El 15 de noviembre de 1532, 168 conquistadores españoles llegan a la ciudad santa de Cajamarca, en el corazón del Imperio Inca, en Perú.
Agotados, superados en número y aterrorizados, tienen delante de ellos acampadas 80.000 tropas incas y la comitiva del propio emperador.
Sin embargo, en sólo 24 horas, más de 7.000 guerreros incas yacen muertos; el Emperador languidece en cadenas y los europeos victoriosos comienzan un régimen de terror colonial que barrerá el continente americano.
Agotados, superados en número y aterrorizados, tienen delante de ellos acampadas 80.000 tropas incas y la comitiva del propio emperador.
Sin embargo, en sólo 24 horas, más de 7.000 guerreros incas yacen muertos; el Emperador languidece en cadenas y los europeos victoriosos comienzan un régimen de terror colonial que barrerá el continente americano.
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00:00A day in November, 1532, the New and the Old World collided.
00:20168 Spaniards attacked the imperial army of the Incas in the highlands of Peru.
00:27And before the end of the day, they had massacred 7,000 people to take control of that empire.
00:36Not a single Spaniard lost his life in the process.
00:43Why was the balance of power between the New and the Old World so unbalanced?
00:49And why, in the centuries that followed, were the Europeans who conquered so many parts of the planet?
00:57These questions fascinate Professor Jared Diamond.
01:02This man has started an investigation to find out the origins of power.
01:08And to achieve his goal, he is looking for clues in the most unusual places.
01:14Diamond has developed a very original theory.
01:18He argues that what separates the winners from the losers is the land, the geography.
01:28It was the shape of the continents and their crops and animals that allowed certain cultures to flourish, while others lagged behind.
01:38But does this way of seeing the world shed any light on the events of 1532?
01:49How does geography explain the conquest of the planet through weapons, germs and steel?
02:07WEAPONS, GERMS AND STEEL
02:18Weapons, Germs and Steel. The Conquest.
02:37CONQUEST
02:46A group of Spanish conquerors spent two years traveling in search of gold and glory.
02:55They were not professional soldiers, but mercenaries and adventurers led by a retired army captain named Francisco Pizarro.
03:07After amassing a fortune in the colonies of Central America, Pizarro and his men headed south and entered an unknown territory.
03:19They were the first Europeans to climb the Andes and settled in the South American continent.
03:25In their advance, they found evidence of the existence of a great native civilization.
03:31They had reached the limits of the powerful Inca Empire.
03:41That encounter was the beginning of a new era in the history of the world.
03:46The Inca Empire.
03:54That encounter was, for both the Indians and the Spaniards, a clash of cultures.
04:02The Indians had never seen a white man before and had no idea of the threat he posed.
04:08They did not imagine that in a matter of days those foreigners would devastate their world.
04:26In the 1530s, the Inca Empire was huge.
04:30It covered an area of 4,000 km that extended along the Andes from the current Ecuador to the center of Chile.
04:41But only 800 km north began the colonies of Central America and the Caribbean, valuable possessions of the Spanish Empire.
04:54At that time, the king of Spain controlled a third of continental Europe.
04:59But the truth is that not long ago, Spain itself had become a unified state after seven centuries of fighting the Islamic occupation.
05:15Spain was still a rural society.
05:18Most of the conquerors came from villages and small towns like Trujillo, where Pizarro grew up.
05:28Francisco Pizarro spent much of his childhood here, working as a porter in the surrounding fields.
05:38Today he is remembered as a great warrior.
05:42His statue dominates the central square of Trujillo and his family's house has become a museum.
05:49Jared Diamond has come here to delve into the world of the conquerors in order to understand the secret of their success.
06:08This is Francisco Pizarro, a Spanish conqueror of the most powerful state in the New World.
06:14The Inca Empire.
06:16But why did Pizarro and his men become the Incas and not the Arabs?
06:21It seems like a simple question, but the answer is not so obvious.
06:26After all, Pizarro started out as an ordinary person, and Trujillo is a fairly normal population.
06:34So where did this man and his subordinates get such great power?
06:39You may wonder why I am so interested in the conquerors of Pizarro.
06:45The reason is that their history is a sadly perfect example of European conquest.
06:52And I have been studying the guidelines of the conquests for 30 years.
