| Summary: | Episode 7: Man and Metals Five thousand years ago man first throws a handful of rocks into a campfire and stumbles upon a discovery that changes the world: Metal. Copper, Tin, and Bronze empower the ancient world and allow empires to expand, armed with sharp, hard-wearing weapons. Metal was pivotal to a society's survival. It was worth fighting wars over it. Bronze was the catalyst for the first recorded battle in history - Megiddo - three and a half thousand years ago! But a mysterious civilization, known only as The Sea People, destroy the Bronze trade. It pushes us to find a replacement. We discover the most common metal on Earth. Iron. Gold, on the other hand, is one of the rarest metals on earth. It is so valuable it funded the spread of Islam and drove greedy Europeans to find the New World. There the mighty Aztec Empire was sacked for its gold, and the first roots of the United States of America were planted. In a world rich with newly found gold and silver, industry expands and new materials are needed to work giant, new machines. Andrew Carnegie pioneers a breakthrough process to mass-produce a revolutionarily hard, new substance: Steel.
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