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527 Years of Venezuelan History in 35 Minutes — Transcript

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0:00In 1499, a group of European explorers
0:03sailed along the coast of a land they
0:05knew almost nothing about. They had no
0:08idea they were looking at a country that
0:10would one day sit on the largest oil
0:12reserves on Earth. A country that would
0:15become one of the richest in South
0:17America and later suffer one of the
0:19worst economic collapses in modern
0:21history. So, how did Venezuela go from
0:24oil giant to economic disaster? Let's go
0:28back 527 years.
0:33The sailors think they found nothing of
0:35value, just another forgotten corner of
0:38the world. Then they sail into a calm
0:41bay and spot something weird. Whole
0:44villages of little wooden huts built on
0:46tall poles standing right on top of the
0:49water. People are paddling between them
0:52in canoes like the water is their
0:54street. On board is an Italian explorer
0:57named Amarrigo Vaspuchi. And fun fact,
1:00this is the same guy America is named
1:03after. Those huts on poles remind him of
1:06a fancy city back home in Italy, full of
1:08canals called Venice. So half joking, he
1:13points and says, "This place is like a
1:15little Venice." In his language, that
1:18comes out as Venezuela.
1:21And that was that. A whole country got
1:23its name from a quick joke about some
1:25huts on sticks. I'm not kidding.
1:27Venezuela literally means little Venice.
1:31Imagine your whole country being named
1:32because a passing tourist thought your
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3:39The funny thing is, people had been
3:40living on these islands for thousands of
3:43years before that ship ever showed up.
3:45They had their own towns, their own
3:47kings, their own way of life. The
3:50Spanish weren't here to enjoy the view.
3:52They wanted treasure. And for a few
3:55years, they thought they'd struck it big
3:57because the little islands just offshore
3:59were packed with oysters full of pearls.
4:03These were some of the richest pearl
4:04beds in the whole world. So they went
4:07pearl crazy. They forced local divers
4:10down into the water again and again to
4:12rip pearls from the seabed and they
4:15worked huge numbers of them to death. It
4:18was cruel and it was fast. Within a few
4:20decades, the oyster beds were stripped
4:22bare and the boom was over. With the
4:25pearls gone and not a speck of gold in
4:27sight, Spain took one more look at this
4:30hot, buggy coast and basically said,
4:33"Meh, not worth the trouble." So, the
4:36most powerful empire on Earth gave up on
4:39Venezuela almost before it began. And
4:41that set up one of the strangest deals
4:43in the whole history of colonies.
4:46Because far away in Europe, the king of
4:48Spain had a huge embarrassing problem.
4:52He owed a mountain of money. And to pay
4:54it back, he was about to do something no
4:56king had ever tried. He was going to
4:59hand this entire land over to a bank.
5:05Meet Charles V. In the 1520s, he is the
5:09most powerful man in Europe. He's the
5:11king of Spain and the Holy Roman
5:13Emperor. So, he rules a giant slice of
5:16the continent. He's got armies, palaces,
5:19and crowns coming out of his ears. He's
5:21also got one big problem. He's broke.
5:24Running an empire is really expensive.
5:27Armies and wars and giant palaces all
5:30cost a fortune. So Charles had borrowed
5:33mountains of cash from a rich German
5:35banking family called the Welszers. And
5:38now the Wzers wanted their money back.
5:41Your Majesty, about the money you owe
5:43us.
5:44>> Ah, yes, about that. Uh, I don't
5:46actually have it right now.
5:48>> You said that last year
5:50>> and I stand by it.
5:52>> S with interest the total now comes to
5:56Oh, actually, uh, may I sit down first?
6:00Oh, that bad.
6:02>> I've started writing the number across
6:03two pages. Then perhaps a country
6:07instead. [music]
6:08Take Venezuela. Nobody's using it. Is it
6:11nice?
6:13It's uh warm.
6:16And just like that, in 1528, a whole
6:19country got handed to a bank to pay off
6:22a debt. German bosses now ran the place.