06:58I have been studying the history of the conquests for 30 years.
07:01And I have been studying the guidelines of the conquests for 30 years.
07:08Jared Diamond works as a professor at the University of Los Angeles,
07:12but he has done most of his fieldwork in Papua New Guinea.
07:23The time he spent there gave him the idea of exploring the roots of the Inca civilization.
07:28The time he spent there gave him the idea of exploring the roots of the Inca civilization.
07:34In order to try to understand why some peoples have managed to dominate and conquer others.
07:47Diamond maintains that thousands of years ago,
07:50the ability to work the land gave certain cultures a huge advantage.
07:55And that those who had the fortune of having the most productive crops and animals,
08:00became the most fruitful farmers.
08:05Agriculture began to develop in an area of the Middle East,
08:09known as the Fertile Crescent.
08:12Over time, the crops and animals of that region spread through North Africa and Europe,
08:18where they gave rise to an explosion of civilization.
08:25The Fertile Crescent
08:46In the 16th century, in European farms,
08:50the breeding animals of the Fertile Crescent were predominant.
08:54None were native to Europe.
09:01From them, man obtained meat, but also milk, wool, leather and manure.
09:07And the most important thing is that those beings were able to develop great strength.
09:13A horse or a ox could transform the productivity of the farmlands.
09:25This allowed European farmers to grow more food to supply more people,
09:30who, in turn, could build larger and more complex societies.
09:43In the New World, there were no horses or breeding animals
09:47suitable for collaborating in agricultural cultivation.
09:50All the work had to be done by hand.
09:53The only large domestic animal was the llama,
09:57but those docile creatures have never been given a harness.
10:03The Incas had a special ability to grow potatoes and corn.
10:07However, given their geographical location,
10:09they were not as productive as European farmers.
10:17The fact that horses could be mounted
10:20gave the Europeans another important advantage.
10:28For the Incas, the vision of the conquerors of Pizarro
10:31crossing their lands must have been something extraordinary.
10:40They had never seen a person riding an animal before,
10:44so they thought that those strange-looking men,
10:48half-humans, half-beasts, were gods.
10:52The horses that impacted the Incas so much
10:55had been in use in Spain for 4,000 years.
11:01And in an era prior to motor transport,
11:04they allowed people to move,
11:07and they were able to carry heavy loads.
11:22And control their territories.
11:45When Javier Martín is not gathering the cattle with his horse,
11:48he offers exhibitions in the traditional riding style.
11:54This riding style is called jineta,
11:57and is based on the control and mobility of the animal.
12:01It involves carrying the knees bent and glued to the sides of the horse,
12:06and holding the reins with one hand.
12:10It is a totally different style from medieval knights,
12:14much more formal.
12:18In the 16th century, the jineta style
12:21was already the most used by the Spanish knights.
12:27And surely this is how the conquerors mounted their horses.
12:36To see how a person controls such a large animal with such precision,
12:40making it stop, starting and turning again,
12:44is an extraordinary spectacle.
12:46Javier has told me that he has been riding since he was five years old,
12:50and after looking at this exhibition,
12:53he understands better the origins of the conquerors.
12:56They mastered these techniques to perfection,
12:59and although they were learned to work with bulls,
13:02they were also very useful in the military.
13:05The control they exerted over the animals was such
13:08that it is not difficult to imagine them running over their rivals in the open spaces.
13:12The scene must have been explosive
13:14for all those who had never seen a horse.
13:17Surely they caused amazement and terror among their opponents,
13:21before even throwing themselves at them to run over them,
13:24nail their spears and kill them.
13:32A royal messenger brought the news of the arrival of foreigners
13:36with the appearance of gods mounted on four-legged animals
13:40to the emperor of the Incas,
13:42who was camping in the valley of Cajamarca, north of Peru,
13:46guarded by an army of 80,000 men.
13:55Atahualpa was revered as a living god,
13:58a son of the sun itself.
14:05And he was in Cajamarca,
14:08performing a religious retreat,
14:10to make a series of military triumphs,
14:13recently harvested.
14:22When the advance of the Spaniards was communicated to him,
14:25instead of ordering his death, he sent them a message.
14:36He invited them to meet him in Cajamarca as soon as possible.
