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The Entire History of London in 24 Minutes — Transcript

by Majestic Studios · 2,987 words · 515 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00Stand on any street corner in London
0:02today and you'll hear a [music] dozen
0:03languages in as many minutes. Nearly 40%
0:07of Londoners were born outside the UK,
0:10making this one of the most diverse
0:11cities on Earth. But rewind [music]
0:152,000 years, and you'd find marshland
0:17along a tidal river, barely inhabited,
0:21strategically useless to anyone except
0:23the Romans. What happened in between?
0:27invasion, fire, plague, [music]
0:29revolution.
0:31A small trading post that became the
0:33heart of an empire. A city burned to ash
0:37and rebuilt from stone. Through conquest
0:41and catastrophe, London kept growing,
0:44kept adapting, kept pulling people in
0:46from everywhere.
0:48For centuries, we've had to imagine
0:50[music] what those earlier versions of
0:52London actually looked like. artist
0:55sketches, faded engravings, descriptions
0:57in old journals. But now, [music] using
1:01AI trained on historical imagery, we can
1:04take those original drawings and
1:05paintings and see them as they might
1:07have appeared in real life. The
1:10cobblestones, the crowds, the smoke
1:13rising from medieval chimneys. You're
1:16about to witness almost 2,000 years of
1:18history in one video. Sit back and relax
1:22as we journey through the incredible
1:23history of the capital of the United
1:25Kingdom, London. Let's go back to where
1:28it all began.
1:37The year is [music] 43 AD.
1:40Four Roman legions have just landed on
1:42the Kent coast and they're pushing in
1:44land. They need a place to cross the
1:47tempames. Somewhere they can build
1:49[music] a bridge and establish supply
1:51lines back to the continent. They find
1:54it here at the river's lowest crossing
1:56point before [music] it widens into an
1:58estie.
1:59Within a decade, Londinium is bustling.
2:03Merchants from Gaul, soldiers from
2:05Syria, traders from North Africa. The
2:09Romans build their bridge [music]
2:10exactly where London Bridge stands
2:12today. Around it, a port town springs up
2:16almost overnight. But 17 years after its
2:19founding, disaster strikes.
2:22Queen Buudaca of the Isini tribe has had
2:24enough of Roman [music] occupation. Her
2:27army marches on Londinium and burns it
2:29to the ground. Archaeological digs
2:31[music] have found a layer of red ash
2:34beneath the modern city, evidence of
2:36that destruction.
2:38The Romans [music] rebuild bigger than
2:40before. They construct a massive wall
2:42around the city, parts of which still
2:45stand 2,000 years later. At its peak,
2:49Londinium is home to maybe 60,000
2:51people, the largest city in Britannia.
2:54Amphitheaters, bathous, forums. This
2:58isn't some frontier [music] outpost
3:00anymore. It's a proper Roman city. Then
3:04by around 410 [music]
3:05AD, Rome itself is crumbling. Barbarian
3:09tribes are hammering the empire from all
3:11sides. And Britain is too far away, too
3:14expensive to defend. Emperor Hanorius
3:17sends word. You're on your own. The
3:20legions pull out. Without Rome,
3:23Londinium's entire economy collapses.
3:26The trade networks that brought wine
3:28from Gaul and olive oil from Spain
3:31simply stop. Roman currency becomes
3:33worthless. The merchants leave. The
3:36officials leave. The skilled craftsmen
3:39leave. Within a generation, a city of
3:42perhaps 50,000 people dwindles to
3:45[music] a few hundred squatters living
3:47in the ruins. For the next two
3:49centuries, the grand buildings slowly
3:52fall apart. Roofs cave in, walls
3:55crumble, [music] weeds push through
3:57mosaic floors, but the temps keeps
4:00flowing. And rivers have a way of
4:02attracting new people with new ideas
4:05about what a city should be.
4:10[music]
4:14The Saxons who settle in Britain after
4:16the Romans leave don't particularly like
4:18cities. They're farmers, village people.
4:22They [music] actually avoid the old
4:23Roman city, seeing it as haunted,
4:26cursed. One Saxon poet calls the ruins
4:30the work [music] of giants. They can't
4:32imagine how mere humans could have built
4:35such massive structures. Instead, around
4:38[music] the 670s,
4:40they build a new settlement about a mile
4:42west of the Roman walls. [music] They
4:45call it Londonvvic, London trading town.
