0:00:10 > 0:00:12In the 20th century - our age -
0:00:12 > 0:00:15our brilliance and our foolishness collided
0:00:15 > 0:00:19to produce one of the greatest moral dilemmas humankind has faced.
0:00:21 > 0:00:25For three years, Robert Oppenheimer had led a top-secret mission
0:00:25 > 0:00:29to end the deadliest war in the history of the world.
0:00:33 > 0:00:36But to do that, his team were building a weapon
0:00:36 > 0:00:39which would soon also threaten to end human life on earth.
0:00:39 > 0:00:42PHONE RINGS
0:00:43 > 0:00:45Oppenheimer.
0:00:45 > 0:00:50Mankind's greatest intellectual achievement.
0:00:50 > 0:00:54Modern science had now unlocked the secrets of atomic power.
0:00:57 > 0:01:03In our age, democracy confronted two great enemies -
0:01:03 > 0:01:05communism and fascism.
0:01:05 > 0:01:09Their leaders believed that if you killed enough people,
0:01:09 > 0:01:11some kind of human paradise would follow.
0:01:13 > 0:01:17Instead, as these ideas were tested to destruction,
0:01:17 > 0:01:22they planted little pockets of hell on ordinary earth.
0:01:22 > 0:01:24With this handful of salt...
0:01:24 > 0:01:27But new freedoms were won.
0:01:27 > 0:01:32Science brought us machines of awesome speed and power,
0:01:32 > 0:01:36and we reached beyond the limits of our planet.
0:01:36 > 0:01:38- FLIGHT DIRECTOR: - 'CapCom, we are go for landing.'
0:01:38 > 0:01:41- CAPCOM:- 'Eagle, Houston. You are go for landing. Over.'
0:01:41 > 0:01:45In the 20th century, our failures were greater than ever before
0:01:45 > 0:01:48and our achievements astonishing.
0:01:48 > 0:01:51Mankind found itself in a race,
0:01:51 > 0:01:56a sprint between its technological brilliance
0:01:56 > 0:01:58and the risks of its political idiocy.
0:01:58 > 0:02:00SHOUTING IN GERMAN
0:02:00 > 0:02:05Welcome to the age of extremes.
0:02:27 > 0:02:29November 1918.
0:02:29 > 0:02:32The first global war had ended.
0:02:32 > 0:02:36The emperors and the top-hatted politicians had failed.
0:02:38 > 0:02:42They'd shattered the optimism of the modern world.
0:02:44 > 0:02:47For many, especially on the losing side,
0:02:47 > 0:02:52it seemed that a new order must rise from the ruins,
0:02:52 > 0:02:53a new kind of politics
0:02:53 > 0:02:58which needed a ruthlessness the older generation had flinched from.
0:02:58 > 0:03:03Among the soldiers straggling home from the trenches of the Western Front
0:03:03 > 0:03:07was an angry and embittered 29-year-old corporal...
0:03:07 > 0:03:08Tag.
0:03:08 > 0:03:10..Adolf Hitler.
0:03:10 > 0:03:12Danke schoen.
0:03:13 > 0:03:14Like many others,
0:03:14 > 0:03:19Hitler was looking for someone to blame for Germany's humiliation.
0:03:24 > 0:03:30Dies ist der Grund unseres langjaehrigen Zustandes.
0:03:30 > 0:03:34This is the story of the revenge of the nobody.
0:03:34 > 0:03:37When Adolf Hitler arrived in Munich, he was a nothing.
0:03:37 > 0:03:39He'd won a medal in the war,
0:03:39 > 0:03:44but his fellow soldiers described him as a bit peculiar, a loner,
0:03:44 > 0:03:46and he'd never been promoted,
0:03:46 > 0:03:51because the German officers realised that he lacked leadership qualities.
0:03:51 > 0:03:53Das wissen Sie doch. Er kannte das!
0:03:53 > 0:03:58This is also the most extreme example in human history
0:03:58 > 0:04:02of how one individual can unlock hell.
0:04:04 > 0:04:07HITLER ADDRESSING RALLY
0:04:13 > 0:04:15CROWD CHEERING
0:04:15 > 0:04:21But how did this chaotic loser harness a big idea, fascism,
0:04:21 > 0:04:25and goose-step Germany into another world war?
0:04:29 > 0:04:31In a single word, fear.
0:04:31 > 0:04:37We are all of us susceptible to being scared by events, and then feeling anger,
0:04:37 > 0:04:39so when people's savings and jobs are destroyed,
0:04:39 > 0:04:43which happened in the early 1920s in Germany,
0:04:43 > 0:04:45they panic, then they want revenge.
0:04:47 > 0:04:52Hitler's great good luck was that he offered up his recipe about who to blame
0:04:52 > 0:04:58at just the moment when rampant inflation had brought Germany to its knees.
0:04:58 > 0:05:01A loaf of bread for a billion marks.
0:05:03 > 0:05:05But for many the spectre of communism
0:05:05 > 0:05:10seemed even more frightening than capitalism's collapse.
0:05:10 > 0:05:11In southern Germany,
0:05:11 > 0:05:17Munich had been shaken by a communist uprising put down by troops.
0:05:18 > 0:05:20Into all of this stepped Adolf Hitler.
0:05:20 > 0:05:25He joined and took control of a tiny right-wing party.
0:05:25 > 0:05:31He even redesigned its curious emblem,
0:05:31 > 0:05:35based on an ancient symbol for good fortune, the swastika.
0:05:38 > 0:05:45In this grey defeated city of small angry parties and big angry meetings,
0:05:45 > 0:05:50Hitler stood out as a star speaker, because he simply went further.
0:05:50 > 0:05:54He said the unsayable.
0:05:54 > 0:05:58The Jewish problem would be solved with brute force.
0:05:58 > 0:06:03Germany would carve a new empire for herself in Eastern Europe,
0:06:03 > 0:06:07a greater Germany rising to be a world power,
0:06:07 > 0:06:12and the people listening to him were soon comparing him to Martin Luther,
0:06:12 > 0:06:16Mussolini, even Napoleon.
0:06:16 > 0:06:20Right at the beginning there was this leader cult.
0:06:23 > 0:06:26Yet Hitler came across as crazily optimistic.
0:06:26 > 0:06:30He thought that, by pushing Munich right-wingers into revolt,
0:06:30 > 0:06:32he could get them to march on Berlin
0:06:32 > 0:06:36and seize control of all democratic Germany.
