Subtitles section Play video
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Hi there. I'm John Green; you're watching Crash Course World History, and today we're
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going to talk about "Iraq" No, you purportedly smart globe. We're going to talk about Mesopotamia.
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I love Mesopotamia because it helped create two of my favorite things: Writing and taxes.
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Why do I like taxes? Because before taxes, the only certainty was death.
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Mr. Green. Mr. Green, did you know that you're referencing Mark Twain?
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I'm not referencing Mark Twain, me from the past, I'm referencing Benjamin Franklin,
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who was probably himself quoting the unfortunately named playwright Christopher Bullock. Listen.
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You may be smart, kid, but I've been smart longer. By the way, today's illustration
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points out that an eye for an eye leaves the whole world monocular.
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[music intro]
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So 5,000 years ago in the land meso, or between, the Tigris and Euphrates potomoi, or rivers,
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cities started popping up much like they had in our old friend the Indus River valley.
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These early Mesopotamian cities engaged in a form of socialism, where farmers contributed
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their crops to public storehouses out of which workers, like metalworkers or builders or
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male models or whatever—would be paid uniform "wages" in grain. So, basically—
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MR GREEN MR GREEN WERE THERE REALLY MALE MODELS? CAN YOU DO BLUE STEEL?
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Oh younger version of myself, how I hate you. [Scoots to strike dramatic chair pose, laughs
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at own buffoonery] Oh the humiliation I suffer for you people... that was my best Blue Steel.
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That was as close as I can get.
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So anyway, if you lived in a city, you could be something other than a shepherd, and thanks
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to this proto-socialism you could be reasonably sure that you'd eat--
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STAN, Is there any way we could get another globe in here? I feel like this shot is inadequately
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globed. Yes, much better.
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You know you can tell the quality of the historian by the number of his or her globes.
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But even though you could give up your flock, a lot of people didn't want to.
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One of the legacies of Mesopotamia is the enduring conflict between country and city.
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You see this explored a lot in some of our greatest art such as
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The Beverly Hillbillies and Deliverance, and the showdown between Enkidu and Gilgamesh
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in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh is one of the oldest known works of literature and
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I'm not gonna spoil it for you— there's a link to the poem in the video
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info—but suffice it to say that in the showdown between country and city, the city wins.
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So what were these city states like? Well, let's take a look at one such city-state,
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Gilgamesh's home town of Uruk, in the Thought Bubble:
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Uruk was a walled city with an extensive canal system and several monumental temples, called
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ziggurats.
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The priests of these temples initially had all the power, because they were able to communicate
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directly with the gods.
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That was a useful talent, because Mesopotamian gods were moody and frankly pretty mean—like,
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according to Gilgamesh they once got mad at us because we were making too much noise while
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they were trying to sleep so they decided to destroy all of humanity with a flood.
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The Tigris and Euphrates are decent as rivers go, but Mesopotamia is no Indus Valley, with
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its on-schedule flooding and easy irrigation.
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A lot of slave labor was needed to make the Tigris and Euphrates useful for irrigation;
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they're difficult to navigate and flood unpredictably and violently. Violent, unpredictable,
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and difficult to navigate: Oh, Tigris and Euphrates, how you remind me of my college
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girlfriend.
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So I mean given that the region tends to yo-yo between devastating flood and horrible drought,
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it follows that one would believe that the gods are kind of random and capricious, and
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that any priests who might be able to lead rituals that placate those gods would be very
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useful individuals.
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But about 1000 years after the first temples we find in cities like Uruk, a rival structure
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begins to show up, the palace. This tells us that kings—and they were all dudes—are
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starting to be as important as priests in Mesopotamia.
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The responsibility for the well-being and success of the social order was shifting from
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gods to people, a power shift that will seesaw throughout human history until...um, probably
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forever actually.
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But in another development we'll see again, these kings, who probably started out as military
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leaders or really rich landowners, took on a quasi-religious role.
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How? Often by engaging in "sacred marriage" -- specifically skoodilypooping with the
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high priestess of the city's temple.
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So the priests were overtaken by kings, who soon declared themselves priests.