4:48This is where modern Covent Garden and
4:50the Strand [music] are today. If you're
4:53watching a performance at the Royal
4:54Opera House, you're sitting directly
4:57above Saxon London. By the early 700s,
5:01goods are flowing in from all over.
5:03Amber from the Baltic, millstones
5:05[music] and wine jars from the
5:07Rhineland, pottery and metal work from
5:09France and Germany. At its peak,
5:13Londonvic [music] might have 8,000
5:15people living there. Not huge by Roman
5:18standards, but thriving.
5:21But then
5:23the Vikings arrive.
5:26Starting in the late 8th century, Norse
5:29raiders keep hitting the settlement.
5:31These aren't just raids anymore. They're
5:34coming up the tempames in force. In 842,
5:38they sack Londonvvic completely. In 851,
5:42they do it again. King Alfred the Great
5:46finally has enough. In 886,
5:49he retakes London from the Danes and
5:52does something clever. He abandons
5:54Londonvvic and moves everyone back
5:56inside the old [music] Roman walled city
5:59which is much easier to defend. He
6:02repairs the ancient walls, recuts the
6:05defensive ditches. The city is now
6:07called Londenberg, London fortress.
6:11Londonvic is left empty, gradually
6:13earning a new name, Elvvic, the old
6:17settlement. That name [music] survives
6:19today as Old Witch, the curved street in
6:23central London. Over the next century
6:25and a half, the city changes hands
6:27[music] multiple times between Saxon and
6:30Danish rulers. In 1016, King Canute,
6:34yes, the one from the legend about
6:37commanding the tide, [music] makes
6:39London his capital.
6:41When Edward the Confessor becomes king
6:43in [music] 1042, he builds Westminster
6:46Abbey just west of the city. That
6:49decision will shape London's [music]
6:50geography forever. The city for
6:53commerce, Westminster for power. Edward
6:56the Confessor dies childless in January
6:591066, and England tears itself apart
7:02over who should rule next. Harold
7:05Godwinson is crowned king, but across
7:07the channel, [music] William, Duke of
7:09Normandy, claims Edward promised him the
7:12throne. In September, Harold has to
7:15march [music] north to fight off a
7:17Norwegian invasion. He wins, but he's
7:20barely caught [music] his breath when
7:21news arrives. William has landed on the
7:24south coast with 7,000 Norman soldiers.
7:29Harold rushes his exhausted army south
7:31and meets William at Hastings on October
7:3414th. By nightfall, Harold is dead and
7:38William has won England. On Christmas
7:41Day 1066, [music]
7:43he's crowned King of England at
7:45Westminster Abbey. The Anglo-Saxon
7:47[music] era is over. The Normans have
7:50arrived and they're going to rebuild
7:52England [music] in their own image,
7:55starting with London.
8:03William doesn't entirely trust London's
8:05population. They supported Harold after
8:07all. So he builds not one but three
8:10fortresses to keep them in line. The
8:13biggest becomes the Tower of London
8:15which starts as a symbol of oppression
8:17and will remain a symbol of royal power
8:20for the next thousand years. The White
8:23Tower, its central keep, is a statement
8:25in stone.
8:2790 [music] ft high, walls 12 ft thick in
8:30places. It dominates [music] the
8:32skyline, a constant reminder of who's in
8:35charge. Now, medieval London is cramped,
8:38chaotic, [music] and increasingly
8:40wealthy. By 1100, maybe 15,000 people
8:44live here. The city's merchants form
8:47guilds [music] that control trades.
8:49Goldsmiths, fish mongers, drapers,
8:52mercers. These guilds become so powerful
8:56that the king has to negotiate with
8:57them. In 1215, when the baronss force
9:01King John to sign the Magna Carta,
9:03London support is crucial. The city
9:06[music] extracts its own concessions,
9:09the right to elect its own mayor,
9:11freedom from arbitrary taxes.