6:26Most people have no idea Venezuela was
6:28once basically a German colony, [music]
6:31but it really was. The Germans showed up
6:33with one giant dream stuck in their
6:35heads. El Dorado. The legend said there
6:39was a hidden city deep in the jungle
6:41made of solid gold, ruled by a king who
6:44covered himself head to toe in gold dust
6:46every single day. Find that city and
6:49you'd be richer than anyone alive. So
6:52the Germans marched army after army into
6:54the wild to hunt for it. And the jungle
6:58absolutely wrecked them. The heat, the
7:01swamps, the diseases, the arrows from
7:03people who really did not want to be
7:05invaded. Their leaders dropped dead one
7:07after another. Did they ever find the
7:10golden city, you ask? No, because
7:12spoiler, it didn't exist. They suffered
7:16and died for almost 20 years chasing a
7:18fairy tale. And they had nothing to show
7:20for it but graves. The last German
7:23leader finally stumbled back out of the
7:25jungle, half starved and empty-handed,
7:28only to find that a Spanish enemy had
7:30grabbed power while he was away. Did the
7:32Spanish guy throw him a welcome party?
7:35Not quite. He had the German leader's
7:37head chopped clean off instead.
7:39Basically [music] the same. Yikes. With
7:42that, the German adventure was over.
7:45Spain quietly took Venezuela back and
7:47made a very familiar choice. They would
7:50just ignore it again. And ignore it they
7:54did for the next 250 years. But while
7:57nobody important was looking, something
7:59was quietly growing on that coast.
8:02Something brown, something sweet, and
8:05something about to make a handful of
8:07families ridiculously rich.
8:12That something was chocolate. Well,
8:16almost. It was cacao, the bean you need
8:19to make chocolate. And Venezuela's warm,
8:22wet coast grew some of the best cacao on
8:24the planet. Over in Europe, rich people
8:27had gone completely mad for hot
8:29chocolate. And they would pay silly
8:31money for it. But to see why that
8:33mattered so much, you have to picture
8:35how sleepy and forgotten Venezuela had
8:38become. For all of that time, Spain
8:40treated this place like a dusty backroom
8:43of a mansion. The real prize was over in
8:46Mexico and [music] Peru, where whole
8:47mountains of silver came pouring out of
8:49the ground. Venezuela had no silver
8:52mountain, so no important person wanted
8:55anything to do with it. Then cacao
8:58flipped the whole story. A few local
9:01families planted enormous farms along
9:03the coast and got rich selling chocolate
9:06to the world. People nicknamed them the
9:08Grandes Caca, which basically means the
9:11big chocolate guys. And here's a fun
9:13one. Venezuelans still use that exact
9:16phrase today to mean a powerful big
9:18shot. But that wealth had a very dark
9:21side. The farms ran on the forced labor
9:24of enslaved Africans, shipped across the
9:26ocean in huge numbers, and worked half
9:29to death. Those fancy chocolate [music]
9:32fortunes were built on terrible
9:34suffering. Now, here's the bit that
9:36quietly lit [music] the fuse for
9:38everything to come. These rich cacao
9:40families had been born in Venezuela, and
9:44Spain looked down on them for it. The
9:46best jobs, the governor's seat, the real
9:49power, all of it was saved for men sent
9:52fresh from Spain. If you were born in
9:54the colony, it didn't matter how rich or
9:57how clever you were, you were always
9:59treated as second best. Imagine that for
10:02a second. You own half the coast. You've
10:05read every clever book in Europe. And
10:07some official who just stepped off a
10:09boat gets to boss you around purely
10:12because of where you happen to be born.
10:14Honestly, I'd be pretty annoyed, too. It
10:17drove the rich locals up the wall. You
10:20had a whole class of proud, wealthy,
10:22smart men who were sick to death of
10:24taking orders from a faraway king who
10:26had never once set foot in their
10:28country. All they needed was one good
10:31excuse to throw off Spain and run things
10:34themselves. And one day, [music]
10:36that excuse arrived in the strangest way
10:39you could imagine. It didn't come from
10:41anyone in the Americas. It came from a
10:44short, fierce Frenchman [music]
10:46called Napoleon.