0:06:36 > 0:06:37AUDIENCE APPLAUD
0:06:37 > 0:06:39CHEERING
0:06:39 > 0:06:40Die Roten gedeihen im Chaos.
0:06:40 > 0:06:44On the night of November the 8th, 1923,
0:06:44 > 0:06:49a political meeting was being held in one of the city's beer halls.
0:06:56 > 0:06:58SHOUTING
0:06:58 > 0:07:03Hitler hijacked the meeting, declaring, "The national revolution has begun."
0:07:03 > 0:07:06Die Reichsregierung wurde gebildet.
0:07:07 > 0:07:10But few in the hall were impressed by the jumped-up extremist,
0:07:10 > 0:07:14and the meeting ended in confusion.
0:07:16 > 0:07:21The next morning Hitler led armed supporters onto the streets.
0:07:21 > 0:07:23But when police fired on them,
0:07:23 > 0:07:28this revolution by sheer bluff collapsed with embarrassing speed.
0:07:28 > 0:07:31Two days later, Hitler was arrested.
0:07:31 > 0:07:35The beer-hall revolution was a political shambles.
0:07:35 > 0:07:38It ended in humiliating failure.
0:07:38 > 0:07:44But it made Adolf Hitler a hero far beyond Munich,
0:07:44 > 0:07:47because he realised that he could use his trial
0:07:47 > 0:07:52as a much bigger platform than any that he'd get in a beer hall.
0:07:52 > 0:08:00He was defiant, completely unapologetic, and he was heard all across Germany.
0:08:03 > 0:08:07Sympathetic judges gave Hitler a soft sentence for treason.
0:08:07 > 0:08:10He was imprisoned in the nearby town of Landsberg.
0:08:13 > 0:08:17Hitler's rooms were soon crammed with unrestricted visitors
0:08:17 > 0:08:19and parcels and messages.
0:08:19 > 0:08:23One particularly gushing letter came from a student in Heidelberg
0:08:23 > 0:08:25called Joseph Goebbels,
0:08:25 > 0:08:29and as for the parcels, it was like a delicatessen.
0:08:29 > 0:08:33One visitor said you could have opened a flower, fruit and wine shop
0:08:33 > 0:08:36with all the stuff stacked up in there,
0:08:36 > 0:08:42and Hitler began to become rather fat from all the chocolates and the cake.
0:08:42 > 0:08:45Eventually he had to usher the visitors out
0:08:45 > 0:08:52so that he could settle down and dictate his memoirs to a man called Rudolf Hess.
0:08:52 > 0:08:55TYPING
0:08:55 > 0:08:58The Fuehrer was emerging.
0:08:58 > 0:09:01Der Jude ist und bleibt...
0:09:01 > 0:09:05But he had a truly terrible title for his book...
0:09:06 > 0:09:11Four And A Half Years Of Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity And Cowardice...
0:09:13 > 0:09:21..shortened by his shrewder publisher into My Struggle or Mein Kampf,
0:09:21 > 0:09:25and in it he said exactly what he thought.
0:09:27 > 0:09:30- TRANSLATOR: - "The Jews are a pestilence worse than the Black Death.
0:09:30 > 0:09:33"The day will come when a nation will arise
0:09:33 > 0:09:35"which will be welded together
0:09:35 > 0:09:39"that shall be invincible and indestructible forever."
0:09:40 > 0:09:42Mein Kampf argued
0:09:42 > 0:09:46that capitalism and communism were equally dangerous
0:09:46 > 0:09:49and that Jews were behind both,
0:09:49 > 0:09:53pulling the strings from Wall Street and Red Square.
0:09:53 > 0:09:58In other times and places, few would have listened to such a crackpot theory,
0:09:58 > 0:10:02but by the early 1930s, the Great Depression starting in America
0:10:02 > 0:10:06had thrown people out of work across the world,
0:10:06 > 0:10:12while the looming menace of Stalin's communist state haunted millions.
0:10:13 > 0:10:18There are times when the politics of fear become irresistible
0:10:18 > 0:10:22and nonsense seems common sense.
0:10:24 > 0:10:28Eventually, the Nazi Party did very well in elections.
0:10:28 > 0:10:33Hitler came to power not as a tyrant but entirely legally.
0:10:33 > 0:10:36- CROWD:- Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil!
0:10:36 > 0:10:42During the 1930s, no other major political leader had his level of popular support.
0:10:45 > 0:10:47It was support based on
0:10:47 > 0:10:52the violent creation of a new German empire in Europe,
0:10:52 > 0:10:54the destruction of Europe's Jews,
0:10:54 > 0:10:57which was all laid out in black-and-white.
0:10:57 > 0:11:01- CROWD:- Sieg heil! Sieg heil! Sieg heil!
0:11:02 > 0:11:07History is full of nasty surprises.
0:11:07 > 0:11:12Adolf Hitler did his very best not to be a surprise.
0:11:15 > 0:11:18Whilst Hitler was fighting for power in Germany,
0:11:18 > 0:11:21in America, the greatest democracy,
0:11:21 > 0:11:24women were fighting a rather different battle.
0:11:25 > 0:11:32They'd won the vote in 1920, and now a new form of politics had arrived,
0:11:32 > 0:11:34sexual politics.
0:11:39 > 0:11:44Margaret Sanger was a tiny redheaded radical from the backstreets.
0:11:44 > 0:11:47Her name isn't very well known,
0:11:47 > 0:11:52but she did more to shape today's world than most politicians.
0:11:59 > 0:12:04In the early 20th century, Manhattan was a divided island.
0:12:04 > 0:12:07Uptown was swinging, brash and booming,
0:12:07 > 0:12:12the most fashionable place on the planet.
0:12:12 > 0:12:17Downtown was very different, a place of old-fashioned poverty.
0:12:17 > 0:12:22In the overcrowded tenement blocks teeming with new immigrants,
0:12:22 > 0:12:27women were desperate to avoid unwanted pregnancies.
0:12:30 > 0:12:32These women were caught in a dilemma,
0:12:32 > 0:12:35either dangerous self-induced abortions
0:12:35 > 0:12:40or the backstreet abortionist, who could be just as dangerous.
0:12:56 > 0:12:58Margaret Sanger was a nurse.
0:12:58 > 0:13:01She saw the worst
0:13:01 > 0:13:06and she thought all women had the right to safe contraception, birth control.
0:13:06 > 0:13:08You're going to get through this.
0:13:08 > 0:13:12"I shuddered with horror," said Margaret Sanger.