14:41Atahualpa wanted the Spaniards to fall into a trap when they came to Cajamarca.
14:53And to make sure it was so,
14:56he started a kind of psychological game with them,
14:59sending them presents so that they would agree to meet him.
15:06Atahualpa knew that the Spaniards were not gods.
15:11In intelligence reports,
15:14it is mentioned that those people wore a face covered in wool,
15:17or something similar, like lambs or alpacas.
15:20They describe them as animals.
15:23It is also said that they went from one place to another with a kind of bowl,
15:26which had never been used to cook, at the top of the head.
15:32You have to be crazy to walk around with a bowl on your head.
15:36But of course, it is even worse not to use it to cook.
15:40When they arrived at a camp,
15:43Atahualpa thought that those beings were subhumans.
15:49And what could a couple of horsemen and hundreds of Spaniards do
15:52against the powerful Inca Empire?
15:55In theory, nothing.
16:01But Atahualpa's spies did not repair
16:04that the Spaniards possessed some of the best weapons in the world.
16:11At the time of the conquistadors,
16:14Spain had the largest army in Europe,
16:17led from the capital of the empire, Toledo.
16:24The Spaniards had been at war with the Muslims for more than 700 years,
16:28and with other European armies.
16:40In the old continent, an armament race was held,
16:44and to survive, they had to stay at the forefront of armament technology.
16:55In the 1530s, the bow was a very important element of the Spanish arsenal.
17:02The gunpowder was invented in China,
17:05but it was the Arabs who began to use it as a weapon.
17:10In European hands, the weapons became lighter and easier to transport,
17:15and for the first time, they were used by infantry soldiers in the battlefield.
17:24The bow was still a fairly rudimentary instrument,
17:28despite which it would change the face of the war.
17:31Probably to those of us who live in the modern era,
17:34it seems to us that this weapon was useless,
17:36that it was like a lie.
17:38It was very difficult to hit the target with it and reload it,
17:41it was a fairly long process,
17:43so much so that while the shooter was preparing it for a new shot,
17:46a swordsman could come from behind and kill him.
17:49However, the Incas had not even reached this point,
17:52so a weapon like this, with its sound, its smell and all that smoke,
17:55would surely terrify anyone who had not seen something like this before.
17:59It must have been exciting and scary, like 1532.
18:06But it was not.
18:21Despite its spectacularity, the technology of gunpowder
18:24was still taking its first steps.
18:27The true power of the conquerors
18:30was in another aspect, specifically in the production of steel.
18:36In Toledo there were some of the best sword makers in the world.
18:41But why were they able to create such steel weapons,
18:45while the Incas only had simple bronze instruments?
18:54The Europeans had no innate quality,
18:57especially brilliant,
18:59that would justify that they were the only ones able to create high-quality swords.
19:07Like firearms,
19:09swords were the result of a long process of trial and error,
19:13which began 7,000 years ago outside of Europe,
19:16in the Fertile Crescent, to be more exact.
19:22That was where the human being began to work with metal.
19:26Due to the geographical proximity,
19:29the Europeans inherited this technology
19:32and raised it to new levels,
19:33supported by the demands of the European soldiers,
19:36who required more solid, long and sharp swords.
19:46This is a Toledan sword once finished.
19:49This particular one is a reproduction of the one that Pizarro carried,
19:52and it's a fearsome weapon.
19:54It's a fierce weapon.
19:56They would stab the enemies, and it's also a slash,
19:59and it's one stand,
20:00so it could kill a dozen people within a short time.
20:08Swords like this,
20:10which are called rope swords,
20:12were a culmination of a technology of extremely sophisticated metal.
20:16You think about what qualities a sword must have.
20:19First of all, it has to be hard enough.
20:22Metal has to be hard enough to take a sharp edge,
20:25and that's where steel is needed,
20:27which is an alloy of iron and carbon.
20:30The greater the content of carbon in the iron,
20:33the harder the steel will be.
20:35But an excessively resistant material
20:37is also more brittle,
20:39which is not good because when hitting someone with a sword,
20:42it could break.
20:44In addition, the blade must have some flexibility.
20:46It must be able to bend and regain its shape,
20:50and that is achieved by heating it to certain temperatures,
20:53then immersing it in water.
