Mankind: The Story of all of Us (Part 4: Warriors)

Beginning in 2012 (nearly 10 years ago), the History Channel has released this 12-episode docu-series about some of the most famous events of the 2 million years of the existence of our species.

This is part 4 of this 12-part wiki page series about this Docu-series. In this page, we will cover the episode "Warriors", which tells about the fall of the Roman Empire, the rise of the Vikings, what happens on Easter Island, and the Crusades.

## Warriors

### The Fall of Rome

Of course, the episode goes to Rome, where it all ended for the Romans.

The Roman Empire was on the decline by the beginning of the 400s AD, but it would all come to a head by the mid 400s AD when barbarian tribes invade the Roman Empire. In 476 AD, the Vandal barbarians (led by their ruler; Gaiseric) Sacked Rome and took the city's riches in gold and silver.

As the Vandals invade Rome, they also kill thousands and destroyed most of Rome. Gaiseric was also after the Roman Empress Eudoxia, after a short fight he abducts her. With the capturing of Eudoxia, the Roman Empire falls. After nearly half a millennia of power, Europe's most powerful Empire falls, and in its place crop up kingdoms and other empires that will keep Europe divided for 1,500 years most of the Roman cities such as Londinium (modern day London) was abandoned.

But if something falls, something else will rise to take its place.

### Islam and First Gold

Another religion is now taking shape in the world in the centuries following the fall of Rome; Islam, and its founded in another rich resource, Gold. Now, according to the docu-series, gold is actually extra terrestrial, but there really is no evidence to prove this since we haven't seen gold anywhere else in our Solar System other than Earth, but why is Mankind so enamored by gold, well its because it's extremely rare and valuable. Even today there's only enough to fill 3 Olympic Pools (according to the docu-series), and a lot of Arabic people were trying to find gold in North Africa and even the middle East, following the Roman Empire came the Umayyad Caliphate which ruled Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, and even a good part of Spain and Portugal.

In fact, this is where the episode goes to, a part of the Umayyad Caliphate.

Though, what the episode takes is is to some kind of gold mine where Islamic believers from the Umayyad Caliphate were digging, well, gold. Unlike today however, they had to use iron pick axes and shovels to find gold and there were only simple struts that kept the cave from collapsing, and even then it didn't stop the cave from falling down.

The other thing that the Islamic people in the Caliphate did was preserve the knowledge that was originally created by the Romans, and even created some of the bases of other subjects as well such as math and even astronomy, do you remember your numbers from 1 through 9, the Islamic scholars created them.

Some Islamic scholars were even teaching themselves to know how to pass themselves beyond Mankind's physical capabilities, even wanting to know how to fly in the docu-series' case. An Islamic scholar named "Abbas Ibn Firnas" created an outfit made of silk, and even real bird feathers which would allow him to fly, he was able to do this one day in the 800s AD, for about 10 minutes he was able to control his flight, but his outfit had a flaw, it had no tail so he wasn't able to control is descent, and crashed in front of the crowd watching him fly, luckily for him, he was able to survive, though he would injure his back. Nevertheless, Abbas Ibn Firnas made history as the first human to fly.

For this part of the episode, they go to what would be known as Kiev (in modern day Ukraine).

Ambassador "Ahmad Ibn Fadlan" was traveling to the would be Ukrainian capital and meet up with some of Europe's more interesting race of people; the Vikings. He would write in his journal about these people (which was mixed according to the docu-series), he also traded Arabic Gold for something which was rare in Arabic countries; Fur.

When Ahmad Ibn Fadlan met these Vikings, their chief had died and were going to hold a funeral, but would not journey to the afterlife alone, one of his mistresses has chosen to died with him so he can enter Valhalla (Vikings' heaven) with her. She was given poison to drink, and then she was stabbed to death, and the chief's longship was set on fire so he can venture into Valhalla.

### Viking Exploration

Speaking of the Viking Longship, it was revolutionary in naval exploration, its design was to have to travel faster and further, in fact it can travel far enough where the Vikings can go to the European Islands of Iceland and Greenland, and they became almost like how Americans thought of the west and used something like "Manifest Destiny" to get vikings to move to these places, they went to other places too, like Britain, France, Italy, Germany, and other places around Europe, and help lift it from the Dark Ages which began after the fall of the Roman Empire.

### Iconic Statues

The episode takes a bit of a detour as it goes to Rapa Nui, or how we call it "Easter Island".

An Island chief along with several followers have escaped to a small island which is off the coast of modern day Chile, a small island which they would call it "Rapa Nui" (today it's called "Easter Island"). What the new dwellers do on the island is use whatever they can find on the island (such as its trees) and carve rocks and use them to make statues, the iconic Moai heads. But by making their statues, they weren't able to create a lasting civilization since there were only a limited number of tress, and most of them were used to have the statues be put in place, and not enough to make huts or even canoes to fish or to travel to other places.

### A Crusade

The episode returns to the middle east and to Jerusalem where the first of many Crusades would take place.

Taken place sometime in the 1000s AD, the Crusades were told by the powerful man in Europe; the Pope that they were going on a "Holy Adventure" to take back Jerusalem from those who weren't Christians, and were given immediate atonement for their future sins.

What Jerusalem represented is a multi religious region as all kinds of major religions, namely Christians, Muslims, and the Jewish all had a claim on the city. The Jewish revere it as their ancient capital, to the Muslims is called "Al Kudz" which means "The Holy" Islam's prophet Mohammad died here as did Jesus of Nazareth as he was crucified by the Romans.

By 1099 AD, the knights of the First Crusade came and they Sacked Constantinople before invading Jerusalem, and they slaughtered many non Christians, and even stole their riches, it was shameful and merciless. Though during the raid of Jerusalem, a crusader named "Tancred de Hautville" though was a part of the killings, decided to stop and give their banner to the locals to symbolize that they were under his protection, he preys at the Church of the Holy Sepulchral, but when he returns, he saw the local people killed behind his back, killed by other crusaders. The Crusades will continue for another 2 centuries.

That'll do it for this part, in the next part (click here) we will cover the Black Death, but only in simple terms because there's already a wiki page about the black death (click here). Until next time, this is JohnnyOTGS signing out.