9:14London [music] Bridge, rebuilt in stone
9:16between 1176 and 1209, becomes a [music]
9:20city unto itself. It takes 33 years to
9:24build. Shops and [music] houses line
9:27both sides. The bridge has a chapel, a
9:30drawbridge, even heads of traitors
9:32[music] displayed on spikes as a
9:34warning. For over 600 years, it's the
9:38only bridge [music] across the tempames
9:39in London. Then in 1348, ships arrive at
9:44London's docks carrying rats. And on
9:47those rats, fleas. And in those fleas,
9:51yinia pestis, the black death. Within
9:55two years, somewhere between a third and
9:58half of London's population is dead. The
10:02city that had grown to maybe 80,000
10:04people is suddenly half empty. Entire
10:08streets are abandoned. Bodies pile
10:10[music] up faster than they can be
10:12buried. Mass graves are dug in fields
10:15outside the city walls. The city
10:18recovers slowly. By the late 14th
10:21century, London is growing again, but
10:24tensions are rising [music] too. In
10:271381, peasants and workers march on
10:30London, demanding an end to surfom and
10:33unfair taxes.
10:35What? Tyler leads them. They storm the
10:38tower, execute the [music] Archbishop of
10:40Canterbury, burn the palace of John of
10:43Gaunt. The teenage king, Richard II,
10:46meets with them, makes promises. The
10:49peasants revolt is ultimately crushed.
10:52Tyler is killed, the leaders hunted down
10:55[music] and executed.
10:57But it terrifies the ruling class. The
11:00common people of London have discovered
11:02their power, and they won't forget it.
11:11By 1500, London's population has
11:14rebounded to about 50,000.
11:17Then something remarkable happens. It
11:19explodes. By 1600, it's 200,000. [music]
11:23By 1650, it's nearly 400,000.
11:27London becomes the largest city [music]
11:29in Europe. Henry VIII's break with Rome
11:32in the 1530s transforms [music] the
11:34city's landscape. Henry wanted to
11:37divorce his first wife, but the pope
11:39[music] refused. So Henry broke away
11:42from the Catholic Church, made himself
11:44head of the new church of England, and
11:46shut down [music] all the monasteries.
11:49In London, monasteries owned massive
11:51amounts of [music] land. Once Henry
11:53seized it, that property became
11:55available. Aristocrats and wealthy
11:58merchants bought it up [music] and built
12:00grand houses. Suddenly, London had room
12:03to expand. Under Queen Elizabeth I,
12:07London becomes the cultural capital of
12:09Europe. The Globe [music] Theater opens
12:12on the South Bank in 1599.
12:14Shakespeare is staging Hamlet Athell
12:17King Lear. Meanwhile, merchants are
12:20[music] getting wealthy from trade with
12:22the New World and Asia. The East India
12:25Company is founded in [music] 1600,
12:28setting the stage for empire. But London
12:31has always been vulnerable to two
12:33things: disease and fire. The city is
12:37[music] built almost entirely of timber
12:39with thatched roofs, dried straw,
12:41[music] and reeds. Houses are packed
12:44close together, upper floors overhanging
12:47narrow streets nearly touching [music]
12:49across the gaps. Open fires in every
12:52building for cooking and heating.
12:54Candles [music] everywhere. No fire
12:57departments. It's a tinder box. Both
13:00disaster [music] and disease strike in
13:02the 1660s with devastating effect. In
13:061665, [music]
13:08the plague returns. Not the Black Death
13:11exactly, but close enough. At its peak,
13:147,000 Londoners are dying every week.
13:18The wealthy flee to the countryside. The
13:21poor are trapped. By the time it burns
13:23out, maybe a 100,000 people are dead. a
13:27quarter of the city's [music]
13:28population.
13:35The following year, on September [music]
13:372nd, 1666,
13:39a fire starts in a bakery on Pudding
13:42Lane. It's been a hot, dry summer.
13:45Strong winds are blowing. The fire
13:47spreads faster than anyone [music]
13:49thought possible. For 4 days, London
13:52burns. 85% [music]
13:54of the city within the walls is
13:56destroyed.
13:5813,000 houses [music] gone. 87 churches,
14:02including the old St. Paul's Cathedral.