0:13:12 > 0:13:16"I resolved to do something to change the destiny of these mothers,
0:13:16 > 0:13:19"whose miseries were as vast as the sky."
0:13:22 > 0:13:25But contraceptives were taboo.
0:13:25 > 0:13:30Those who sold them were condemned as purveyors of vice and sin.
0:13:34 > 0:13:39In 1916, Margaret Sanger opened America's first birth-control clinic
0:13:39 > 0:13:42here in a poor district of Brooklyn.
0:13:44 > 0:13:48On the opening day, more than 100 women queued up for help and advice.
0:13:48 > 0:13:50(17.)
0:13:51 > 0:13:55I haven't seen you before. What's your name?
0:13:55 > 0:14:00But the pamphlets she was giving out were classed as obscene literature.
0:14:04 > 0:14:06Get out of here, now!
0:14:07 > 0:14:10- You're under arrest! - No, you listen to me!
0:14:10 > 0:14:13Get these men out of here. Get off of me! Will you get them off of me?!
0:14:13 > 0:14:19Sanger was charged under America's very strong anti-obscenity laws.
0:14:20 > 0:14:22The clinic was shut down.
0:14:25 > 0:14:28So much for women's rights.
0:14:28 > 0:14:31But private individuals,
0:14:31 > 0:14:34if they had enough guts and could lay hands on some money,
0:14:34 > 0:14:37could fight back.
0:14:37 > 0:14:39Contraceptives couldn't be imported into America,
0:14:39 > 0:14:44but Margaret Sanger had a friend, a friend who could help,
0:14:44 > 0:14:49a friend with a picture-book chateau by Lake Geneva.
0:14:50 > 0:14:57This was the summer home of a rich American heiress, Katharine McCormick.
0:14:57 > 0:15:02She was a glamorous society lady who liked the latest fashions,
0:15:02 > 0:15:04but she was also a rarity.
0:15:04 > 0:15:08She'd studied biology at university and campaigned for votes for women.
0:15:08 > 0:15:10Very good.
0:15:10 > 0:15:14Once American women had the vote, like their Scandinavian and British sisters,
0:15:14 > 0:15:20she was looking for a new cause and she alighted on birth control,
0:15:20 > 0:15:23which is why an unlikely friendship was formed
0:15:23 > 0:15:26between the heiress and the agitator.
0:15:27 > 0:15:31In Europe, contraceptives were easy to get hold of.
0:15:31 > 0:15:34Katharine McCormick went around buying up posh frocks
0:15:34 > 0:15:39and then had hundreds of diaphragms sewn into the hems,
0:15:39 > 0:15:43before boldly smuggling the clothing in trunks back to New York
0:15:43 > 0:15:48where Sanger had opened a new clinic, which flourished.
0:15:49 > 0:15:53This was a great victory for private enterprise politics,
0:15:53 > 0:15:57and the campaigner and wealthy rebel kept in touch.
0:15:59 > 0:16:03Margaret Sanger always wanted an easier contraceptive, a fail-safe one,
0:16:03 > 0:16:08and when, decades on, scientists thought this might be possible,
0:16:08 > 0:16:13she turned again to Katharine McCormick, who bankrolled the research.
0:16:16 > 0:16:20It had been a long road from those New York tenement blocks,
0:16:20 > 0:16:24but in 1960, the pill went on the market.
0:16:26 > 0:16:30It revolutionised birth control for women.
0:16:31 > 0:16:36Half a century on, the pill has become the contraceptive of choice
0:16:36 > 0:16:41for way over 100 million women all around the world.
0:16:42 > 0:16:44Its social impact has been huge.
0:16:44 > 0:16:50It's allowed women to make choices about education and their careers,
0:16:50 > 0:16:55to delay having children or to have no children at all.
0:16:55 > 0:16:57Along with votes for women,
0:16:57 > 0:17:02it has been one of the biggest social changes of the 20th century -
0:17:02 > 0:17:07indeed, many women would say the biggest change of all.
0:17:09 > 0:17:12Not all revolutions were won by men with tanks.
0:17:12 > 0:17:18Like the women behind the pill, others used ingenuity and moral force.
0:17:18 > 0:17:23It's been said that, in 1930, three people had achieved instant global recognition -
0:17:23 > 0:17:26Charlie Chaplin,
0:17:26 > 0:17:28Adolf Hitler...
0:17:29 > 0:17:35..and a skinny fellow who dressed to impress...
0:17:37 > 0:17:40..Mohandas Gandhi.
0:17:40 > 0:17:45The British liked to think that, in India, they were the good imperialists...
0:17:45 > 0:17:47parents, really.
0:17:49 > 0:17:55But after famines and repression, many Indians didn't see it that way.
0:17:57 > 0:18:02In March 1930, Gandhi, leader of the Indian Independence Movement,
0:18:02 > 0:18:07sent a letter to the headquarters of the British Raj in New Delhi.
0:18:07 > 0:18:11It was a direct challenge posted through the front door.
0:18:11 > 0:18:12KNOCK AT DOOR
0:18:12 > 0:18:14- VICEROY:- Come in.
0:18:15 > 0:18:20The letter was addressed to Edward Frederick Lindley Wood,
0:18:20 > 0:18:24the Lord Irwin, Viceroy and Governor General of India,
0:18:24 > 0:18:27the jewel in the crown of the British Empire.
0:18:27 > 0:18:30Gandhi explained politely but firmly
0:18:30 > 0:18:34that he was intending to start a campaign of civil disobedience
0:18:34 > 0:18:38through which he would win India's independence.
0:18:40 > 0:18:43"I do not seek to harm your people.
0:18:43 > 0:18:48"My ambition is no less than to convert the British through non-violence
0:18:48 > 0:18:52"and thus make them see the wrong they have done to India.
0:18:53 > 0:18:55Gandhi finished his letter
0:18:55 > 0:18:57by promising to call off his planned campaign,
0:18:57 > 0:19:01if the British would agree to talks about freedom for India.
0:19:03 > 0:19:08In the 1920s, on the surface, the British Empire seemed as self-confident as ever.
0:19:08 > 0:19:15Some sense of its swagger is given by the Viceroy's new house in Delhi.
0:19:15 > 0:19:19A British architect working on a Mogul scale.
0:19:19 > 0:19:22It makes Buckingham Palace seem poky.
0:19:22 > 0:19:23But this was confronted
0:19:23 > 0:19:27by the determination of the wiry little man from Gujarat,
0:19:27 > 0:19:29who understood that the British weakness
0:19:29 > 0:19:34was a determination to be thought decent rulers.
