The Great Exhibition of 1851 London — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00Picture this. It's London, 1851, and
2. 0:03seemingly out of nowhere, a gigantic,
3. 0:06shimmering palace made almost entirely
4. 0:08of glass and iron just appears. This is
5. 0:12the incredible story of the great
6. 0:14exhibition and its absolutely
7. 0:16unbelievable centerpiece, the Crystal
8. 0:18Palace. No, really, think about that for
9. 0:20a second. Could you build a structure
10. 0:22made almost entirely of glass stretching
11. 0:25longer than five football fields using
12. 0:28only 19th century technology? It sounds
13. 0:30completely impossible, doesn't it? Well,
14. 0:32back in 1851, they actually did it. And
15. 0:35this is what they built. People
16. 0:37nicknamed it the Crystal Palace, and you
17. 0:39can see why. It was just a jaw-dropping
18. 0:41site. A massive iron skeleton held up
19. 0:44almost 300,000 individual panes of
20. 0:47glass. On a sunny day, the inside was
21. 0:50just flooded with natural light, which
22. 0:52was unlike any building anyone had ever
23. 0:55experienced before. And just to give you
24. 0:56a sense of the scale we're talking
25. 0:58about, the building was 1,850
26. 1:01ft long. That is truly enormous. An
27. 1:04absolute giant of engineering that
28. 1:06seemed to pop up out of nowhere in the
29. 1:08middle of London's Hyde Park. So, you
30. 1:11have to ask why? Why go to all this
31. 1:13trouble to build something so huge and
32. 1:15so temporary? Well, the whole thing was
33. 1:18the brainchild of Queen Victoria's
34. 1:19husband, Prince Albert. He had this
35. 1:21vision of hosting a massive
36. 1:22international gettogether. But this
37. 1:24wasn't just any party. It was an event
38. 1:26with a very specific and honestly a
39. 1:28world-changing purpose. To really get
40. 1:31the why, you first need to understand
41. 1:32the industrial revolution. This was a
42. 1:35time when brand new inventions,
43. 1:36especially things like powerful steam
44. 1:38engines, were completely transforming
45. 1:40how everything was made, how people
46. 1:42worked, and how they lived. It was this
47. 1:44moment of huge, incredibly rapid
48. 1:46progress. And Prince Albert wanted to
49. 1:48put all that progress on display for the
50. 1:51entire world to see. And the idea behind
51. 1:53this great exhibition was pretty
52. 1:55ambitious. First, it was about
53. 1:57showcasing all these amazing new
54. 1:58inventions. Second, they wanted to
55. 2:00invite nations from all over the globe
56. 2:02to come and show off their best work,
57. 2:04too. Third, the hope was that if
58. 2:06countries were competing with new ideas
59. 2:08and technology, maybe they'd be less
60. 2:10interested in competing with armies. And
61. 2:12fourth, let's be real. It was a chance
62. 2:14for Great Britain to prove it was a top
63. 2:16global leader. But there was a massive
64. 2:18problem to host the world's first
65. 2:21World's Fair. You need a building big
66. 2:23enough for all those exhibits, and you
67. 2:25need it built incredibly fast, right in
68. 2:28the heart of London. The deadline they
69. 2:30had seemed completely impossible. The
70. 2:32solution came from a guy named Joseph
71. 2:34Paxton, who was an expert at building
72. 2:36giant green houses. He had a
73. 2:38revolutionary idea. Instead of building
74. 2:40everything from scratch right there in
75. 2:42the park, what if every single piece,
76. 2:44every iron girder, every pane of glass
77. 2:47was mass- prodduced in a factory first?
78. 2:49Then you just bring all those
79. 2:51standardized pre-made parts to the site
80. 2:53and assemble them like a giant kit. This
81. 2:55was one of the first major uses of
82. 2:57pre-fabricated construction, an idea
83. 2:59that would totally change how we build
84. 3:01our cities. Okay, so just when they had
85. 3:03this brilliant plan, they hit another
86. 3:06snag. The spot they chosen in Hyde Park
87. 3:08was home to several huge, beautiful elm
88. 3:11trees. The public was absolutely
89. 3:13outraged at the idea of chopping them
90. 3:14down, and the entire project was
91. 3:16suddenly in danger of being cancelled.
92. 3:19But Paxton's solution was pure genius.
93. 3:22Instead of fighting the problem, he just
94. 3:24redesigned the building. He added this
95. 3:26massive high arched roof to the central
96. 3:29hall. A roof tall enough to simply build
97. 3:31the palace around the living trees. So
98. 3:34visitors would walk through this marvel
99. 3:35of industry and see full-grown elm trees
100. 3:38alive and thriving right there inside
101. 3:40with them. So with the palace finally
102. 3:42built, the doors opened to a spectacle
103. 3:44the world had never ever seen. Half the
104. 3:47space was dedicated to Britain and its
105. 3:48empire, and the other half was filled
106. 3:50with exhibits from countries all across
107. 3:51the globe. It was literally like taking
108. 3:53a trip around the entire world, all
109. 3:55under one gigantic glass roof. And the
110. 3:58variety was just stunning. On one side,
111. 4:01you had these massive, powerful steam
112. 4:03engines and high-speed printing presses.
113. 4:05Many of them actually running so you
114. 4:07could see them in action. The Americans
115. 4:09brought over things like new harvesting
116. 4:11machines and guns made with
117. 4:12interchangeable parts. And then on the
118. 4:15other side, you could see gorgeous silks
119. 4:17from India, delicate porcelain from
120. 4:19France, and even the legendary Coenure
121. 4:21Diamond, one of the largest diamonds in
122. 4:24the world. And people came in droves.
123. 4:26We're talking over 6 million visitors in
124. 4:28just 24 weeks. To make sure everyone
125. 4:30could see it, on certain days they
126. 4:32dropped the ticket price to just one
127. 4:33shilling, which meant that workingclass
128. 4:35families could afford to come and see
129. 4:36the future. And here's a great little
130. 4:38fun fact. The great exhibition featured
131. 4:40the first ever public toilets at a big
132. 4:42event. It cost one penny to use them,
133. 4:44which is actually where we get the
134. 4:45phrase to spend a penny. So, the
135. 4:47exhibition was a massive runaway hit.
136. 4:50But what happened after the doors closed
137. 4:52and the party was over? Well, unlike a
138. 4:54lot of big public projects, this one
139. 4:56didn't just break even. It made a huge
140. 4:58profit. And Prince Albert had some
141. 5:00pretty big plans for all that money. He
142. 5:02took the profits and used them to buy a
143. 5:05huge patch of land in London. This area,
144. 5:07which people started calling Albertus,
145. 5:10was set aside specifically for new
146. 5:12museums and schools that would be
147. 5:13dedicated to science and the arts. And
148. 5:15what about the Crystal Palace itself? It
149. 5:17was way too beloved to just tear down.
150. 5:19So it was carefully taken apart piece by
151. 5:22piece and rebuilt in another part of
152. 5:24London where it stood for many more
153. 5:25decades. You know the legacy of the
154. 5:27great exhibition is still with us today
155. 5:29in a very real way. Those museums that
156. 5:32were built with the profits like the
157. 5:33world famous science museum and the
158. 5:35natural history museum, they're still
159. 5:37there teaching millions of people every
160. 5:39year. And the whole idea of a world's
161. 5:41fair where countries gather to show off
162. 5:43innovation and culture. That tradition
163. 5:45all started right here in this
164. 5:47incredible palace of glass back in 1851.
165. 5:50Which brings me to a final thought. The
166. 5:52great exhibition was all about
167. 5:53showcasing the top most important
168. 5:55innovations of its time. So if we were
169. 5:58to hold a great exhibition today, what
170. 6:00single invention do you think we should
171. 6:02put on display to represent our age?
172. 6:04What defines the future now?