10:50In 1808, Napoleon stormed into Spain,
10:53kicked the Spanish king off his throne,
10:56and plopped his own brother on it
10:57instead. Suddenly, the colonies had a
11:00real headscratcher. If there's no proper
11:03king in Spain, then who exactly were
11:05they supposed to be obeying? The proud
11:08people of Karakas spotted their chance.
11:10In 1810, they politely showed the
11:13Spanish governor the door. And in 1811,
11:16they went allin and declared full
11:18independence. A brand new country was
11:21born. There was just one problem. The
11:24new little republic was broke, shaky,
11:26and barely held together. And then, as
11:29if the sky itself had an opinion,
11:31disaster hit. On a holy day in March
11:351812, a gigantic earthquake [music] tore
11:38through Venezuela. In a matter of
11:40seconds, it flattened Karakas and other
11:42rebel cities, burying thousands of
11:45people under the rubble. And the weird
11:47thing is the quakes smashed the rebel
11:49towns the hardest while many of the
11:52towns still loyal to Spain were left
11:54standing. Priests on the king's side
11:57pointed at the wreckage and shouted that
11:59God was punishing the rebels for turning
12:01against Spain. Terrified survivors
12:03believed them and the first republic
12:06crumbled.
12:07This is where our hero walks in. Simone
12:10Bolivar, a seriously rich young man from
12:13Karakas who took one look at his broken
12:16country and basically said, "Not on my
12:18watch." Bolivar poured his entire
12:21fortune into the fight for [music]
12:22freedom. And he never gave up. He won
12:25battles, he lost battles, he got chased
12:28out of the country, and every single
12:30time he came roaring back. The man just
12:33would not quit. But the Spanish kept
12:35beating him in the obvious places. So in
12:381819, Bolivar cooked up a plan so crazy
12:42it might just work. Instead of attacking
12:45where the enemy expected, he would march
12:47his worn out army straight up and over
12:50the freezing peaks of the Andes, [music]
12:52the tallest mountains in the Americas,
12:54and smash the Spanish from behind. Sir,
12:58our men are freezing to death up here.
13:00This is total madness. Of course it is.
13:03That's exactly why the Spanish will
13:04never see us coming. Sir, I can't feel
13:07my hands.
13:08>> Excellent. Then you won't feel the sword
13:10either. That's less comforting than you
13:12think, sir. Look around you, gentlemen.
13:14What do you see? Ice, clouds, my
13:17breakfast from earlier. I see a road no
13:20Spaniard would ever dream of guarding.
13:23With a respect, sir, there's a reason
13:25for that. Keep climbing. It was savage.
13:28[music] Many men froze to death on those
13:31icy slopes. But it worked. I still can't
13:34believe it worked. Bolivar's half-dead
13:36army came pouring down out of the
13:38mountains and crashed into the stunned
13:40Spanish who never dreamed of an attack
13:42coming from that direction. The enemy
13:45fell apart. By 1821, after years of
13:48fighting, Venezuela was finally and
13:51truly free and Bolivar was just getting
13:54warmed up. He marched on and helped free
13:57five more countries from Spanish rule.
13:59An entire nation, Bolivia, is named
14:02[music] in his honor. But Bolivar had
14:05one giant dream left in him. And that
14:07dream was about to break his heart.
14:12The dream was a single giant country.