0:19:34 > 0:19:39So, his campaign of non-violent disobedience
0:19:39 > 0:19:42was a kind of political torture.
0:19:42 > 0:19:46Gandhi said, "There are many causes I'm prepared to die for
0:19:46 > 0:19:51"but none that I am prepared to kill for."
0:19:52 > 0:19:54Answer that.
0:19:55 > 0:19:57Hmm!
0:19:57 > 0:20:00The Viceroy chose not to answer Gandhi's letter,
0:20:00 > 0:20:03so the troublemaker embarked on his campaign
0:20:03 > 0:20:06of polite, smiling civil disobedience.
0:20:09 > 0:20:14Gandhi set out to walk the 240 miles from his home to the coast
0:20:14 > 0:20:18in a protest about salt.
0:20:20 > 0:20:25Along the way, the crowds welcoming him grew day by day.
0:20:29 > 0:20:31When he arrived at the seashore,
0:20:31 > 0:20:3750,000 supporters, newsmen among them, were waiting to greet him.
0:20:38 > 0:20:44Gandhi walked down to the water's edge and he scooped up some salty mud.
0:20:44 > 0:20:48With this handful of salt,
0:20:48 > 0:20:52I am shaking the foundations of the British Empire.
0:20:55 > 0:21:01Focusing on salt was a stroke of genius any spin doctor would envy.
0:21:02 > 0:21:07Indian salt production was a British monopoly and it was taxed.
0:21:07 > 0:21:11Gandhi encouraged all Indians to break the law
0:21:11 > 0:21:15by panning their own salt and refusing to pay the salt tax.
0:21:17 > 0:21:20It was an echo of the Boston Tea Party.
0:21:22 > 0:21:25Gandhi was engaged in a propaganda campaign
0:21:25 > 0:21:30and refusing to pay tax on salt would remind the Americans
0:21:30 > 0:21:36of their refusal to pay tax on tea when they broke away from the British Empire.
0:21:36 > 0:21:41So, by collecting the salt and refusing to pay tax on it,
0:21:41 > 0:21:44Gandhi was challenging the British
0:21:44 > 0:21:48to make themselves look both brutal and ridiculous.
0:21:50 > 0:21:53As mass protests rippled across India,
0:21:53 > 0:21:58the British authorities decided to arrest Gandhi and throw him into jail.
0:21:58 > 0:22:02Perfect! Just what he wanted.
0:22:04 > 0:22:08His arrest spurred even more people to come onto the streets.
0:22:10 > 0:22:13Demonstrations were ruthlessly put down.
0:22:15 > 0:22:20Britain was humiliated and condemned around the world.
0:22:23 > 0:22:28By the end of 1930, 60,000 peaceful protesters had been imprisoned.
0:22:29 > 0:22:32The agonised Viceroy gave in.
0:22:32 > 0:22:36He had Gandhi released from prison and invited him in for talks.
0:22:36 > 0:22:37Mr Gandhi.
0:22:37 > 0:22:40Lord Irwin.
0:22:40 > 0:22:43- Would you care for some tea? - Tea would be perfect.
0:22:44 > 0:22:47This meeting was the turning point.
0:22:48 > 0:22:55They agreed a pact which would lead, in stages, to India's independence.
0:22:55 > 0:22:57Sugar, Mr Gandhi?
0:22:57 > 0:22:59No, thank you.
0:22:59 > 0:23:05As the two men celebrated with a cup of tea, Gandhi had one final surprise.
0:23:08 > 0:23:11I am putting some salt into my tea...
0:23:13 > 0:23:17..to remind us of the historic Boston Tea Party.
0:23:19 > 0:23:21Very good, Mr Gandhi.
0:23:23 > 0:23:26But in Britain, not everybody was impressed.
0:23:26 > 0:23:34Back in London, Winston Churchill was appalled to see Gandhi posing as a fakir,
0:23:34 > 0:23:39striding half-naked up the steps of the viceregal palace,
0:23:39 > 0:23:45to parlay on equal terms with the representative of the King Emperor.
0:23:45 > 0:23:47This is just the beginning.
0:23:47 > 0:23:49It took 16 years and a world war,
0:23:49 > 0:23:52but already the greatest empire the world had ever seen
0:23:52 > 0:23:58was lying, rather grandly, on its deathbed.
0:24:00 > 0:24:06But in an age of so much political horror and failure,
0:24:06 > 0:24:12Gandhi's legacy reached further than independence for India.
0:24:12 > 0:24:16His philosophy of non-violent resistance
0:24:16 > 0:24:20has been an inspiration all around the world.
0:24:24 > 0:24:29"Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind.
0:24:29 > 0:24:32"It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction
0:24:32 > 0:24:34"devised by the ingenuity of man.
0:24:36 > 0:24:39"Non-violence is a weapon for the brave."
0:24:42 > 0:24:47Adolf Hitler could never understand Britain's queasy response to Gandhi.
0:24:47 > 0:24:51"All you have to do," he told Lord Irwin, "is shoot Gandhi.
0:24:51 > 0:24:55"You'd be surprised how quickly the trouble will die down."
0:25:00 > 0:25:02During the Second World War,
0:25:02 > 0:25:06the capitalist democracies of Britain and America
0:25:06 > 0:25:11allied themselves with communist Russia against fascism.
0:25:11 > 0:25:16This was a necessary pact but a diabolical one as well.
0:25:17 > 0:25:21Both the Nazis and the Soviets believed in the power of science,
0:25:21 > 0:25:26racial science in Germany and the science of class war in Russia,
0:25:26 > 0:25:28pseudo-science.
0:25:30 > 0:25:34Both thought that if you could get rid of whole classes of people,
0:25:34 > 0:25:39Jews, Gypsies, rich peasants and the bourgeoisie,
0:25:39 > 0:25:41you could build a new world.
0:25:42 > 0:25:48And in the heartlands of central Europe they put their theories into action.
0:25:57 > 0:26:02On the 29th of September, 1941,
0:26:02 > 0:26:07here, at a ravine outside Kiev,
0:26:07 > 0:26:1433,761 Ukrainian Jews,
0:26:14 > 0:26:19who had turned up on time, as they'd been asked, carrying their suitcases,
0:26:19 > 0:26:22their children warmly dressed,
0:26:22 > 0:26:29were stripped naked and shot in batches of ten by the Germans.
0:26:30 > 0:26:33It took 36 hours.
0:26:36 > 0:26:38Babi Yar.
