The Ancient Jar That Warned an Empire — Transcript

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1. 0:00He put a bronze ball in a dragon's mouth
2. 0:02and told the emperor if this ever falls
3. 0:04out, run. The whole court burst out
4. 0:06laughing. You see, there were eight
5. 0:08dragons coiled around a giant bronze
6. 0:10jar, each holding a ball over a frog's
7. 0:12open mouth. But the emperor had the
8. 0:14biggest army in the world and he wasn't
9. 0:16about to run from a jar. Weeks later, a
10. 0:18ball fell, but nothing happened. Not
11. 0:20even a ripple in the emperor's mind. Now
12. 0:22they laughed even harder. The emperor
13. 0:24called it the world's most expensive toy
14. 0:26and threw the inventor out of the city,
15. 0:28jar and all. So, he dragged it up a hill
16. 0:30outside the walls and lived there alone.
17. 0:32Then, one night, a ball dropped. Then
18. 0:34another. Then all eight at once. He ran
19. 0:37to the city gates screaming for everyone
20. 0:39to get out. "Hey, it's the toy guy. Did
21. 0:41your frogs get hungry again?" The guards
22. 0:43laughed him all the way back up the
23. 0:45hill. The next morning, the palace was a
24. 0:47pile of rubble. Inside the jar hung a
25. 0:49heavy pendulum with a rod pointing at
26. 0:51each [music] dragon. The slightest nudge
27. 0:53and the pendulum swung into a rod, the
28. 0:55rod snapped the dragon's jaw open, and
29. 0:57the ball dropped. One ball meant a nudge
30. 0:59from far [music] away. All eight meant
31. 1:01the biggest earthquake the empire had
32. 1:02ever seen was right underneath them.