14:04[music] Remarkably, only about six
14:06people die in the fire itself, but
14:09100,000 are left homeless. Christopher
14:12Ren sees [music] an opportunity. He
14:15proposes a completely new city plan.
14:18Wide boulevards, classical architecture,
14:21open squares. It's an enlightened vision
14:25and it's almost completely rejected.
14:27Property rights [music] are too
14:29complicated, rebuilding too urgent. Most
14:32streets follow their [music] medieval
14:34patterns, but the city is rebuilt
14:36differently. New building regulations
14:39require brick and stone instead of
14:41timber and thatch. Far more resistant to
14:44fire. And Ren does get to rebuild St.
14:47Paul's Cathedral. The new one with the
14:50iconic dome takes 35 [music] years to
14:53complete. It's still there, dominating
14:56the skyline. One of the few buildings to
14:58survive the blitz centuries later.
15:0618th century London is the center of the
15:08enlightenment. Coffee houses become the
15:11internet of their day, places where
15:13ideas and news spread rapidly. Lloyd's
15:16Coffee House becomes Lloyds of London,
15:19the insurance market. Jonathan's Coffee
15:22House becomes the London Stock Exchange.
15:25London is also becoming the capital of
15:27an empire. In 1735,
15:30Robert Walpole becomes the first prime
15:32minister to live [music] at 10 Downing
15:34Street, which will remain the official
15:36residence for centuries.
15:38George III buys Buckingham House in 1761
15:42as a private residence for his family.
15:45It will eventually [music] become
15:46Buckingham Palace. The city is expanding
15:50physically, too. Westminster Bridge
15:52[music] opens in 1750, finally giving
15:55London a second crossing after six
15:57centuries with only London Bridge. Black
16:00Fry's Bridge follows in 1769.
16:05After the defeat of Napoleon in 1815,
16:08Britain is the dominant world power and
16:10London is where the money flows. banks,
16:14trading houses, shipping companies.
16:17Wealth is pouring in from India, [music]
16:18the Caribbean, Africa. Then comes the
16:22industrial revolution and London
16:24transforms yet [music] again. Factories,
16:27railways, mass production. In 1801,
16:31[music] London has just over a million
16:33people. By 1851, it's 2 1/2 million. By
16:381901, 6 1/2 million. It's the largest
16:41city in the world. The Victorians build
16:44on a scale that's hard to comprehend.
16:47Trafalga Square is laid out in the 1840s
16:50commemorating Nelson's victory. The
16:53Houses of Parliament and Big Ben rise in
16:56the 1850s after the old palace [music]
16:58burns down. That iconic Gothic revival
17:02architecture defining [music] the city's
17:04identity. In 1851, the Great Exhibition
17:08opens in Hyde Park. The Crystal Palace,
17:12a massive structure of iron and glass,
17:15showcases Britain's [music] industrial
17:16dominance to the world. 6 million people
17:20visit. It's a moment of supreme
17:22confidence. Britain at the peak of its
17:25power.
17:26The sewage system still in use today,
17:29built by Joseph Basiljette after the
17:31great stink of 1858 [music]
17:34when the temps became so polluted
17:36Parliament had to shut down. Basiljet
17:39sewers finally fixed the problem,
17:42channeling waste away from the river.
17:44The underground, the world's first
17:46subway system, opening in 1863.
17:50The Tower Bridge, an engineering marvel
17:53completed in 1894.
17:57But Victorian London is also a city of
18:00brutal inequality. The rich live in
18:03Mayfair and Belgravia in extraordinary
18:05comfort. The poor are crammed into East
18:08[music] End slums. Cholera outbreaks
18:11killed tens of thousands in the 1830s
18:13and 1840s.
18:15Entire neighborhoods [music] wiped out
18:18by contaminated water. It takes a doctor
18:21named Jon Snow proving in 1854 that
18:25cholera spreads through water, not air,
18:28before anyone fixes the problem. Crime
18:31is rampant. In 1829, Robert Peele
18:34[music] establishes the Metropolitan
18:36Police, the first professional police
18:39force nicknamed Bobby's after him. But
18:42the city's dark side persists. In 1888,
18:46Jack the Ripper terrorizes White Chapel,
18:49murdering at least five women. He's
18:52never caught. The case becomes infamous,
18:55a symbol of Victorian London's dangerous
18:58underbelly. Charles Dickens writes about
19:01it all. The workhouses, the slums, the
19:04children [music] working in factories,
19:07the contrast between the world's
19:08wealthiest empire and its desperate
19:11poor, all compressed into the same city.