0:26:48 > 0:26:52Nothing was worse than what the Nazis did,
0:26:52 > 0:26:55but their job here had been made easier
0:26:55 > 0:26:59by what the Russian communists had already done.
0:27:00 > 0:27:06Eight years before, they too had rounded up whole classes of enemies
0:27:06 > 0:27:09and overseen a famine
0:27:09 > 0:27:17which left the villages and the streets of Kiev littered with the dead and dying,
0:27:17 > 0:27:21so bad that families ate their own children.
0:27:23 > 0:27:25Reds and Nazis.
0:27:26 > 0:27:28Sadly...not ogres.
0:27:29 > 0:27:32Human beings with a big idea.
0:27:39 > 0:27:44No leaders emerged morally untouched from the Second World War,
0:27:45 > 0:27:51and, to end that war, the great democracy, America, had to confront
0:27:51 > 0:27:54a hideous moral dilemma of its own.
0:28:11 > 0:28:16The top-secret American operation to build and use the atom bomb
0:28:16 > 0:28:21would challenge the humanitarian values on which democracy is built.
0:28:21 > 0:28:26It was led by one of the most intriguing minds of the 20th century.
0:28:27 > 0:28:32J Robert Oppenheimer was a curious mix of a man.
0:28:32 > 0:28:36He was fascinated by other cultures and the religions of the east,
0:28:36 > 0:28:39and, in politics, a man of the left.
0:28:39 > 0:28:42In fact, he even flirted with communism before the war,
0:28:42 > 0:28:47and so you might think a strange choice to head a project like this.
0:28:47 > 0:28:54But he was a brilliant theoretical physicist and a charismatic leader.
0:28:54 > 0:28:57By the summer of 1945, Oppenheimer's bomb,
0:28:57 > 0:29:00codenamed Little Boy, was ready.
0:29:00 > 0:29:03The target, Hiroshima.
0:29:03 > 0:29:08After Germany's defeat, Japan had fought on.
0:29:08 > 0:29:13Now Japanese civilians would pay for their leaders' refusal to surrender.
0:29:15 > 0:29:17CLOCK TICKS
0:29:17 > 0:29:19CHILDREN SHOUT
0:29:21 > 0:29:25The strike was set for Monday, the 6th of August.
0:29:25 > 0:29:27CLOCK TICKS
0:29:27 > 0:29:29CHILDREN SHOUT
0:29:34 > 0:29:37There were American scientists who didn't believe in deploying the bomb,
0:29:37 > 0:29:42but Oppenheimer argued strongly that it had to be used.
0:29:42 > 0:29:47There was a chance that the bomb would end all war,
0:29:47 > 0:29:53but, for that to happen, the whole world had to see its full horrific potential.
0:29:54 > 0:29:58And so this man, with his cultured sophisticated mind
0:29:58 > 0:30:00and his humanitarian values,
0:30:00 > 0:30:06spent a great deal of time calculating the exact height at which to detonate the bomb
0:30:06 > 0:30:10so that it would kill the maximum number of people.
0:30:12 > 0:30:15CLOCK TICKS
0:30:22 > 0:30:24CLOCK TICKS
0:30:27 > 0:30:30TICKING
0:30:35 > 0:30:37TICKING
0:31:05 > 0:31:07PHONE RINGS
0:31:09 > 0:31:12PHONE RINGS
0:31:14 > 0:31:15Oppenheimer.
0:31:18 > 0:31:20Thank you.
0:31:23 > 0:31:28This morning, at 8.16, Japanese time,
0:31:28 > 0:31:32a B-29 bomber was successfully deployed above Hiroshima.
0:31:32 > 0:31:35APPLAUSE
0:32:17 > 0:32:20Hiroshima is a big word.
0:32:20 > 0:32:22This is a big story.
0:32:22 > 0:32:27Let's try and bring it down in scale a bit.
0:32:28 > 0:32:36This is a woman's watch, hands fused to the time of the blast.
0:32:38 > 0:32:45Around 400 young children were here with their ten teachers when the bomb went off,
0:32:45 > 0:32:50and all but one was burned to death immediately.
0:32:51 > 0:32:58In a three-mile radius of the blast, almost everybody suffered fatal burns,
0:32:58 > 0:33:03and, beyond that, there were mass blindings from the flash,
0:33:03 > 0:33:06and then of course came the radiation sickness,
0:33:06 > 0:33:11killing many thousands in the days and weeks and years that followed.
0:33:15 > 0:33:22Stubbornly, incomprehensibly, Japan still refused to surrender,
0:33:22 > 0:33:28so, three days later, a second atomic bomb was dropped, this time on Nagasaki.
0:33:32 > 0:33:36In the two attacks, up to a third of a million people died.
0:33:38 > 0:33:41Now Japan finally admitted defeat.
0:33:45 > 0:33:48On the evening of the 14th of August, 1945,
0:33:48 > 0:33:52the Second World War came to an end.
0:33:56 > 0:34:00There are plenty of places around the world where terrible things happened.
0:34:00 > 0:34:03What makes this one different is the thought
0:34:03 > 0:34:10that what happened to Hiroshima could happen almost anywhere else.
0:34:10 > 0:34:13I certainly grew up in the 1960s and '70s
0:34:13 > 0:34:17thinking that my home town in Scotland and the people I loved
0:34:17 > 0:34:20could be nuclear victims,
0:34:20 > 0:34:24and people were thinking just the same all across America and in Russia
0:34:24 > 0:34:27and France and Germany and many other places.
0:34:28 > 0:34:34"We shall not repeat this evil," says the monument behind me.
0:34:36 > 0:34:41But was this the end of something or was it the beginning?
0:34:42 > 0:34:45We still cannot be sure.
0:34:50 > 0:34:53Dropping the atom bomb changed the world forever,
0:34:53 > 0:34:57and nobody felt the ambiguity of this more than its creator.
0:34:57 > 0:34:59A few weeks afterwards,
0:34:59 > 0:35:04Oppenheimer resigned his post on the nuclear programme.
0:35:04 > 0:35:08Later he reflected openly on his...achievement.
0:35:09 > 0:35:13We have made a thing, a most terrible weapon,
0:35:13 > 0:35:18that has altered abruptly and profoundly the nature of the world.
0:35:20 > 0:35:24A thing that by all standards of the world that we grew up in
0:35:24 > 0:35:26is an evil thing.
0:35:27 > 0:35:29And so by doing,
0:35:29 > 0:35:34we have raised the question of whether science is good for man.