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Thanks, Thought Bubble. So how do we know that these kings were skoodilypooping with
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lady priests? BECAUSE THEY MADE A SKOODILYPOOPING TAPE AND PUT IT ON THE INTERNET. No, because
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there's a written record. Mesopotamia gave us writing, specifically a form of writing
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called cuneiform, which was initially created not to like woo lovers or whatever but to
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record transactions like how many bushels of wheat were exchanged for how many goats.
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I'm not kidding, by the way; a lot of cuneiform is about wheat and goats.
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I don't think you can overestimate the importance of writing but let's just make three points
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here:
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1. Writing and reading are things that not everyone can do. So they create a class distinction,
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one that in fact survives to this day. Foraging social orders were relatively egalitarian;
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but the Mesopotamians had slaves and they played this metaphorically resonant sport
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that was like polo except instead of riding on horses you rode on other people.
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And written language played an important role in widening the gap between classes.
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2. Once writing enters the picture, you have actual history instead of just a lot of guesswork
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and archaeology.
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3. Without writing, I would not have a job, so I'd like to personally thank Mesopotamia
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for making it possible for me to work while reclining in my lay-z-boy.
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So why did this writing happen in Mesopotamia? Well the fertile crescent, while it is fertile,
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is lacking the pretty much everything else. In order to get metal for tools or stone for
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sculptures or wood for burning, Mesopotamia had to trade. This trading eventually led
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Mesopotamia to develop the world's first territorial kingdom, which will become very
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important and will eventually culminate in some extraordinarily inbred Hapsburgs.
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So the city state period in Mesopotamia ended around 2,000 BCE, probably because drought
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and a shift in the course of rivers led to pastoral nomads coming in and conquering the
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environmentally weakened cities. And then the nomads settled into cities of their own
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as nomads almost always will unless—wait for it—
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...You are the Mongols.
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These new Mesopotamian city states were similar to their predecessors in that they had temples
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and writing and their own self-glorifying stories but they were different in some important
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ways.
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First, that early proto-socialism was replaced by something that looked a lot like private
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enterprise, where people could produce as much as they would like as long as they gave
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a cut, also known as taxes to the government. We talk a lot of smack about taxes but it
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turns out they're pretty important to creating stable social orders.
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Things were also different politically because the dudes who'd been the tribal chiefs became
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like full-blown kings, who tried to extend their power outside of cities and also tried
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to pass on their power to their sons.
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The most famous of these early monarchs is Hammurabi or as I remember him from my high
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school history class, "The Hammer of Abi". Hammurabi ruled the new kingdom of Babylon
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from 1792 BCE to 1750 BCE.
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Hammurabi's main claim to fame is his famous law code which established everything from
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like the wages of ox drivers to the fact that the punishment for taking an eye should be
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having an eye taken.
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Hammurabi's law code could be pretty insanely harsh. Like if a builder builds a shoddy building
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and then the owner's son dies in a collapse, the punishment for that is the execution of
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the builder's son. The kid's like, that's not fair! I'm just a kid. What did I do?
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You should kill my dad.
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All of which is to say that Hammurabi's law code gives a new meaning to the phrase
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tough on crime, but it did introduce the presumption of innocence.
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In the law code Hammurabi tried to portray himself in two roles that might sound familiar:
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shepherd and father.
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"[I am] the shepherd who brings peace. My benevolent shade was spread over the city,
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I held the peoples of Sumer and Akkad safely on my lap."
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So again we see the authority for protection of the social order shifting to men, not gods,
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which is important, but don't worry, it'll shift back.
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Even though the territorial kingdoms like Babylon were more powerful than any cities
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that had come before, and even though Babylon was probably the world's most populous city
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during Hammurabi's rule, it wasn't actually that powerful, and keeping with the pattern
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is was soon taken over by the formerly-nomadic Kassites.
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The thing about Territorial kingdoms is that they relied on the poorest people to pay taxes,
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and provide labor and serve in the army, all of which made you not like your king very
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much so if you saw any nomadic invaders coming by you might just be like "Hey nomadic invaders!
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Come on in; you seem better than the last guy."
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Well, that was the case until the Assyrians came along, anyway. The Assyrians have a deserved
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reputation for being the brutal bullies of Mesopotamia. The Assyrians did give us an
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early example of probably the most important and durable form of political organization
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in world history, and also Star Wars history, the Empire.
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Let's define empire as the extension by conquest of control over people who do not
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belong to the same group as the conquerors. The biggest problem with empires is that by
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definition they're diverse and multi-ethnic, which makes them hard to unify.
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So beginning around 911 BCE, the neo-Assyrian Empire grew from its hometowns of Ashur and
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Nineveh to include the whole of Mesopotamia, the Eastern Coast of the Mediterranean and
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even, by 680 BCE, Egypt! (INSERT MAP)They did this thanks to the most brutal, terrifying
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and efficient army the world had ever seen. More adjectives describing my college girlfriend.
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For one thing the army was a meritocracy. Generals weren't chosen based on who their
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dads were, they were chosen based on if they were good at Generalling.
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Stan, is generalling a word? [pauses, two thumbs up w answer] It is!
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The armies also used iron weapons and chariots and they were massive. Like the neo-Assyrian
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Empire could field 120,000 men.
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Also, they were super MEAN. Like they would deport hundreds of thousands of people to
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separate them from their history and their familes and also moved skilled workers around
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where they were most needed.Also the neo-Assyrians loved to find would-be rebels and lop off
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their appendages. Particularly their noses for some reason. And there was your standard
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raping and pillaging and torture, all of which was done in the name of Ashur, the great god
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of the neo-Assyrians whose divine regent was the King.
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Ashur, through the King, kept the world going, and as long as conquest continued the world
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would not end. But if conquest ever stopped, the world would end and there would be rivers
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of blood and weeping and gnashing of teeth. You know how apocalypses go.
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The Assyrians spread this world view with propaganda like monumental architecture and
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readings about how awesome the king was at public festivals, all of which were designed
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to inspire awe in the Empire's subjects.
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Oh that reminds me, ITS TIME FOR THE OPEN LETTER.
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An Open Letter to the Word Awesome:
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But first lets see what's in the Secret Compartment today. [opens door] Oh, Stan is
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this yellow cake uranium? You never find that in Mesopotamia...
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Dear Awesome,
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I love you. Like most contemporary English speakers in fact, I probably love you a little
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too much.
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The thing about you, awesome, is that awesome is just so awesomely awesome at being awesome.
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So we lose track of what you really mean, awesome: You're not just cool, you're
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terrifying and wonderful. You're knees-buckling, chest-tightening, fearful encounters with
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something radically other- something that we know could both crush and bless us. That
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is awe, and I apologize for having watered you down.
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But seriously, you're awesome.
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Best wishes, John Green
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So what happened to the Assyrians? Well, first they extended their empire beyond their roads,
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making administration impossible.
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But maybe even more importantly, when your whole world view is based on the idea that
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the apocalypse will come if you ever lose a battle, and then you lose one battle, the
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whole world view just blows up. That eventually happened and in 612 BCE, the city of Nineveh
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was finally conquered, and the neo-Assyrian Empire had come to its end.
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But the idea of Empire was just getting started. Next week we'll talk about mummies—oh,
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I have to talk about other things too? Crap, I only want to talk about mummies. Anyway,
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we'll be talking about [tapping stylus to talking globe replying Sudan] No! Dangit!
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We'll actually be talking about [taps globe to reply Egypt] Thank you, Smart Globe.
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See you next week.
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Crash Course was produced and directed by Stan Muller. Our Script supervisor is Danica
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Johnson. The show is written by Raoul Meyer my high school history teacher and myself
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and our graphics team is ThoughtBubble.
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Last week's phrase of the week was "Better Boyfriend." If you want to take a guess
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at this week's phrase of the week, you can do so in Comments where you can also suggest
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new phrases of the week.
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And if you have any questions about today's show, leave them in Comments and our team
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of semi-professional quasi-historians will endeavor to answer them.
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Thanks for watching and as we say in my hometown: Don't forget to be awesome.