air, the perfect materials cooked up over billions of years, and cosmic forces that are just right for us to leave the ground without tumbling off into space. Big History reveals how planet Earth is the perfect planet for flight.
The horse has been a revolutionary animal in unexpected ways. It has changed how we speak, what we wear, and sets the hidden limit for the size of our most massive empires. It's a story that spans the cosmos, from the Big Bang, to the Sun, to a changing planet that turned the horse into man's best friend in the animal kingdom.