The most mysterious book

00:07
Deep inside Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library lies the only copy of a
240-page tome. Recently carbon dated to around 1420, its vellum pages features looping
handwriting and hand-drawn images seemingly stolen from a dream. Real and imaginary
plants, floating castles, bathing women, astrology diagrams, zodiac rings, and suns and moons
with faces accompany the text. This 24x16 centimeter book is called the Voynich
manuscript, and its one of history's biggest unsolved mysteries. The reason why? No one can
figure out what it says. The name comes from Wilfrid Voynich, a Polish bookseller who came
across the document at a Jesuit college in Italy in 1912. He was puzzled. Who wrote it? Where
was it made? What do these bizarre words and vibrant drawings represent? What secrets do its
pages contain? He purchased the manuscript from the cash-strapped priest at the college, and
eventually brought it to the U.S., where experts have continued to puzzle over it for more than a
century. Cryptologists say the writing has all the characteristics of a real language, just one that
no one's ever seen before. What makes it seem real is that in actual languages, letters and
groups of letters appear with consistent frequencies, and the language in the Voynich
manuscript has patterns you wouldn't find from a random letter generator. Other than that, we
know little more than what we can see. The letters are varied in style and height. Some are
borrowed from other scripts, but many are unique. The taller letters have been named gallows
characters. The manuscript is highly decorated throughout with scroll-like embellishments. It
appears to be written by two or more hands, with the painting done by yet another party. Over
the years, three main theories about the manuscript's text have emerged. The first is that it's
written in cypher, a secret code deliberately designed to hide secret meaning. The second is
that the document is a hoax written in gibberish to make money off a gullible buyer. Some
speculate the author was a medieval con man. Others, that it was Voynich himself. The third
theory is that the manuscript is written in an actual language, but in an unknown script. Perhaps
medieval scholars were attempting to create an alphabet for a language that was spoken but not
yet written. In that case, the Voynich manuscript might be like the rongorongo script invented on
Easter Island, now unreadable after the culture that made it collapsed. Though no one can read
the Voynich manuscript, that hasn't stopped people from guessing what it might say. Those who
believe the manuscript was an attempt to create a new form of written language speculate that it
might be an encyclopedia containing the knowledge of the culture that produced it. Others
believe it was written by the 13th century philosopher Roger Bacon, who attempted to
understand the universal laws of grammar, or in the 16th century by the Elizabethan mystic John
Dee, who practiced alchemy and divination. More fringe theories that the book was written by a
coven of Italian witches, or even by Martians. After 100 years of frustration, scientists have
recently shed a little light on the mystery. The first breakthrough was the carbon dating. Also,
contemporary historians have traced the provenance of the manuscript back through Rome and
Prague to as early as 1612, when it was perhaps passed from Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II to
his physician, Jacobus Sinapius. In addition to these historical breakthroughs, linguistic
researchers recently proposed the provisional identification of a few of the manuscript's
words. Could the letters beside these seven stars spell Tauran, a name for Taurus, a
constellation that includes the seven stars called the Pleiades? Could this word be Centaurun for
the Centaurea plant in the picture? Perhaps, but progress is slow. If we can crack its code, what
might we find? The dream journal of a 15th-century illustrator? A bunch of nonsense? Or the
lost knowledge of a forgotten culture? What do you think it is? 
What really happened in Alexandria library

00:07

2,300 years ago, the rulers of Alexandria set out to fulfill one of humanity’s most audacious goals: to collect
all the knowledge in the world under one roof. In its prime, the Library of Alexandria housed an
unprecedented number of scrolls and attracted some of the Greek world’s greatest minds. But by the end of
the 5th century CE, the great library had vanished. Many believed it was destroyed in a catastrophic fire.
The truth of the library’s rise and fall is much more complex.

00:39

The idea for the library came from Alexander the Great. After establishing himself as a conqueror, the
former student of Aristotle turned his attention to building an empire of knowledge headquartered in his
namesake city. He died before construction began, but his successor, Ptolemy I, executed Alexander’s plans
for a museum and library.

01:01

Located in the royal district of the city, the Library of Alexandria may have been built with grand Hellenistic
columns, native Egyptian influences, or a unique blend of the two--there are no surviving accounts of its
architecture. We do know it had lecture halls, classrooms, and, of course, shelves. As soon as the building
was complete, Ptolemy I began to fill it with primarily Greek and Egyptian scrolls. He invited scholars to live
and study in Alexandria at his expense. The library grew as they contributed their own manuscripts, but the
rulers of Alexandria still wanted a copy of every book in the world.

01:39

Luckily, Alexandria was a hub for ships traveling through the Mediterranean. Ptolemy III instituted a policy
requiring any ship that docked in Alexandria to turn over its books for copying. Once the Library’s scribes
had duplicated the texts, they kept the originals and sent the copies back to the ships. Hired book hunters
also scoured the Mediterranean in search of new texts, and the rulers of Alexandria attempted to quash
rivals by ending all exports of the Egyptian papyrus used to make scrolls.

02:12

These efforts brought hundreds of thousands of books to Alexandria. As the library grew, it became possible
to find information on more subjects than ever before, but also much more difficult to find information on
any specific subject. Luckily, a scholar named Callimachus of Cyrene set to work on a solution, creating the
pinakes, a 120-volume catalog of the library’s contents, the first of its kind.

02:39

Using the pinakes, others were able to navigate the Library’s swelling collection. They made some
astounding discoveries. 1,600 years before Columbus set sail, Eratosthenes not only realized the earth was
round, but calculated its circumference and diameter within a few miles of their actual size. Heron of
Alexandria created the world’s first steam engine over a thousand years before it was finally reinvented
during the Industrial Revolution. For about 300 years after its founding in 283 BCE, the library thrived.

03:13
But then, in 48 BCE, Julius Caesar laid siege to Alexandria and set the ships in the harbor on fire. For years,
scholars believed the library burned as the blaze spread into the city. It's possible the fire destroyed part of
the sprawling collection, but we know from ancient writings that scholars continued to visit the library for
centuries after the siege. Ultimately, the library slowly disappeared as the city changed from Greek, to
Roman, Christian, and eventually Muslim hands. Each new set of rulers viewed its contents as a threat
rather than a source of pride. In 415 CE, the Christian rulers even had a mathematician named Hypatia
murdered for studying the library’s ancient Greek texts, which they viewed as blasphemous.

04:02

Though the Library of Alexandria and its countless texts are long gone, we’re still grappling with the best
ways to collect, access, and preserve our knowledge. There’s more information available today and more
advanced technology to preserve it, though we can’t know for sure that our digital archives will be more
resistant to destruction than Alexandria’s ink and paper scrolls. And even if our reservoirs of knowledge are
physically secure, they will still have to resist the more insidious forces that tore the library apart: fear of
knowledge, and the arrogant belief that the past is obsolete. The difference is that, this time, we know what
to prepare for.

History through the cat’s eyes

00:07

On May 27th, 1941, the German battleship Bismarck sank in a fierce firefight, leaving only 118 of her 2,200
crew members alive. But when a British destroyer came to collect the prisoners, they found an unexpected
survivor - a black and white cat clinging to a floating plank. For the next several months this cat hunted rats
and raised British morale - until a sudden torpedo strike shattered the hull and sank the ship. But,
miraculously, not the cat. Nicknamed Unsinkable Sam, he rode to Gibraltar with the rescued crew and
served as a ship cat on three more vessels – one of which also sank - before retiring to the Belfast Home for
Sailors.

00:54

Many may not think of cats as serviceable sailors, or cooperative companions of any kind. But cats have
been working alongside humans for thousands of years - helping us just as often as we help them. So how
did these solitary creatures go from wild predator to naval officer to sofa sidekick?

01:13

The domestication of the modern house cat can be traced back to more than 10,000 years ago in the Fertile
Crescent, at the start of the Neolithic era. People were learning to bend nature to their will, producing
much more food than farmers could eat at one time. These Neolithic farmers stored their excess grain in
large pits and short, clay silos. But these stores of food attracted hordes of rodents, as well as their
predator, Felis silvestris lybica - the wildcat found across North Africa and Southwest Asia.

01:43

These wildcats were fast, fierce, carnivorous hunters. And they were remarkably similar in size and
appearance to today’s domestic cats. The main differences being that ancient wildcats were more muscular,
had striped coats, and were less social towards other cats and humans.

02:00
The abundance of prey in rodent-infested granaries drew in these typically solitary animals. And as the
wildcats learned to tolerate the presence of humans and other cats during mealtime, we think that farmers
likewise tolerated the cats in exchange for free pest control. The relationship was so beneficial that the cats
migrated with Neolithic farmers from Anatolia into Europe and the Mediterranean.

02:26

Vermin were a major scourge of the seven seas. They ate provisions and gnawed at lines of rope, so cats
had long since become essential sailing companions.

02:35

Around the same time these Anatolian globe trotting cats set sail, the Egyptians domesticated their own
local cats. Revered for their ability to dispatch venomous snakes, catch birds, and kill rats, domestic cats
became important to Egyptian religious culture. They gained immortality in frescos, hieroglyphs, statues,
and even tombs, mummified alongside their owners. Egyptian ship cats cruised the Nile, holding poisonous
river snakes at bay. And after graduating to larger vessels, they too began to migrate from port to port.
During the time of the Roman Empire, ships traveling between India and Egypt carried the lineage of the
central Asian wildcat F. s. ornata. Centuries later, in the Middle Ages, Egyptian cats voyaged up to the Baltic
Sea on the ships of Viking seafarers. And both the Near Eastern and North African wildcats – probably
tamed at this point -- continued to travel across Europe, eventually setting sail for Australia and the
Americas. Today, most house cats have descended from either the Near Eastern or the Egyptian lineage of
F.s.lybica. But close analysis of the genomes and coat patterns of modern cats tells us that unlike dogs,
which have undergone centuries of selective breeding, modern cats are genetically very similar to ancient
cats. And apart from making them more social and docile, we’ve done little to alter their natural behaviors.
In other words, cats today are more or less as they’ve always been: Wild animals. Fierce hunters. Creatures
that don’t see us as their keepers. And given our long history together, they might not be wrong.

The history of Tea

00:07
During a long day spent roaming the forest in search of edible grains and herbs, the weary
divine farmer Shennong accidentally poisoned himself 72 times. But before the poisons could
end his life, a leaf drifted into his mouth. He chewed on it and it revived him, and that is how we
discovered tea. Or so an ancient legend goes at least. Tea doesn't actually cure poisonings, but
the story of Shennong, the mythical Chinese inventor of agriculture, highlights tea's importance
to ancient China. Archaeological evidence suggests tea was first cultivated there as early as
6,000 years ago, or 1,500 years before the pharaohs built the Great Pyramids of Giza. That
original Chinese tea plant is the same type that's grown around the world today, yet it was
originally consumed very differently. It was eaten as a vegetable or cooked with grain
porridge. Tea only shifted from food to drink 1,500 years ago when people realized that a
combination of heat and moisture could create a complex and varied taste out of the leafy
green. After hundreds of years of variations to the preparation method, the standard became to
heat tea, pack it into portable cakes, grind it into powder, mix with hot water, and create a
beverage called muo cha, or matcha. Matcha became so popular that a distinct Chinese tea
culture emerged. Tea was the subject of books and poetry, the favorite drink of emperors, and a
medium for artists. They would draw extravagant pictures in the foam of the tea, very much like
the espresso art you might see in coffee shops today. In the 9th century during the Tang
Dynasty, a Japanese monk brought the first tea plant to Japan. The Japanese eventually
developed their own unique rituals around tea, leading to the creation of the Japanese tea
ceremony. And in the 14th century during the Ming Dynasty, the Chinese emperor shifted the
standard from tea pressed into cakes to loose leaf tea. At that point, China still held a virtual
monopoly on the world's tea trees, making tea one of three essential Chinese export
goods, along with porcelain and silk. This gave China a great deal of power and economic
influence as tea drinking spread around the world. That spread began in earnest around the
early 1600s when Dutch traders brought tea to Europe in large quantities. Many credit Queen
Catherine of Braganza, a Portuguese noble woman, for making tea popular with the English
aristocracy when she married King Charles II in 1661. At the time, Great Britain was in the midst
of expanding its colonial influence and becoming the new dominant world power. And as Great
Britain grew, interest in tea spread around the world. By 1700, tea in Europe sold for ten times
the price of coffee and the plant was still only grown in China. The tea trade was so
lucrative that the world's fastest sailboat, the clipper ship, was born out of intense competition
between Western trading companies. All were racing to bring their tea back to Europe first to
maximize their profits. At first, Britain paid for all this Chinese tea with silver. When that proved
too expensive, they suggested trading tea for another substance, opium. This triggered a public
health problem within China as people became addicted to the drug. Then in 1839, a Chinese
official ordered his men to destroy massive British shipments of opium as a statement against
Britain's influence over China. This act triggered the First Opium War between the two
nations. Fighting raged up and down the Chinese coast until 1842 when the defeated Qing
Dynasty ceded the port of Hong Kong to the British and resumed trading on unfavorable
terms. The war weakened China's global standing for over a century. The British East India
company also wanted to be able to grow tea themselves and further control the market. So they
commissioned botanist Robert Fortune to steal tea from China in a covert operation. He
disguised himself and took a perilous journey through China's mountainous tea
regions, eventually smuggling tea trees and experienced tea workers into Darjeeling,
India. From there, the plant spread further still, helping drive tea's rapid growth as an everyday
commodity. Today, tea is the second most consumed beverage in the world after water, and
from sugary Turkish Rize tea, to salty Tibetan butter tea, there are almost as many ways of
preparing the beverage as there are cultures on the globe. 

The history of chocolate

00:07
If you can't imagine life without chocolate, you're lucky you weren't born before the 16th
century. Until then, chocolate only existed in Mesoamerica in a form quite different from what we
know. As far back as 1900 BCE, the people of that region had learned to prepare the beans of
the native cacao tree. The earliest records tell us the beans were ground and mixed with
cornmeal and chili peppers to create a drink - not a relaxing cup of hot cocoa, but a bitter,
invigorating concoction frothing with foam. And if you thought we make a big deal about
chocolate today, the Mesoamericans had us beat. They believed that cacao was a heavenly
food gifted to humans by a feathered serpent god, known to the Maya as Kukulkan and to the
Aztecs as Quetzalcoatl. Aztecs used cacao beans as currency and drank chocolate at royal
feasts, gave it to soldiers as a reward for success in battle, and used it in rituals. The first
transatlantic chocolate encounter occurred in 1519 when Hernán Cortés visited the court of
Moctezuma at Tenochtitlan. As recorded by Cortés's lieutenant, the king had 50 jugs of the drink
brought out and poured into golden cups. When the colonists returned with shipments of the
strange new bean, missionaries' salacious accounts of native customs gave it a reputation as an
aphrodisiac. At first, its bitter taste made it suitable as a medicine for ailments, like upset
stomachs, but sweetening it with honey, sugar, or vanilla quickly made chocolate a popular
delicacy in the Spanish court. And soon, no aristocratic home was complete without dedicated
chocolate ware. The fashionable drink was difficult and time consuming to produce on a large
scale. That involved using plantations and imported slave labor in the Caribbean and on islands
off the coast of Africa. The world of chocolate would change forever in 1828 with the introduction
of the cocoa press by Coenraad van Houten of Amsterdam. Van Houten's invention could
separate the cocoa's natural fat, or cocoa butter. This left a powder that could be mixed into a
drinkable solution or recombined with the cocoa butter to create the solid chocolate we know
today. Not long after, a Swiss chocolatier named Daniel Peter added powdered milk to the
mix, thus inventing milk chocolate. By the 20th century, chocolate was no longer an elite
luxury but had become a treat for the public. Meeting the massive demand required more
cultivation of cocoa, which can only grow near the equator. Now, instead of African slaves being
shipped to South American cocoa plantations, cocoa production itself would shift to West
Africa with Cote d'Ivoire providing two-fifths of the world's cocoa as of 2015. Yet along with the
growth of the industry, there have been horrific abuses of human rights. Many of the plantations
throughout West Africa, which supply Western companies, use slave and child labor, with an
estimation of more than 2 million children affected. This is a complex problem that
persists despite efforts from major chocolate companies to partner with African nations to
reduce child and indentured labor practices. Today, chocolate has established itself in the rituals
of our modern culture. Due to its colonial association with native cultures, combined with the
power of advertising, chocolate retains an aura of something sensual, decadent, and
forbidden. Yet knowing more about its fascinating and often cruel history, as well as its
production today, tells us where these associations originate and what they hide. So as you
unwrap your next bar of chocolate, take a moment to consider that not everything about
chocolate is sweet. 

A day in the life of a Cossack warrior

00:06

Despite a serene sunset on the Dnipro river, the mood is tense for the Zaporozhian Cossacks.
The year is 1676, and the Treaty of Żurawno has officially ended hostilities between the Polish-
Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire. But as Stepan and his men ride towards
their stronghold, peace is far from their minds.

00:29

Having made their home in the Wild Fields north of the Black Sea, these cossacks— derived
from a Turkic word for "free man"— are renowned as one of Europe’s most formidable military
forces. Composed of hunters, fishermen, nomads and outlaws, the Cossacks found freedom in
these fertile unclaimed lands. Yet this freedom has proven increasingly difficult to maintain. Their
decades-long strategy of shifting alliances between Poland and Moscow has led to the
partitioning of their lands. In a desperate bid to reclaim independence and reunite the fractured
Cossack state, their most recent leader, hetman Petro Doroshenko allied with the Ottoman
Empire. This alliance successfully freed the Zaporozhian Cossacks in the west from Polish
dominion, but their victory was a bitter one. Doroshenko’s Ottoman allies ravaged the
countryside, carrying off peasants into slavery. And outrage at allying with Muslims against
fellow Christians cost him any remaining local support. Now, with Doroshenko deposed and
exiled, the Cossacks are at odds, disagreeing on what their next move should be.

01:40

Until then, Stepan must keep order. With his musket and curved saber, he cuts an imposing
figure. He surveys his battalion of 180 men. Most are Orthodox Christians and speak a Slavic
language that will become modern Ukrainian. But there are also Greeks, Tatars, and even some
Mongolian Kalmyks, many with different opinions on recent events. Officially, all of Stepan’s men
have sworn to uphold the Cossack code by undergoing seven years of military training and
remaining unmarried. In practice, some are part-timers, holding more closely to their own
traditions, and maintaining families in nearby villages, outside Cossack lands.

02:22

Thankfully, the tenuous peace is not broken before they reach the Sich— the center of Cossack
military life. Currently located at Chortomlyk, the Sich’s location shifts with the tide of military
action. The settlement is remarkably well- organized, with administrative buildings, officers’
quarters, and even schools, as Cossacks prize literacy. Stepan and his men make their way to
the barracks where they live and train alongside several other battalions or kurins, all of which
make up a several hundred man regiment.

02:54

Inside, the men dine on dried fish, sheep’s cheese, and salted pork fat— along with plenty of
wine. Stepan instructs his friend Yuri to lighten the mood with his bandura. But before long, an
argument has broken out. One of his men has raised a toast to Doroshenko. Stepan cuts him
off. The room is silent until he raises his own toast to Ivan Sirko, the new hetman who favors an
alliance with Moscow against the Turks. Stepan plans to support him, and he expects his men to
do the same.

03:27

Suddenly, one of Sirko’s men rushes in, calling an emergency Rada, or general council meeting.
Stepan and the others make their way towards the church square— the center of Sich life. Ivan
Sirko welcomes the confused crowd with exciting news— scouts have located a large Ottoman
camp completely vulnerable on one side. Sirko vows that tomorrow, they will ride against their
common enemy, defend the Cossacks’ autonomy, and bring unity to the Wild Fields. As the men
cheer in unison, Stepan is relieved at their renewed sense of brotherhood.

04:03

Over the next 200 years, these freedom fighters would take on many foes. And tragically, they
would eventually become the oppressive hand of the Russian government they once opposed.
But today, these 17th century Cossacks are remembered for their spirit of independence and
defiance. As the Russian painter Ilya Repin once said: “No people in the world held freedom,
equality, and fraternity so deeply.”

Tips

Alexandria

https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_cox_what_really_happened_to_the_library_of_alexandria

The most mysterious book

https://www.ted.com/talks/
stephen_bax_the_world_s_most_mysterious_book/details

The history of chocolate

https://www.ted.com/talks/deanna_pucciarelli_the_history_of_chocolate

The history according to cats

https://www.ted.com/talks/
eva_maria_geigl_the_history_of_the_world_according_to_cats

The history of tea

https://www.ted.com/talks/shunan_teng_the_history_of_tea