0:35:53 > 0:35:56In later life, Oppenheimer described on television
0:35:56 > 0:36:02how he was haunted by a line he had once read in an ancient Hindu scripture.
0:36:05 > 0:36:09"Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."
0:36:11 > 0:36:14I suppose we all thought that one way or another.
0:36:26 > 0:36:30The nuclear arms race between communists and capitalists
0:36:30 > 0:36:32terrified the world.
0:36:35 > 0:36:39But the horrific promise of mutually assured destruction
0:36:39 > 0:36:44did preserve a fragile peace between the superpowers.
0:36:44 > 0:36:48# Doo-doo-doo-doot, sh-boom
0:36:48 > 0:36:51# Life could be a dream if I could take you up... #
0:36:51 > 0:36:56It allowed the rival systems to test their own economic power,
0:36:56 > 0:37:01and in the West, the sheer energy of capitalism was unleashed as never before,
0:37:01 > 0:37:09producing a gushing abundance of goods, a colourful gloss of material plenty.
0:37:09 > 0:37:12# Life could be a dream if only all my precious dreams... #
0:37:12 > 0:37:15It was a time when everything seemed possible.
0:37:15 > 0:37:17- MISSION CONTROL: - 'This is Apollo Launch Control.'
0:37:17 > 0:37:20'Five, four, three, two...
0:37:21 > 0:37:24'..one.'
0:37:36 > 0:37:39'OK, all flight controllers. Go/no-go for landing.
0:37:39 > 0:37:41- 'Retro. FIDO. Guidance. Control.' - OTHERS:- Go.
0:37:41 > 0:37:44- 'TelCom. GNC. EECOM. Surgeon.' - OTHERS:- Go.
0:37:44 > 0:37:46'CapCom, we are go for landing.'
0:37:46 > 0:37:49'Eagle, Houston. You're go for landing. Over.'
0:37:59 > 0:38:03'OK, Neil, we can see you coming down the ladder now.'
0:38:06 > 0:38:10'It's, er, different, but it's very pretty out here.'
0:38:12 > 0:38:15But as the West went moony,
0:38:15 > 0:38:17on the other side of the earth's great divide,
0:38:17 > 0:38:22daily life was descending into another political nightmare.
0:38:33 > 0:38:37SHOUTING IN MANDARIN
0:38:40 > 0:38:44The People's Republic of China, July 1967.
0:38:46 > 0:38:48Fanatical gangs, known as the Red Guards,
0:38:48 > 0:38:52were hunting down anyone suspected of betraying the ideas
0:38:52 > 0:38:56of the Chinese communist leader, Chairman Mao Ze Dong.
0:38:56 > 0:38:59SHOUTING IN MANDARIN
0:38:59 > 0:39:02The name of this victim, Deng Xiaoping.
0:39:04 > 0:39:07SHOUTING IN MANDARIN
0:39:07 > 0:39:12One day, he'd become the most powerful man in China,
0:39:12 > 0:39:18the leader who would turn the country into the economic powerhouse that it is today.
0:39:18 > 0:39:21SPEAKING MANDARIN
0:39:21 > 0:39:25Deng was one of the original Chinese communists.
0:39:25 > 0:39:26He'd been a guerrilla fighter,
0:39:26 > 0:39:30he'd led armies for Mao from the early days right through to the final victory,
0:39:30 > 0:39:32and Mao liked him a lot.
0:39:32 > 0:39:34He called him "the little man"
0:39:34 > 0:39:39and he'd drawn Deng into the tight group of people who really ran China,
0:39:39 > 0:39:45but now Deng was on his knees being screamed at by the Red Guards,
0:39:45 > 0:39:47the fanatical foot soldiers
0:39:47 > 0:39:51of the wildest social experiment ever to hit modern China,
0:39:51 > 0:39:54the Cultural Revolution.
0:39:54 > 0:39:57(CHANTING)
0:39:57 > 0:40:01The Cultural Revolution meant a vast purge
0:40:01 > 0:40:04of anyone thought to stand in the way
0:40:04 > 0:40:10of Chairman Mao's long march towards a communist utopia.
0:40:10 > 0:40:14Once again, innocent individuals were being sacrificed
0:40:14 > 0:40:19to the big idea of a deluded tyrant.
0:40:19 > 0:40:24Mao called for a war against the Four Olds -
0:40:24 > 0:40:29old thinking, old culture, old customs, old habits.
0:40:29 > 0:40:31CHANTING
0:40:34 > 0:40:39It's estimated that millions of people died in the Cultural Revolution.
0:40:39 > 0:40:45The Chinese government itself says that 100 million people suffered.
0:40:45 > 0:40:51Mao had quite deliberately unleashed social anarchy,
0:40:51 > 0:40:55a war against the past, a war against moderation...
0:40:56 > 0:40:59..a war against common sense.
0:41:07 > 0:41:11Mao's warped economic reforms had led to famines
0:41:11 > 0:41:14in which up to 45 million people died.
0:41:16 > 0:41:19Deng Xiaoping fell foul of Mao's Red Guards
0:41:19 > 0:41:23for daring to suggest there might be a better way of running the economy.
0:41:25 > 0:41:27At the 1961 party conference,
0:41:27 > 0:41:32Deng argued that economic growth mattered more than communist theory
0:41:32 > 0:41:35and he quoted an old peasant saying,
0:41:35 > 0:41:39"It doesn't matter if the cat is black or white.
0:41:39 > 0:41:42"If it catches mice, it's a good cat."
0:41:42 > 0:41:44Now, this was dangerous stuff.
0:41:44 > 0:41:48It suggested that he thought there was an alternative way for China to modernise,
0:41:48 > 0:41:51not necessarily Chairman Mao's way.
0:41:51 > 0:41:54BIRDSONG
0:41:57 > 0:42:00After his public denunciation,
0:42:00 > 0:42:04Deng Xiaoping was exiled to work in a tractor factory.
0:42:09 > 0:42:12Then the Red Guards came looking for his son, Pufang,
0:42:12 > 0:42:15a brilliant student at Beijing University.
0:42:17 > 0:42:20HE GROANS
0:42:27 > 0:42:31He was ordered to confess to his father's treason.
0:42:34 > 0:42:37HE GROANS AND GASPS
0:42:39 > 0:42:42HE GROANS
0:42:44 > 0:42:47HE SPEAKS MANDARIN
0:42:48 > 0:42:53The guards told him, "The window is your only exit."