20:54It took many centuries of endless experiments
20:57to get to the level of sophistication
20:59that would allow for such a long, elegant, fine and lethal weapon
21:03as the rope sword.
21:12At first, this type of very long-blade sword
21:15was created as a duel weapon,
21:17but it became very fashionable in the Europe of the Renaissance.
21:20It was the artifact chosen by all the great swordsmen.
21:24The word rope sword has its origins in Spain,
21:27and it was precisely there where, for the first time,
21:30people began to see swords with everyday clothes,
21:33with civilian clothes,
21:35in their daily occupations.
21:37In the Middle Ages, they were not used to doing it.
21:40It was a practice that began in the 16th century.
21:43For men, it was a form of self-affirmation.
21:46Carrying the weapon, they made it clear that they were great gentlemen,
21:50that they were great warriors,
21:51carrying the weapon, they made it clear that they were great gentlemen,
21:54and that they were ascending in society,
21:56and they claimed their belonging to the lineage of the knights of the Middle Ages.
22:00The sword was largely a symbol of the desire for power
22:04of the aspiring conquerors.
22:06What drove them to overcome all kinds of penalties,
22:10what pushed them to leave for America,
22:12was their greed,
22:14their desire to find gold,
22:16and their desire to progress.
22:18And the rope sword symbolized the perfection
22:21of the very avarice.
22:31On November 15, 1532,
22:34the group of adventurers, led by Pizarro,
22:37entered the valley of Cajamarca.
22:44They had been told that Atahualpa was waiting for them there,
22:47but they were not prepared for the welcome
22:49that the Incas gave them.
22:55In the hills located behind the city of Cajamarca,
22:58was the imperial army,
23:0080,000 men in combat formation.
23:10In their diaries, the conquerors themselves
23:13left evidence of their first impressions.
23:19Their camp looked like a beautiful city.
23:22Until then, we had not seen anything similar in the Indies,
23:26and we were scared because we were very few,
23:29and we had gone deep into those lands.
23:37Pizarro sent a game formed by his best riders
23:41to the heart of the Inca camp.
23:45The march opened to the captain of Soto.
23:50Ignoring if Atahualpa would allow them to cross the camp
23:54without causing them any harm,
23:57but they decided to take the risk and go to meet them.
24:04The visit of Soto had an important psychological purpose.
24:09Intimidate the Inca ruler in front of his own people.
24:13Challenge him with the horse.
24:19At first, Atahualpa did not react to the presence of Soto.
24:23He acted as if there was no one there.
24:28When the horse was placed in front of the Inca,
24:31he did not even move,
24:34thus demonstrating that the animal
24:37was not impressed by the slightest thing,
24:40and throwing to the ground the plans of the captain.
24:43Atahualpa, the captain of Soto,
24:45and throwing to the ground the plans of the captain.
24:50From Soto this situation advanced so close to him
24:53that the air that expelled the horse through the hollars
24:55moved the fringes of the adornment that the Inca shone on his forehead.
24:58But he did not move.
25:05After a few moments,
25:07after a brief silence,
25:09Atahualpa shouted.
25:16He told them that the time had come to pay for what they had done.
25:22I guess he shouted that it was going to cost them their lives.
25:39As is logical, Soto was very nervous,
25:42and returned terrified to the camp.
25:46From what we know,
25:48the Spaniards spent the night before terrified by the panic.
26:03The conquerors had established their camp in the city of Cajamarca,
26:07and by then,
26:09almost everyone was convinced
26:11that they would never hear from them again.
26:13After all,
26:15there were only 168 soldiers,
26:171,600 kilometers from any compatriot,
26:20facing an army made up of 80,000 Incas.
26:25Few of us could sleep that night.
26:28We spent hours walking through the square
26:31from which we saw the bonfires of the Indian army camp.
26:34It was a terrifying image.
26:36It looked like a starry night.
26:44Pizarro and the officers he trusted the most
26:47debated their options to face Atahualpa.
26:54Some advised prudence,
26:56but Pizarro insisted that his best chance
26:59was to launch a surprise attack the next day.
27:02That tactic had always worked successfully in the past.
27:10Twelve years before Pizarro arrived in Peru,
27:13another famous conqueror, Hernán Cortés,
27:16entered Mexico and discovered an extraordinary civilization,
27:20the Aztec.