14:15Bolivar didn't just want to free
14:17Venezuela. He wanted to glue Venezuela,
14:20Colombia, Panama, and Ecuador into one
14:22enormous super nation called Grand
14:25Colombia. On the map, it looked like a
14:28giant, one of the biggest countries on
14:30Earth. On paper, beautiful. In real
14:33life, a nightmare to run. The pieces
14:36were huge, far apart, [music]
14:38and packed with proud people who didn't
14:40want to share. Back then, there were no
14:42phones and no trains. A single message
14:45could take weeks to crawl across the
14:46mountains because it was normally a guy
14:48on a donkey carrying it over. Trying to
14:51govern all of it from one spot was like
14:53trying to steer 10 horses galloping in
14:5610 different directions. And every
14:58region had its own tough local strongman
15:01who thought he was the real boss. The
15:03toughest one in Venezuela was a man
15:05named Joseé Antonio Pavez. PZ was quite
15:09the character. He'd grown up poor on the
15:12wild grassy plains, wrestling cattle,
15:15and fighting on horseback with a long
15:17lance. His rough planesman called
15:20Yaneros would follow him absolutely
15:22anywhere. He had the muscle and the
15:24loyal men [music] and zero interest in
15:27taking orders from far-off Bogotaa. So
15:30in 1830, PZ simply pulled Venezuela out
15:34of the Union. And just like that,
15:36Bolivar's giant dream cracked apart. All
15:39those years of fighting and his big idea
15:42fell to bits in a single year. It broke
15:45the great man completely. That same
15:47year, sick and worn out and heartbroken,
15:50Simone Bolivar died. [music] Near the
15:53end, he said a line people still quote
15:55today. He said that trying to bring
15:57order to the region was like plowing the
16:00sea, meaning a total waste of effort.
16:02[music]
16:03But here's the thing Belivar
16:05accidentally left behind, and it's huge.
16:08He had taught the whole country a
16:10dangerous lesson that the man with the
16:13biggest army gets to make the rules.
16:16Forget elections, forget laws. Whoever
16:18had the most soldiers and the toughest
16:20horsemen simply took charge. So for the
16:24next hundred years or so, Venezuela was
16:26ruled by a long parade of these strong
16:29men on horseback. People called them
16:31cordillos. One would grab power, hold it
16:34for a while, then get shoved out by the
16:36next tough guy with an even bigger army.
16:39Round and round it went. In some
16:41stretches, the country burned through
16:43ruler after ruler. each one booted out
16:46the moment a stronger rival rode in a
16:48town. It was shaky. It was rough. And it
16:51[music] kept the country dirt poor. And
16:54it was about to blow up into a war so
16:56bloody it would swallow a huge slice of
16:59the entire [music] population.
17:03That war was called the Federal War. And
17:06to get it, you have to know what people
17:08were so mad about. It came down to land.
17:11A tiny number of rich families owned
17:13almost everything, while millions of
17:15ordinary Venezuelans had nothing and
17:18worked that land [music] for scraps.
17:20After decades of broken promises, the
17:23poor had finally had enough. In 1859,
17:26the whole thing erupted. Rebel armies
17:29swept across the countryside behind a
17:31battlecry that made rich land owners
17:33turned pale. [cheering]
17:35Land and free men. It meant just what it
17:38sounds like. Take the land, free the
17:40people. The fighting dragged on for
17:43years, and it was nasty. [music] But
17:45what's really grim is that most people
17:47who died never even saw a battlefield.
17:50As the armies marched back and forth,
17:52[laughter] they burned farms and wrecked
17:54the food supply. So hunger and disease
17:57ended up doing most of the killing. The
17:59country was basically eating itself
18:01alive. Great news, sir. We've taken the
18:04valley. Wonderful. And the harvest
18:07burned all of it. So, uh, we won a
18:11valley with nothing left to eat.
18:13Brilliant,
18:14>> sir. Urgent news. The enemy has taken
18:17the next valley over. And let me guess,
18:20they burned that harvest, too. Huh? No,
18:22sir. We burned that one on the way out.
18:25>> Of course, we did. Uh, should we take it
18:28back? What poor? There is nothing left
18:31in it to win. By the time the just
18:34settled around 1863, roughly a 100,000
18:37people were dead. And back then,
18:40Venezuela had just over a million people
18:42in total. That is close to 1 in every 10
18:45Venezuelans gone. Imagine a war [music]
18:48totally wiping out one in 10 people. You
18:51know, whole towns simply emptied out and
18:54farms that had fed families for
18:55generations were left as ash. [laughter]
18:58So, after all that blood and hunger, the
19:01poor finally got their fair share,
19:03right? Nope. Once the smoke cleared, a
19:06slick [music] new strongman named
19:07Antonio Guzman Blanco grabbed the top
19:10job. This guy was so in love with
19:13himself that he gave himself the
19:14nickname the illustrious American,
19:17ordered statues of his own face all over
19:20the country, and even set up public
19:22holidays to celebrate, well, himself.
19:25Humble, right? He ruled like a king in
19:28everything but the crown. For most
19:30ordinary people though, life carried on
19:32exactly as before. Same poverty and the
19:35same bosses, just a fancier mustache at
19:38the top. The sad truth is all those
19:42years of war swapped the bosses, but
19:44changed nothing for regular people.
19:46Venezuela was still poor, still run by
19:49whoever held the guns, and still going
19:51nowhere fast. [laughter]
19:53It honestly looked like this country was
19:55doomed to stay broke and [music] chaotic
19:57forever. But deep under a muddy lake in
20:00the west, a black sticky secret was
20:03waiting. And it was about to flip
20:05Venezuela's entire future upside down.
20:11That black sticky secret was oil. Tons
20:15of it. Sitting right under Lake Marako.
20:18But before we get to the moment it
20:20erupted, let's meet the man who happened
20:22to be in charge when it did. In 1908, a
20:26quiet, cruel general named Juan Vincent
20:28Gomez seized power. Gomez trusted almost
20:32nobody and barely gave a single speech.
20:35He ran the country with an iron fist.
20:37Spies everywhere, enemies thrown in
20:40prison. Under him, Venezuela was still
20:43sleepy. Mostly just farms and small
20:45towns. Still nobody's idea of
20:48importance. Then came the morning of
20:51December 14th, 1922.
20:54A drilling crew was poking around near
20:56Lake Marako at a well called Boroso
20:59number two. And the well blew its top. A
21:03black fountain of oil shock more than
21:06100 ft into the sky. It blasted out at
21:08around 100,000 barrels a day, and nobody
21:11could switch it off. For nine straight
21:14days, oil ran down and coated everything
21:17for miles in thick black goo. Yes, nine
21:20whole days of raining oil. When word
21:24[music] spread, the world's biggest oil
21:26companies all had the same thought at
21:28the exact same time. Get to Venezuela
21:31and get there fast. Foreign oil men came
21:34flooding in, waving fat contracts, and
21:37Gomez was more than happy to hand out
21:39the drilling rates. He signed deal after
21:42deal with the foreign companies and he
21:44made very sure he took the biggest
21:46personal cut from every single one of
21:48them. Money came gushing in even faster
21:51than the oil and the change to Venezuela
21:54was amazing. A country that had been
21:57broke and forgotten for centuries was
21:59suddenly swimming in cash. By the late
22:021920s, Venezuela was selling more oil
22:05than any other country on Earth. Tiny
22:08Venezuela was now pumping fuel to the
22:10whole world. And Gomez did something
22:13almost no ruler ever does. He used the
22:16oil money to pay off the country's
22:19entire national debt. Every last coin
22:22[music] Venezuela owed to other nations
22:25wiped out. The country didn't owe
22:27anybody anything. That basically never
22:30happens. Of course, he also stole a huge
22:33fortune for himself and his friends and
22:36crushed anyone who dared complain. But
22:38after ruling for 27 long years, this
22:41tough old dictator did something very
22:43unusual for a Venezuelan strongman. He
22:46wasn't shot, exiled, or overthrown. He
22:50simply died quietly in his own bed in
22:531935.
22:55So, Venezuela was now rich, wildly,
22:58almost unbelievably rich. And for a
23:01while, it really did look like the
23:03country might finally turn into
23:04paradise.
23:07Paradise, it turned out, was
23:10complicated. When Gomez died in 1935,
23:14Venezuela had the one thing everyone
23:16dreams of, money. But it was still
23:18missing something huge, a say in who ran
23:21the place. The oil cash kept flowing,
23:24but so did the dictators. More strong
23:27men came and went, and the people kept
23:29demanding real elections and a real
23:32voice. In 1958, they finally got it. The
23:36latest dictator was chased out of the
23:38country, and the main political groups
23:40did something rare and clever. Instead
23:43of fighting each other over the throne
23:44like always, they signed a deal to share
23:47power peacefully and settle things with
23:50fair elections. For the very first time,
23:53regular people got to vote for their own
23:56leaders. Real democracy at last, and it
23:59was floating on an ocean of oil. Then in
24:031973, the jackpot hit. A war broke out
24:08in the Middle East, and oil prices
24:10suddenly shot through the roof.
24:12Venezuela, sitting on tankers full of
24:14the stuff, got incredibly rich almost
24:17overnight. So much money poured in that
24:20the government honestly struggled to
24:21spend it all. People started calling the
24:23country Saudi Venezuela after the famous
24:26oil giant Saudi Arabia. And get this,
24:29for a while, Venezuelans were the
24:31richest people in all of Latin America,
24:33[music] richer than every neighbor
24:35around them. For such a small country,
24:38Venezuela was a giant in the oil world.
24:40It had even helped start OPEC, the
24:43famous club of oil nations back in 1960.
24:46When it came [music] to oil, the whole
24:48world had to listen. They became famous
24:50for flying up to Miami on huge shopping
24:53sprees and buying everything in sight.
24:55They'd point to things and say, "Dame
24:57dos," which means, "Give me two. Two
25:01TVs. Two of everything just because they
25:03could. Why not? Oil would pay for all of
25:06it." I'll take that television and that
25:09one, too.
25:11Sir, that's your fifth pair of
25:13everything. Then make it a six.
25:15Venezuela is buying. Darling, [music]
25:17will it fit on the plane? We'll buy two
25:20planes. Who are these people?
25:22>> Venezuelans, sir. They come every
25:24weekend. Then why are you standing here
25:26talking to me? Get more televisions.
25:29Oo, do those refrigerators come in gold?
25:32For you, ma'am, they do now. Feeling on
25:36top of the world, the government decided
25:37to take full control of its oil in 1976.
25:41It pushed out the foreign companies and
25:43built one giant state-owned oil company
25:46to run the whole show. It felt like a
25:49golden [music] age that would last
25:50forever. But the entire party was
25:53balanced on one shaky leg. The whole
25:56country now depended on a single thing
25:58staying high. The price of oil. And oil
26:02prices, [music] as Venezuela was about
26:04to learn the hard way, do not stay high
26:07forever. When they dropped, the dream
26:09curdled into a nightmare with terrifying
26:12speed.
26:15In the 1980s, the price of oil
26:17collapsed, and the country that had
26:19spent like there was no tomorrow
26:20suddenly couldn't pay the bills. The
26:23magic money dried up. Prices in the
26:25shops shot up and millions of
26:27Venezuelans who had felt rich just a few
26:30years earlier were now struggling to put
26:32food on the table. The fall was head
26:35spinning. In 1989, the government tried
26:37to fix the mess by raising prices on
26:39basic things, including the bus fairs
26:42poor people needed just to get to work.
26:44The capital city absolutely [music]
26:47exploded. Furious crowds poured into the
26:50streets of Karakas. For days, people
26:52rioted and looted in an explosion of
26:55rage that became known as the
26:56Karakazone. The army was sent in to
26:59crush it, and they did. Hundreds were
27:02killed, maybe far more. Nobody knows the
27:04true number to this day. The whole
27:07country was left in [music] shock and
27:09the golden party felt well and truly
27:11over. Watching all of this with a
27:14burning anger was a young army officer
27:16named Hugo Chavez. Funnily enough, his
27:19big childhood dream had been to become a
27:22baseball star, not a soldier. But he
27:25looked hard at the rich, broken, crooked
27:27system and decided the whole thing
27:29needed to be ripped down and built from
27:31scratch. So in 1992, Chavez gathered a
27:35group of loyal soldiers and tried to
27:37overthrow the government by force. An
27:39actual military coup. It failed fast.
27:44Chavez was captured within hours. Game
27:46over, you'd think. But then the
27:50government made one fascinating mistake.
27:52They let him go on live [music]
27:54television to tell his remaining
27:56fighters to give up and stop the
27:58bloodshed. We interrupt this broadcast.
28:01The captured coup leader will now
28:02address the nation. Good. Let the whole
28:05country watch and surrender. Comrades,
28:08lay down your weapons. For now, the
28:10goals we set were not achieved. Wait,
28:13for now? What does he mean for now? He
28:17said it very calmly, too. Cut the feed.
28:19Cut the feed. Sir, it already went out
28:22live. We like this guy. We're going to
28:26regret those two seconds of television.
28:29Those two little words, for now, lit a
28:32fire across the entire country. Here was
28:35a man who had just tried to topple the
28:37government, failed, and gotten [music]
28:38himself arrested. And yet, by sounding
28:42calm, brave, and completely unfinished,
28:45he turned into an overnight hero. To
28:48millions of poor, angry Venezuelans who
28:50hated the system, Chavez suddenly looked
28:53like the one guy who might actually
28:55fight for them. He was hauled off to
28:57prison for his little rebellion, but he
28:59was now the most famous man in the whole
29:02country. 6 years later, that same failed
29:05coup leader wouldn't need a single
29:07soldier or gun to take charge of
29:09Venezuela. He would simply walk up and
29:12let the people hand it to him.
29:17In 1998, that is exactly what happened.
29:21Hugo Chavez ran for president, promising
29:24to grab the country back from the rich
29:26and hand it to the poor and he won
29:29massively. The old political parties
29:32that had run things for decades were
29:33wiped out. Chavez was now in charge of
29:36the most oilrich country in the
29:38Americas. And lucky for him, oil prices
29:41were climbing again. At first,
29:44everything looked golden. Chavez took
29:46the flood of oil money and poured it
29:48straight into the poor neighborhoods.
29:50[music] cheap food and new clinics
29:52staffed by doctors brought over from
29:54Cuba. Free reading classes for grown-ups
29:56who had never had the chance to learn.
29:58[music]
29:59Millions of people who had been ignored
30:00their whole lives finally felt like the
30:03government saw them. They loved him for
30:06it. He was larger than life. He had his
30:08own TV show where he'd sing songs and
30:11talk for hours on end. [music] He
30:13renamed the country Pivarian Republic of
30:15Venezuela after his great hero Simone
30:18Bolivar. He even survived a coup attempt
30:21against him in 2002, getting tossed out
30:24of power [music] and then sweeping right
30:26back into office 2 days later, carried
30:28by huge crowds demanding his return. But
30:31under all the show, there was a deep
30:34problem. The whole thing ran on just two
30:36things. Sky-high oil prices and Chavez
30:40himself. He spent every dollar that came
30:43in, then borrowed more on top. He
30:46frightened away the private businesses
30:48that made and grew everything else. So
30:50the country slowly stopped producing
30:52much of anything besides oil. Then in
30:552013, Hugo Chavez died of cancer. He
30:59handed the country to his loyal
31:01right-hand man, a former bus driver
31:04named Nicolas Maduro. [music] And almost
31:07immediately, the floor gave way. Oil
31:10prices crashed again. And with nothing
31:12else holding the economy up, the whole
31:14thing collapsed right along with it.
31:16Prices began rising so fast that money
31:18lost its value by the hour. Shops
31:21themselves went bare. Hospitals ran out
31:23of basic medicine. People started going
31:25hungry and losing weight. A [music] grim
31:28thing so common it earned a bitter
31:30nickname, the Maduro diet. How bad did
31:34the money get? This part is almost hard
31:36to believe. Prices rose so insanely fast
31:39[music] that inflation hit 1 million%.
31:43Shops gave up counting cash and started
31:45weighing it on scales instead because a
31:48stack of bills was worth more by weight
31:50than by its number. A fat bundle of
31:53money could barely buy a loaf of bread.
31:56And so staring at empty plates and no
31:58future at all, Venezuelans began doing
32:01the unthinkable. They started packing up
32:03and leaving the only home they'd ever
32:05known, carrying whatever they could
32:07hold.
32:11At first, it was a trickle. Then it
32:13became a flood. Around 7.7 million
32:16people, roughly a quarter of the [music]
32:18entire country, packed up and left. Let
32:21that number sink in. One in every four
32:23Venezuelans gone. It is one of the
32:27biggest movements of people happening
32:28anywhere on [music] Earth right now. And
32:31most of them couldn't afford a plane
32:32ticket or even a bus. So they walked
32:35over freezing mountain passes [music]
32:37high in the Andes across rivers for
32:39hundreds of miles, often with little
32:42kids riding on their shoulders. Whole
32:44families sold everything they owned just
32:46to get out the door. Meanwhile, Nicolas
32:49Maduro clung to power with both hands.
32:52In 2024, he held a presidential
32:55election. And by the vote counts, almost
32:58everyone in the [music] world trusts he
33:00lost it badly. So he simply announced
33:03that he had won anyway. The man who had
33:05actually got the votes had to flee the
33:07country for his own safety. To yank
33:09[music] everyone's attention away from
33:11the mess, Maduro reached for an old
33:13trick. Pick a fight with the neighbors.
33:16He held a vote to grab a giant oilrich
33:19slice of the country next door, Guyana.
33:22The region is called Esiquo and it makes
33:24up about 2/3 of that entire nation. The
33:27Esquivbo is ours now. Put it on the map.
33:30Uh, you can't just grab most of our
33:33country. We just did. Anyone going to
33:35stop us? So, do I actually redraw the
33:38border or? Uh, yes. Sticker pen. Make it
33:42look official. Don't you dare touch that
33:44pen. Hey, hey, hey, let's all calm down.
33:47All right. Stay out of it. This is
33:48between me and 2/3 of Guyana. You see?
33:52You see what I'm dealing with? I'll just
33:54uh do it in pencil for now. And then
33:57came the twist that nobody, and I mean
33:59absolutely nobody, saw coming. In the
34:02early hours of January [music] 2026,
34:05American forces struck Venezuela. They
34:08knocked out its defenses, stormed into
34:10the capital, and grabbed Maduro himself.
34:13Then they flew him out of the country to
34:15stand trial in a courtroom all the way
34:17over in New York. His own vice president
34:20was quickly sworn in to take charge of
34:22the wreckage he left behind. Just think
34:24about how insane that is. The sitting
34:26leader of a giant oil [music] power
34:29snatched in the dark and hauled across
34:31the sea to face a foreign judge. Nothing
34:33quite like that has happened in a very,
34:36very [music] long time. So where does
34:38all this leave Venezuela today? It is
34:41still sitting on the biggest pool of oil
34:43[music] on the planet. the very same
34:45black gold that once made it the richest
34:47country around. But a quarter of its
34:49people are scattered across the world.
34:51[music] Its strong man is locked in a
34:53cell overseas and nobody can say who
34:55will truly run the place next or whether
34:57the chaos is finally ending or is simply
35:00changing its shape. But if you thought
35:02the story of Venezuela is crazy, wait
35:04until you hear about the most brutal
35:06wars in history. It's going to blow your
35:08mind. Click here to watch that video.
35:10Thanks for watching and I'll see you

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