0:42:53 > 0:42:55BIRDSONG
0:42:57 > 0:43:00HE GASPS
0:43:03 > 0:43:04HE SCREAMS
0:43:04 > 0:43:06THUD
0:43:08 > 0:43:14Pufang was paralysed but was refused proper care in hospital.
0:43:17 > 0:43:21Deng desperately begged for news of his son.
0:43:21 > 0:43:24Eventually, Pufang was sent to join him in exile,
0:43:24 > 0:43:27where the old communist became a good father,
0:43:27 > 0:43:32trying, unsuccessfully, to massage his boy back to health.
0:43:35 > 0:43:36In time, Mao relented,
0:43:36 > 0:43:41and Deng was welcomed back to Beijing as if nothing had happened.
0:43:43 > 0:43:47When Mao died in 1976,
0:43:47 > 0:43:52the great survivor seized the chance of a political comeback.
0:43:56 > 0:44:01Within two years, Deng was the most powerful man in China.
0:44:02 > 0:44:06Deng's moment had come, and what a moment!
0:44:06 > 0:44:13He took China right round towards roaring full-throttle capitalism.
0:44:14 > 0:44:19Under Deng, China's repressive state continued,
0:44:19 > 0:44:21but he began welding together
0:44:21 > 0:44:26the two big ideas that had divided the world in the 20th century.
0:44:26 > 0:44:31For him, capitalism in a communist country wasn't a contradiction.
0:44:31 > 0:44:34It was a pragmatic solution.
0:44:35 > 0:44:40Since Deng's reforms were introduced, China's economy has been growing
0:44:40 > 0:44:45at an average of nearly 10% a year every year.
0:44:45 > 0:44:50It's on track to become the world's biggest economy by 2016.
0:44:54 > 0:44:58But there's a twist to this story, because Deng Xiaoping wasn't the only survivor.
0:44:58 > 0:45:02From his wheelchair, his son, Deng Pufang,
0:45:02 > 0:45:07is today one of the most influential voices in China for humanitarianism
0:45:07 > 0:45:12and, in 2008, he was part of the team behind the Beijing Olympics.
0:45:14 > 0:45:17The father's message was all about economic growth,
0:45:17 > 0:45:19and that is very important.
0:45:19 > 0:45:24But the son's message is about the importance of compassion,
0:45:24 > 0:45:28and, in the end, that may matter more.
0:45:28 > 0:45:31CHATTER, WHOOPS AND WHISTLING
0:45:35 > 0:45:41The great standoff between dynamic capitalism and tottering communism
0:45:41 > 0:45:47came to a dramatic end with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
0:45:47 > 0:45:52With the Cold War over, there was wild talk about the end of history.
0:45:52 > 0:45:55Mao, Stalin and Hitler
0:45:55 > 0:46:01had all attempted to reshape humanity using political terror.
0:46:05 > 0:46:11But now it seemed there was only one way forward - capitalism.
0:46:13 > 0:46:16But history didn't stop.
0:46:16 > 0:46:18Other people were trying to reshape the merely human
0:46:18 > 0:46:25and they included scientists working in the beating heart of capitalism, New York.
0:46:28 > 0:46:32In 1997, a game of chess began.
0:46:33 > 0:46:39The defender, the reigning world chess champion, Garry Kasparov.
0:46:41 > 0:46:46The challenger, a supercomputer built by IBM.
0:46:46 > 0:46:48It had a name.
0:46:48 > 0:46:50Deep Blue.
0:46:50 > 0:46:52- NEWSCASTER:- 'The world of chess is bracing itself
0:46:52 > 0:46:56'for what they're calling the match of the century.'
0:46:56 > 0:47:02The match between man and machine was dubbed "the brain's last stand".
0:47:04 > 0:47:09Chess has always been seen as one of the ultimate tests of human memory
0:47:09 > 0:47:14and concentration and planning and intuition.
0:47:14 > 0:47:18There are said to be more possible moves in a game of chess
0:47:18 > 0:47:21than there are atoms in the universe.
0:47:21 > 0:47:25Human chess players deal with this extraordinary complexity
0:47:25 > 0:47:30by seeing patterns, using their imagination and their intuition.
0:47:30 > 0:47:33Computers can only grind the numbers.
0:47:33 > 0:47:36They have no intuition.
0:47:37 > 0:47:38Or so people thought.
0:47:44 > 0:47:47Kasparov opened the first game with a classic attack.
0:47:51 > 0:47:56An IBM expert was carrying out the moves dictated by the computer.
0:47:57 > 0:48:03A chess genius like Kasparov could calculate three moves a second.
0:48:03 > 0:48:04But in that same second,
0:48:04 > 0:48:10his electronic opponent could process 200 million possible moves.
0:48:19 > 0:48:23The world champion played an aggressive first game.
0:48:24 > 0:48:27After four hours, he'd gained the upper hand.
0:48:28 > 0:48:34If this was the brain's last stand, the brain seemed to be doing pretty well.
0:48:36 > 0:48:38CLICKS TIMER
0:48:38 > 0:48:40Deep Blue conceded defeat.
0:48:43 > 0:48:45AUDIENCE APPLAUDS
0:48:47 > 0:48:50- NEWSCASTER:- 'And Gary Kasparov has won the first game against Deep Blue
0:48:50 > 0:48:52'in fantastic style.'
0:48:55 > 0:48:58The second game was the turning point
0:48:58 > 0:49:01in the match between man and machine.
0:49:05 > 0:49:09Kasparov tried to lure Deep Blue into a trap.
0:49:11 > 0:49:15But the computer didn't take the bait.
0:49:22 > 0:49:23It went quiet.
0:49:29 > 0:49:31It processed its options...
0:49:34 > 0:49:38..for a full 15 minutes.
0:49:41 > 0:49:47Then it ignored the trap and made a brilliant strategic move of its own.
0:49:48 > 0:49:50This was the decisive moment.
0:49:52 > 0:49:56It almost seemed as if the computer had been thinking.
0:49:57 > 0:50:03The great master was being outsmarted by a circuit board.
0:50:09 > 0:50:11Kasparov tried to escape...
0:50:12 > 0:50:15..but every manoeuvre was futile.
0:50:20 > 0:50:21There was no way out.
0:50:23 > 0:50:26The machine had beaten the man.
0:50:28 > 0:50:29AUDIENCE APPLAUD
0:50:29 > 0:50:32- NEWSCASTER: - 'And Kasparov has resigned.'
0:50:39 > 0:50:46Kasparov said later, "Deep Blue sees so deeply, it plays like God."