27:24Cortés conquered the country,
27:26kidnapping the leader of that people
27:28and taking advantage of the subsequent chaos.
27:31The story of Hernán Cortés was published some time later.
27:34The book received great acceptance
27:37and became an essential manual
27:39for any aspirant to conquer.
27:41The book is still kept in the magnificent library
27:44of the University of Salamanca in Spain.
27:53This wonderful library
27:55could be considered, among other things,
27:58a treasure trove of strategies,
28:00because in these books
28:02it is narrated what certain generals did to others
28:05for thousands of years in the past
28:07and throughout Eurasia.
28:11Here, in this library,
28:13we have a famous story of the conquest of Mexico
28:16in which all the tactics
28:18that Cortés successfully deployed
28:20in his confrontation with the Aztecs are detailed.
28:23Pizarro took them as a reference
28:25to know how to act with the Incas.
28:27These, on the other hand,
28:29were transmitted in oral knowledge.
28:31The Incas were quite naive
28:33and lacked all sophistication
28:35due to the lack of a written tradition.
28:42But if the books were so useful,
28:44why didn't they know how to read or write the Incas?
28:53The creation of a new system
28:55of independent writing
28:57is an extremely complex process
28:59that has taken place on rare occasions
29:01in human history.
29:03The first to succeed in culminating it
29:05was the Sumerian people
29:07in the Fertile Crescent,
29:09at least 5,000 years ago.
29:11They developed an elaborate system of symbols
29:13that received the name
29:15of cuneiform writing
29:17and whose purpose, possibly,
29:19was to register agricultural transactions.
29:21Since then,
29:23almost all other written languages
29:25in Europe and Asia
29:27have copied, adapted
29:29or simply taken as a reference
29:31the foundations of the cuneiform system.
29:35The diffusion of writing
29:37was largely contributed
29:39by the invention of paper,
29:41a type of ink
29:43that was used to write
29:45and to write on paper.
29:47All these innovations
29:49emerged outside of Europe,
29:51but the inhabitants of the Old Continent
29:53adopted them in the Middle Ages
29:55to create the most extraordinary vehicle
29:57for the transmission of knowledge,
29:59the printing press.
30:06From then on,
30:08the word written
30:09began to spread at full speed
30:11and with great precision
30:13throughout Europe and Asia.
30:15The modern world
30:17would not have become
30:19what it is without writing.
30:24But in another corner of the world
30:26a new writing system
30:28was independently invented.
30:32At least 2,500 years ago,
30:34in southern Mexico,
30:36the native peoples
30:37developed a way of working with symbols
30:39that would later lead
30:41to the Mayan writing.
30:44But if the Mayans knew how to write,
30:46why did they not spread their knowledge
30:48to the south of the Andes
30:50and help the Incas to cultivate?
30:56In the opinion of Diamond,
30:58the explanation lies
31:00in the shape of the continents.
31:05Here are Europe
31:07and Asia,
31:09which formed Eurasia,
31:11a gigantic continent from east to west
31:13and narrower from north to south.
31:16The American continent,
31:18on the other hand,
31:20has a longer shape,
31:22it goes from north to south
31:24and its dimensions are narrower
31:26from east to west,
31:28especially in Panama,
31:30where it is less than 160 km wide.
31:32The two continents
31:34have the same length,
31:35but Eurasia extends
31:37from east to west
31:39and America from north to south.
31:41It is as if one had rotated 90 degrees
31:43with respect to the other.
31:47Diamond has already shown
31:49that crops and animals
31:51expanded without problems
31:53to the east and west
31:55throughout Eurasia.
31:57And it is that in places
31:59located in the same latitude
32:01the days last the same
32:03and the climate and vegetation
32:06are different.
32:08But in the American continent
32:10the opposite happened.
32:12Going from one end to the other
32:14implied traveling from north to south,
32:16going through regions
32:18in which the days
32:20have a different duration,
32:22with different climatic areas
32:24and a different vegetation.
32:30These basic differences
32:32prevented the projection
32:33of crops, animals,
32:35people, ideas and technologies.
32:42The inhabitants of the Andes
32:44suffered from chronic isolation.
32:46They had no access to writing
32:48and many other innovations
32:50from the rest of the continent.
32:53Instead, Pizarro and his men
32:55enjoyed a geographical blessing.
32:59As Spaniards,
33:01they took advantage of all the benefits
33:03of the technologies and ideas
33:05that had been transmitted
33:07without problems by Eurasia.
33:13In the events of 1532
33:15very profound causes influenced
33:17on which neither the Spaniards
33:19nor the Incas had any control.
33:25The shape of the continents,
33:27the distribution of plants and animals
33:30and the dissemination of Eurasia technology
33:32were facts that depended on geography.
33:36And in almost all the episodes
33:38of this story,
33:40geography leaned in favor of the Europeans.
34:02In the 19th century,
34:04the European Union
34:06declared a state of emergency
34:08in order to prevent
34:10the spread of Eurasia.
34:12The European Union
34:14decided to stop
34:16the spread of Eurasia
34:18in order to prevent
34:20the spread of Eurasia
34:22in order to prevent
34:24the spread of Eurasia
34:26in order to prevent
34:28the spread of Eurasia
34:30on November 16, 1532.
34:37Atahualpa had agreed
34:39to meet the Spaniards
34:41that morning in the city of Cajamarca.
34:47His entourage preceded him.
34:50However, he made a fatal decision.
34:53He ordered his soldiers
34:55to be disarmed.
34:59The Indians were musicians and dancers.
35:01They were soldiers,
35:03but without weapons.
35:05Why did Atahualpa disarm
35:07his own soldiers?
35:09Because that was a happy day,
35:11a day of celebration.
35:13The ruler did not go to war
35:15but to a party.
35:17His goal was
35:19that all the people
35:21saw how those supposed gods
35:23were fleeing terrified.
35:25The fact that some people
35:27believed that the Spaniards
35:29were gods
35:31was very convenient
35:33for Atahualpa's interests.
35:35He knew it was not true,
35:37but if the people thought
35:39that he had defeated
35:41some deities,
35:43he would be with him.
35:45And if he also defeated
35:47the Spaniards
35:49without showing any strength,
35:51his subjects would consider him
35:52a traitor.
36:04Atahualpa and his men
36:06entered Cajamarca.
36:08The Spaniards were waiting for them.
36:13There were five or six thousand men
36:15and behind them
36:17appeared the figure of Atahualpa.
36:19The ruler was sitting
36:20in a luxurious litter
36:22adorned with feathers,
36:24gold and silver.
36:26Many of us urinated
36:28over how scared we were.
36:35The men of Atahualpa
36:37occupied the entire square,
36:39but there was not a single
36:41Spaniard in sight.
36:46The sovereign Inca asked,
36:48Where are these dogs?
36:50One of his trusted officers
36:52replied,
36:54They have run away
36:56because they are afraid
36:58of the Inca magnificence.
37:00As expected,
37:02the crowd heard those words
37:04and believed them to be true.
37:09Then Pizarro ordered
37:11his priest
37:13to confront Atahualpa.
37:15The conquerors were forced
37:17to try to convert
37:18the native peoples
37:20before resorting to violence.
37:37My power
37:39comes from my lord.
37:41His words are written
37:43in this book.
37:49What do you want?
37:53Atahualpa had never seen a book
37:55and did not know what to do with it.
38:02What do you want?
38:04I am the king of the Inca.
38:07I am the king of the Inca.
38:13How dare you, Indian dog?
38:15Get out of Spain
38:16Get out of Spain
38:18Destroy these dogs
38:20who do not respect the things of God.
38:22Santiago, them!
38:29Then,
38:31with the crowd
38:33totally unprepared,
38:35the horses appeared
38:37and panicked.
38:46Just imagine the scene
38:48that took place in Cajamarca.
38:50The Incas had never seen horses before
38:52and those who carried the conquerors
38:54were not ordinary normal horses
38:56but great and fierce Spanish fighting horses.
38:58The animals took a step
39:00among those present,
39:02stomped them and became
39:04an extraordinary platform for the fight.
39:06From their mount, the Spaniards
39:08could handle the sword
39:10with their left and right hands
39:12and cut, stab and cut
39:14everything that was around them.
39:16If they had known
39:18that in front of the cavalry
39:20it is best to remain firm,
39:22they would have imposed themselves on their attackers
39:24because they were much superior in number
39:26but they ignored it
39:28and began to flee in a disordered way
39:30under the circumstance
39:32that they took advantage of the riders
39:34to mix with them
39:36and kill them with their swords.
39:38There was an Inca god
39:40called Viracocha.
39:42He was the god of thunder
39:44and was represented as a white man
39:46with his arquebuses
39:48the very incarnation of Viracocha.
39:59The Atahualpa Inca
40:01continued sitting on the litter
40:03that his lords held.
40:06As soon as they could
40:08the Spaniards went after him
40:10and they started to kill the carriers.
40:14But if one fell
40:16another replaced him.
40:23Only when that tragedy
40:25was about to reach its end
40:27the chair began to shake
40:29because there were no more carriers left.
40:40When the litter fell
40:42Pizarro himself captured Atahualpa.
40:46His plan had worked perfectly.
41:00The conquerors transferred the Inca ruler
41:03to an improvised prison
41:05in the royal dependencies of Cajamarca.
41:08He thought we were going to kill him
41:10but we got him out of his mistake
41:12because Christians can only kill
41:14in the heat of battle.
41:17Atahualpa Inca
41:28Outside there were thousands of dead Incas.
41:33The rest of the army retreated to the hills.
41:39Despite the great difference in numbers
41:41the horses, the swords
41:43and the strategy of the Spaniards
41:44were decisive.
41:51In addition, although they ignored it
41:54the conquerors had another weapon
41:56an invisible weapon of massive destruction
41:59that had preceded them.
42:08Today the war against infectious diseases
42:11is fought in biological research centers
42:14like the one in Porton Down
42:16in southern England.
42:19Vaccines are produced there
42:21against the deadliest viruses in the world.
42:28But in the 16th century
42:30there were no vaccines or protection
42:32against the rapid spread of infectious diseases.
42:35Twelve years before Pizarro arrived in Cajamarca
42:38a Spanish ship arrived in Mexico.
42:48One of the slaves on board
42:50had the initial symptoms of a fever.
43:05He was the first person
43:07who brought a lethal disease
43:09to the American continent.
43:11That disease was the smallpox.
43:17In several weeks
43:19the smallpox virus spread from a single source
43:21infecting thousands of American natives.
43:25Smallpox is introduced in the body
43:27when the person breathes the particles of the virus.
43:30These are installed in the back of the throat
43:32and inside the lungs.
43:34About two to three days after the infection
43:36the classic smallpox appears.
43:38In the most serious cases
43:40the whole body is covered with granites
43:42which later become huge blisters.
43:46In the end, those classic smallpox lesions
43:48invade the entire skin
43:50starting with the hands and the face.
43:57From that time on
43:59the patient enters a highly infectious phase
44:00because in the blisters
44:02there are endless particles of the smallpox
44:04and if those blisters open
44:06the liquid inside
44:08transmits the virus to everything it touches.
44:19Ten or twelve days later
44:21his friends would get sick
44:23and ten or twelve days later
44:25his friends' friends would get sick
44:27so the rate of spread is exponential.
44:30Its rate of infection
44:32would grow rapidly
44:34and its effects on the population
44:36would be devastating.
44:44The first smallpox epidemic in the New World
44:47spread through Central America
44:49and reached the Inca Empire.
44:54Wherever it went
44:56the virus decimated the native populations
44:57making the business even easier
44:59for the Spanish conquistadors.
45:06But why did the germans
45:08only attack one side?
45:11Why did the Spanish
45:13transmit their diseases to the Incas
45:15and not the other way around?
45:23What you see here
45:25was Pizarro's secret weapon.
45:27Pigs and cows.
45:29Sheep and goats.
45:31In short, domestic animals.
45:33Remember that Pizarro
45:35was a porker.
45:37He grew up in huts like this
45:39and lived in close contact
45:41with domestic animals
45:43breathing their germs
45:45and drinking their milk.
45:47From these germs
45:49the diseases that cause the most damage
45:51to humans evolved.
45:53For example, our flu
45:55which is caused by a disease
45:57called smallpox.
45:59Those creatures
46:01transmitted smallpox
46:03so the worst killer of humans
46:05was actually the 10,000 year legacy
46:07of close contact
46:09with our beloved domestic animals.
46:14During the Middle Ages
46:16infectious diseases
46:18spread throughout Europe
46:20and claimed millions of lives.
46:25But paradoxically
46:27the repeated epidemics
46:29increased the resistance of Europeans.
46:33In each new outbreak
46:35there was always someone
46:37genetically more capable
46:39to fight the virus.
46:42Those people had more
46:44chances of surviving
46:46and by having children
46:48they transmitted their genetic resistance.
46:53Over the centuries
46:55entire populations
46:57were protected
46:59from the spread of diseases
47:01such as smallpox
47:03a protection that the Incas
47:05never had.
47:08When smallpox came to the New World
47:10no one had ever seen
47:12a disease like this
47:14so the number of susceptible people
47:16to be affected was much higher.
47:18In addition there was no natural immunity
47:20so the number of infected
47:22and transmitting people
47:24would also be noticeably higher
47:26The percentage of deaths
47:28and possible sick people
47:30experienced a pronounced increase.
47:32The disease spread rapidly
47:34among the population
47:36and caused many deaths.
47:42Why, until then,
47:44had the Native Americans
47:46never seen their faces
47:48with smallpox?
47:50And why did they not have
47:52their own diseases
47:53such as smallpox?
47:55Simply because
47:57they had not lived
47:59the same history
48:01of contact with farm animals.
48:03The Incas had flames
48:05but those creatures
48:07are not like the cows
48:09and European sheep.
48:11They are not milked
48:13they do not form large herds
48:15and they do not live in stables
48:17and sheds with humans.
48:19For this reason
48:21between the flames
48:23and the animals
48:25there was no contact.
48:27The key to the Diamond argument
48:29is the distribution
48:31of domesticated animals
48:33around the world.
48:35Apart from the flame
48:37large farm animals
48:39were native to Eurasia
48:41and North Africa.
48:43In North America,
48:45Sub-Saharan Africa
48:47or Australia
48:49no animal was ever domesticated.
48:50These epidemics
48:52also have their origins
48:54in Eurasia and North Africa
48:56from where they spread
48:58around the world
49:00with lethal effects.
49:05The number of indigenous people
49:07who died during
49:09the Spanish conquest
49:11of the New World
49:13is a question
49:15that has aroused
49:17a great debate.
49:18There are more than 20 million natives
49:20of which the vast majority
49:22maybe 95%
49:24died from diseases
49:26that came from the Old World.
49:28A continent lost
49:30almost all of its inhabitants.
49:41After delivering
49:4320 tons of gold and silver
49:45to their captors
49:46it was no longer useful for them.
49:59They executed him with a stick
50:01in the same square
50:03where so many of his followers
50:05were killed 8 months earlier.
50:13With Atahualpa dead
50:14the conquistadors
50:16launched the colonization
50:18of the rest of Peru
50:20trusting in the power
50:22of their weapons,
50:24germs and steel.
50:32The gold from the Spanish colonies
50:34was sent to Seville
50:36in the south of Spain.
50:39Today in the Guadalquivir river
50:41there is not much activity
50:42but in the 16th century
50:44this was one of the most
50:46crowded and important ports
50:48in the world.
50:50A constant flow of ships
50:52transporting treasures
50:54from the Americas
50:56helped Spain to become
50:58one of the richest nations
51:00on earth.
51:02The conquistadors
51:04changed forever the relationship
51:06between the New World
51:08and the Old World.
51:10I came to Spain
51:12with a question
51:14why did Pizarro and his men
51:16conquer the Incas
51:18and not the other way around?
51:20There is a whole myth
51:22about this process of conquest
51:24according to which
51:26the European expansion
51:28was the result of the great
51:30bravery, wisdom,
51:32intelligence and ingenuity
51:34of the Europeans
51:36although the truth
51:38is that it had nothing to do
51:40with the personal qualities
51:42due to its geographical location
51:44and history
51:46they were the first to develop
51:48weapons, germs and steel.
51:54At the end of the 19th century
51:56the European powers
51:58had left behind
52:00the American continent
52:02and colonized Africa,
52:04Australia and much of Asia.
52:08The process that began
52:10in Cajamarca
52:12led to its logical conclusion
52:18the weapons, germs
52:20and steel of the Europeans
52:22were remodeling the world.