19:22The 20th century brings London [music]
19:24back down to earth. The First World War
19:27kills hundreds of thousands of young
19:29British men. However, London's main
19:31[music] infrastructure survived. But the
19:34Second World War brings the war [music]
19:36directly to the city, the Blitz. Between
19:40September 1940 [music]
19:42and May 1941,
19:44German bombers hit London almost every
19:46night. Entire neighborhoods are leveled.
19:50St. Paul's Cathedral miraculously
19:52survives. Photographs showing it
19:55standing defiant amid the smoke and
19:57flames. By the end of the war, a million
20:00buildings are damaged or destroyed, and
20:03almost half a million souls from the UK
20:06are lost.
20:13Postwar London is broke, bombed out,
20:16exhausted. The empire [music] is
20:18collapsing. India gains independence in
20:211947.
20:23Rationing [music] continues into the
20:251950s.
20:28Fog and coal smoke are so thick that in
20:301952, the great smog kills 12,000
20:34[music]
20:34people in just 5 days. But London
20:38rebuilds again. The 1951 Festival of
20:42Britain held on the South Bank signals a
20:45new beginning. Brutalist towers rise
20:48from the rubble. The welfare state
20:50expands and crucially people start
20:53[music] arriving from former colonies.
20:56The Windrush generation from the
20:58Caribbean [music] in 1948
21:01followed by waves of immigration from
21:03India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, later from
21:06Africa, Eastern Europe, everywhere.
21:10The [music] 1960s bring a cultural
21:12explosion. Swinging London, the Beatles,
21:16the Rolling Stones, Carnaby Street, Mary
21:19Quant. For a moment, London feels young
21:22again.
21:24The next few decades are rockier.
21:27Economic decline, strikes, terrorism
21:30[music] from the IRA. By the 1980s, the
21:33Docklands are abandoned. The East End is
21:36neglected.
21:38Then comes massive redevelopment.
21:41Canary Warf rises from the old docks.
21:44The financial sector booms. London
21:47reinvents itself as a global financial
21:50center.
21:58The 21st century starts with the
22:00Millennium Dome, an expensive flop that
22:03later becomes the O2 [music] Arena. But
22:06London keeps growing. The 2012 Olympics
22:09transform East London, bringing
22:12investment and infrastructure.
22:14The city passes 9 million people, the
22:17most since before World War II. Modern
22:20London is defined by its [music]
22:22diversity. Over 300 languages are spoken
22:26here. Entire neighborhoods have their
22:28roots in different parts of the world.
22:30[music] Brixton's Caribbean culture,
22:33South Hall's South Asian community,
22:35Chinatown, Turkish Dston, Polish [music]
22:38Hammersmith. You can eat food from any
22:41country. Hear music from any tradition.
22:44Find a community from anywhere. The
22:47skyline keeps changing. The Shard, the
22:50Girkin, the Walkietalkie building.
22:53Traditional architecture sits alongside
22:55glass and steel towers. It's
22:57controversial, constantly debated, but
23:00it's happening. London has survived
23:03[music] Roman withdrawal, Viking raids,
23:06the Black Death, the Great Fire, the
23:08Blitz. Each time it rebuilds, each time
23:12it adapts, each time it pulls in new
23:14people with new ideas. That's what
23:17[music] makes London London. It's messy,
23:21crowded, expensive, complicated, and
23:24it's been that way for 2,000 years.
23:27Thanks for watching. Creating videos
23:29like this takes an enormous amount of
23:31research and time. It's mainly a passion
23:34project for me, piecing together
23:36thousands of years of history into one
23:39story. If you enjoyed this journey
23:41through London's evolution from Roman
23:43marshland to global metropolis, I'd
23:46really appreciate [music] it if you'd
23:48hit the like button and subscribe for
23:50more deep dives into history. And let me
23:53know in the comments what city would you
23:55like to see next. As always, we'll see
23:59you in the past.

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