0:50:48 > 0:50:50VEHICLES SOUND HORNS
0:50:52 > 0:50:58The idea of machines waking up and becoming cleverer than we are
0:50:58 > 0:51:03is something that has long haunted science fiction and Hollywood,
0:51:03 > 0:51:09but it is the cold belief of many scientists that this will happen
0:51:09 > 0:51:13and in the lifetime of many of the people watching this.
0:51:14 > 0:51:19If so, it would be the greatest achievement of humanity
0:51:19 > 0:51:22since the invention of agriculture,
0:51:22 > 0:51:28but it would be one which challenged the very idea of what it is to be human.
0:51:34 > 0:51:39We are now, all of us, living in an age of acceleration,
0:51:39 > 0:51:47a frothing torrent of invention, devices, interconnectedness and smart everything.
0:51:47 > 0:51:52More of us on earth live longer, healthier and wealthier lives
0:51:52 > 0:51:55than our ancestors would have imagined possible.
0:51:58 > 0:52:01But all this consumption hasn't come free.
0:52:02 > 0:52:06We've ripped through rainforests like the Amazon.
0:52:07 > 0:52:12We've caused the extinction of other creatures and we've affected the climate.
0:52:16 > 0:52:20It's hard to imagine the shock early humans would have felt
0:52:20 > 0:52:24if they were suddenly confronted by modern humanity.
0:52:27 > 0:52:31Except that, at the end of the 20th century,
0:52:31 > 0:52:35that is exactly what happened to a small group of Indians
0:52:35 > 0:52:41who'd lived a semi-nomadic lifestyle for thousands of years in South America.
0:52:51 > 0:52:57Parojnai, Ibore and their five children were members of the Ayoreo tribe.
0:53:01 > 0:53:07'We thought that the beast with the metal skin could see us.
0:53:07 > 0:53:12'We thought that it had seen our garden and came to eat the fruit
0:53:12 > 0:53:14'and to eat us too.'
0:53:15 > 0:53:18And of course they were quite right.
0:53:18 > 0:53:23The bulldozer had come to eat their land and their way of life.
0:53:26 > 0:53:29'Parojnai asked me if I was scared of the stranger.
0:53:31 > 0:53:33'I said I'm not scared.
0:53:33 > 0:53:36'So we went to get a closer look.'
0:53:52 > 0:53:54BANGING ON DOOR >
0:54:10 > 0:54:12SHE SPEAKS IN OWN LANGUAGE
0:54:12 > 0:54:15Ibore tried to reassure the stranger.
0:54:15 > 0:54:17"There's no reason to run," she said.
0:54:17 > 0:54:18"We are good people."
0:54:18 > 0:54:20HE SPEAKS IN OWN LANGUAGE
0:54:33 > 0:54:34Fernando.
0:54:35 > 0:54:38Hey?
0:54:39 > 0:54:41They may have been separated
0:54:41 > 0:54:44by thousands of years of human development,
0:54:44 > 0:54:52but on both sides, their tastes, their needs, proved humanly familiar.
0:54:53 > 0:54:57Decoration, nice things, a shared humanity.
0:54:57 > 0:54:59LAUGHTER
0:54:59 > 0:55:01Barcelona, Barcelona!
0:55:01 > 0:55:04Yeah, Barcelona. You know football.
0:55:14 > 0:55:19Under the layers of experience that we call progress,
0:55:19 > 0:55:22we're still driven by the same instincts and desires
0:55:22 > 0:55:26that ruled us right at the beginning of the human story.
0:55:26 > 0:55:30Today we're armed with gadgets, computers, phones,
0:55:30 > 0:55:32and what do we do with them?
0:55:32 > 0:55:37The same shopping, gossiping, consuming
0:55:37 > 0:55:41and sometimes protesting that we've always done.
0:55:43 > 0:55:48Only now there are seven billion of us and rising rapidly.
0:55:48 > 0:55:50Either we manage differently,
0:55:50 > 0:55:57no longer devouring quite so much so fast of the earth's natural resources,
0:55:57 > 0:56:00or we'll have to shrink our numbers.
0:56:04 > 0:56:11So, the decisions we make in the next 50 years may well decide our fate.
0:56:12 > 0:56:18I'm in what's said to be the largest shantytown in South America,
0:56:18 > 0:56:24and yet it's also got a dynamic vibrant democracy, producing growth.
0:56:24 > 0:56:27This is a shantytown on the way up.
0:56:27 > 0:56:30It's got a bit of law and order. It's got some businesses.
0:56:30 > 0:56:35Now, Brazil is going to be one of the most important countries in the world
0:56:35 > 0:56:37in the century ahead.
0:56:37 > 0:56:41If they can get the balance between a better life and democracy
0:56:41 > 0:56:44without destroying the environment...
0:56:44 > 0:56:49Big if, but if they can get that balance right here in Brazil,
0:56:49 > 0:56:52then perhaps mankind can get it right.
0:56:56 > 0:57:01But getting it right must mean drawing on our past experience.
0:57:01 > 0:57:07What else have we got to learn from but our history, all of our history?
0:57:07 > 0:57:09The history of the world.
0:57:11 > 0:57:14Homo sapiens means "wise man".
0:57:14 > 0:57:16Really?
0:57:16 > 0:57:18Clever, certainly.
0:57:18 > 0:57:22Our technical accomplishments, awesome.
0:57:22 > 0:57:27We understand our planet, the origins of our universe, even ourselves,
0:57:27 > 0:57:29as we've never done before,
0:57:29 > 0:57:31and we live in societies
0:57:31 > 0:57:35much less violent than most of those you've seen in this series.
0:57:35 > 0:57:43But we are still deadly dangerous, very greedy and bad at looking ahead.
0:57:43 > 0:57:48I'd say we're a clever ape in a spot of bother.
0:57:48 > 0:57:53Societies have faced catastrophe before and found ways through them,
0:57:53 > 0:57:56and there's no reason why we can't do the same.
0:57:57 > 0:57:59But at the end of this series,
0:57:59 > 0:58:04the only absolutely clear and safe prediction that I can give you
0:58:04 > 0:58:11is that the most interesting part of human history lies just ahead.
0:58:19 > 0:58:24If you'd like to know a little bit more about how the past is revealed,
0:58:24 > 0:58:27you can order a free booklet called How Do They Know That?
0:58:27 > 0:58:32Just call:
0:58:32 > 0:58:38Or go to:
0:58:38 > 0:58:41and follow the links to the Open University.
0:58:48 > 0:58:51Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd