2 Hours Of History Facts To Enjoy On A Comfy Night

The worst times to be born in human

history. You might think you have things

pretty hard right now, but if you have a

roof over your head, access to clean

water and electricity, and people around

you that care about you, you've got a

lot to be grateful for. A lot of the

modern luxuries that we take for granted

today didn't even exist 100 years ago.

Which just makes you think, if almost

everything I enjoy right now didn't

exist 100 years ago, what did life look

like a thousand years ago, 10,000 years

ago, 100,000 years ago? Well, in this

video, we are going to dive into all the

worst time periods to ever be born into.

Everybody knows that the Roman Empire

fell, but not many people talk about the

time between the Roman Empire falling

and the beginning of the Middle Ages.

This period of time is referred to as

the late antiquity, and it is a major

time of political instability and a huge

power shift in global politics at the

time. Late antiquity typically refers to

anywhere from 200 AD to 700 AD. But for

this section specifically, I'm going to

be focusing on like 450 AD to 700 AD

because following the official end of

the Roman Empire in 476 AD, a lot of

things continued to happen and change

until the end of the late antiquity in

the beginning of the Middle Ages.

Whenever there is a large change in

almost any aspect of life, there is

growing pains associated with it because

change is scary and difficult. And in

the context of the late antiquity,

anybody living in the Roman Empire was

experiencing a huge cultural, political,

and spiritual shift that had not been

seen realistically for hundreds of

years. This topic is undoubtedly

extremely complex and nuanced, but I'm

going to do my best to provide as much

context as possible to describe why this

time period would have sucked to be born

and live in. And one of the biggest

reasons for a lot of the hardships that

people faced during this time was

[music] the widespread political

instability. specifically because the

empire that had controlled and

mismanaged the entire geographical area

for the last hundreds of years was no

longer. Meaning that by default there

was a power vacuum that people were

hungry to fill. And of course with the

fall of one of the most iconic empires

of all time, you also lose a lot of

long-standing institutions, specifically

armies, defense, banking, really

anything that provided safety and

stability to the people of Rome. Even

before the fall of the Roman Empire,

Rome was consistently under attack from

different groups. But during the late

antiquity, there was much less resources

and manpower to fight off barbarian

tribes like the Goths, the Vandals, the

Huns, which meant that these barbarian

tribes were extremely motivated because

they knew that the big bad Roman Empire

was not what it used to be. And what

this resulted in was frequent wars,

raids, and destruction across all of

Europe and the Mediterranean, which for

soldiers was devastating because at this

point, soldiers were not as well

equipped as they used to be, meaning

that they were typically at a

disadvantage during these attacks. And

for civilians, that meant that they were

simply less protected, making them

vulnerable to barbarian raids, which is

something you definitely do not want to

be vulnerable to. On top of defenses

being diminished and wars and raids

being more frequent, there was also a

huge economic decline, which was almost

perfectly coupled with the political

instability. And because of this,

massive trade network shrank, major

culturally significant cities were

destroyed and abandoned, and even

agriculture was affected due to these

consistent invasions. We think about

ancient Roman and ancient Greek ruins

today as this thing that existed only

far in the past. But during the late

antiquity, major Roman and Greek cities

and institutions and buildings that were

active and respected only a hundred or a

few hundred years ago were now in ruins.

With the majority of these culturally

significant locations either being

destroyed in raids, left to rot because

there's nobody to use them or maintain

them because of the city's depopulation,

or if these buildings were still in

decent shape in a city that was somewhat

populated or repopulating, a lot of

these buildings were actually

deconstructed from the inside out to be

used for new buildings. For example,

ceramic and bricks were taken from old

antiquity buildings and used to build

new churches. The late antiquity is an

interesting period of history because it

is regarded as one of the most

transitional periods as it was at the

dawn of the rise of Christianity. And

because of that, there was a lot of

conflict surrounding other religions in

the area. But for that reason, a lot of

people see this time period as an

opportunity and as something to be

celebrated. And while that is definitely

something to consider, the late

antiquity is one of the most significant

examples of transitioning from the old

world to the new world. And living

through that was not easy whatsoever.

>> [music]

>> But in case you're still not convinced

that the late antiquity is one of the

worst times to be born in and alive in,

allow me to present one thing I haven't

mentioned yet. The Justinianic plague,

which took place during the peak of the

late antiquity, specifically from 550 AD

to 750 AD. And this 200-year period saw

a drastic decline due to this plague

that took place all across the

Mediterranean and was responsible for

the death of tens of millions of people.

This plague was happening while all of

this political uncertainty was

happening. All of these wars and raids

were happening. All of the economic

decline was [music] happening and all of

the religious chaos was happening. All

of this at the same time as a deadly

plague. So yeah, the late antiquity is

not just a casual handoff of power or an

example of growing pains and had a lot

of horrible things happening at the same

time. And for that reason, I thought it

was a great candidate for this list. But

we have a lot more to discuss. So let's

keep going. Following the late

antiquity, I want to discuss a period of

time that's a bit more modern. What I'm

about to discuss isn't necessarily a

time period. It's just a stretch of

history that you would not want to be

born in or live through at all. And this

includes anywhere from 1914 to 1945. The

first thing you're probably thinking

about during this time period is the

World Wars. And you're exactly right.

World War I took place from 1914 to

1918. And during this time, if you were

a healthy adult man, there was an

extremely good chance that you were

going to be sent into some of the worst

hellish conditions ever imaginable. But

we're just getting started. Obviously,

World War I didn't only affect soldiers

as there was millions of civilian

casualties as well. And it's estimated

that in total just from World War I

alone, 15 to 22 million people died with

9 to 11 million of those being military

personnel and 6 to 13 million being

possible civilian deaths. And that

doesn't even account the injured and the

displaced. But we're still only getting

started. The conditions of World War I

were insane. Trench warfare, machine

guns, poison gas. These people did not

have a quick and painless death. The

people that did die died died in some of

the worst conditions this world has

seen. But to add insult to injury,

during 1918, not only was there a

massive world war going on, but there

was also a huge Spanish flu pandemic.

And this pandemic was one of the

deadliest pandemics in recorded history