H.Becquerel found uranium emitted radiation and, in1898, M.Curie extracted minute traces of radium from ore. J.Maxwell predicted electro-magnetic radiation in 1855 and Einstein formulated special relativity; mass could be converted into energy. In 1905, E.Rutherford found radon gas emitted helium nuclei. In 1919, F.Aston identified 212 naturally occurring isotopes. But why was the atomic weight of helium exactly 4.000 and not 4.032? In 1925, Rutherford transmuted nitrogen into an isotope of oxygen. By 1934, J.Chadwick had found neutrons emitted by polonium and E.Fermi had transmuted uranium into plutonium. Fermi's research reactor went critical in 1942. The 235-uranium was extracted at Oak Ridge, while plutonium was produced in Washington state and the first atom bomb exploded in New Mexico in 1945. Two more atom bombs destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending the war with Japan. The first practical nuclear power plant was developed for submarines and, by 2021, 442 fission reactors supplied about 10% of the world's electricity. WHO THE HELL ARE WE? is a series of short books and videos describing the evolution of civilization. Almost everyone on the planet is five times wealthier than their ancestors only 50 years ago. This astonishing phenomenon has also improved health, education, and longevity. The cause; an explosive growth in ideas and productivity. It began when we learned to control fire, evolved articulate speech and stumbled onto the way to create infinite wealth; free trade. The discovery of agriculture made us richer but we also learned how to destroy wealth. Great civilization grew up but then disappeared leaving only incredible ruins and ideas. Later books detail some of the ideas and developments that increased the average life span from about 40 years to more than 80 and the average world income from less than $3 to more than $33 per person per day (and to $140 per day in some countries).

In 1657, Otto von Guericke pumped the air from two hemispheres and eight horses could not pull them apart. Amontons found a volume of air shrank as the temperature fell and realized that it would become zero. In 1774, Joseph Priestley isolated oxygen while Lavoisier released hydrogen and burned this with oxygen to make water. In 1832, Michael Faraday built the first electric motor and generator. John Newlands noticed similar chemical properties in a list of elements demonstrating the existence of unknown elements. Antonie van Leeuwenhoek invented a microscope with 300 times magnification allowing him to see bacteria, spermatozoa and red blood cells. In 1605, Kepler concluded that all the planets moved in elliptical orbits with the sun at one focus of the ellipse. Galileo reported that the orbital periods of Jupiter's moons permitted accurate determination of longitude on Earth. Newton and Leibniz independently invented calculus, used extensively in mathematics, science, engineering and economics. WHO THE HELL ARE WE? is a series of short books and videos describing the evolution of civilization. Almost everyone on the planet is five times wealthier than their ancestors only 50 years ago. This astonishing phenomenon has also improved health, education, and longevity. The cause; an explosive growth in ideas and productivity. It began when we learned to control fire, evolved articulate speech and stumbled onto the way to create infinite wealth; free trade. The discovery of agriculture made us richer but we also learned how to destroy wealth. Great civilization grew up but then disappeared leaving only incredible ruins and ideas. Later books detail some of the ideas and developments that increased the average life span from about 40 years to more than 80 and the average world income from less than $3 to more than $33 per person per day (and to $140 per day in some countries).

Jesus and Muhammad adopted the Hebrew's belief in one God and Christianity and Islam spread throughout the world. The Chinese were using gunpowder in the 9th century and, by the 13th , cannon dominated the battlefields. Paper money appeared in China from 1216, as many financial transactions were too large for heavy bronze coins. The Anglo-Saxons built light, fast ships to stop the Vikings raiding Britain and, in 1546, Henry VIII established the "Navy Royal" which Elizabeth I used to defeat the Spanish armada. Before 1764 a worker needed 50,000 hours to spin 100 lb of cotton thread on a hand-powered wheel but only 300 hours with a spinning machine. Between 1770 and 1773, James Cook crossed the Antarctic Circle and mapped the coasts of New Zealand, Australia and the west coast of north America. By 100 BCE, Chinese were weaving complex silk brocade cloth. In 1804, J. M. Jacquard reinvented the Chinese loom, using a chain of cards to control which threads of weft or warp appeared on the cloth. This was the beginning of computers. WHO THE HELL ARE WE? is a series of short books and videos describing the evolution of civilization. Almost everyone on the planet is five times wealthier than their ancestors only 50 years ago. This astonishing phenomenon has also improved health, education, and longevity. The cause; an explosive growth in ideas and productivity. It began when we learned to control fire, evolved articulate speech and stumbled onto the way to create infinite wealth; free trade. The discovery of agriculture made us richer but we also learned how to destroy wealth. Great civilization grew up but then disappeared leaving only incredible ruins and ideas. Later books detail some of the ideas and developments that increased the average life span from about 40 years to more than 80 and the average world income from less than $3 to more than $33 per person per day (and to $140 per day in some countries).

The Roman Empire began to decline after Germanic tribes crossed the river Rhine in 406 CE. When Constantine III recalled the legions from Britain, three years later, the Angles and Saxons invaded and Britain became known as Angleland. The Visigoths sacked Rome in 410. The Vandals invaded north Africa in 429 and conquered Carthage before crossing the Mediterranean to sack Rome in 455 CE. Meanwhile, Christianity grew from a minor Hebrew religious cult to dominate much of Europe. With the continual violence, people reverted to a poorer lifestyle. However, the metal workers, glass blowers, carpenters, leather workers, rope makers, weavers, potters and farmers developed more efficient horse drawn plows, improved crop yields, build better boats and the first engineers designed water wheels to irrigate crops, grind seeds and saw wood. They invented wooden barrels, wagon wheels and windmills as the Chinese invented paper and printing. Meanwhile, the Indians revolutionized mathematics and Moslems discovered chemistry. WHO THE HELL ARE WE? is a series of short books and videos describing the evolution of civilization. Almost everyone on the planet is five times wealthier than their ancestors only 50 years ago. This astonishing phenomenon has also improved health, education, and longevity. The cause; an explosive growth in ideas and productivity. It began when we learned to control fire, evolved articulate speech and stumbled onto the way to create infinite wealth; free trade. The discovery of agriculture made us richer but we also learned how to destroy wealth. Great civilization grew up but then disappeared leaving only incredible ruins and ideas. Later books detail some of the ideas and developments that increased the average life span from about 40 years to more than 80 and the average world income from less than $3 to more than $33 per person per day (and to $140 per day in some countries).

The arms race began in Mesopotamia with the invention of composite bows, light chariots and crossbows. The Persian (Iranian) emperor tried to conquer Athens in 480 BCE but was delayed by the Spartans at Thermopylae while Greek warships destroyed the Persian fleet. The Macedonian ruler, Alexander the Great, completely destroyed the Persian armies by 326 BCE and established the Greek empire. Then, between 600 and 200 BCE, a few hundred Greeks revolutionized science, mathematics, medicine, engineering, history, law and philosophy. Meanwhile, Greeks settlers in Sicily were in conflict with Rome and, by first century BCE, Romans had conquered Greece, Egypt, Carthage and the old Persian empire. Roman traders made large profits using the Silk Road between Rome, China and India and which created higher incomes though out the Roman empire. Roman engineers built more than 80,000 km of roads throughout the empire and 800 km of aqueducts in Rome delivered a million cubic metres of water each day. WHO THE HELL ARE WE? is a series of short books and videos describing the evolution of civilization. Almost everyone on the planet is five times wealthier than their ancestors only 50 years ago. This astonishing phenomenon has also improved health, education, and longevity. The cause; an explosive growth in ideas and productivity. It began when we learned to control fire, evolved articulate speech and stumbled onto the way to create infinite wealth; free trade. The discovery of agriculture made us richer but we also learned how to destroy wealth. Great civilization grew up but then disappeared leaving only incredible ruins and ideas. Later books detail some of the ideas and developments that increased the average life span from about 40 years to more than 80 and the average world income from less than $3 to more than $33 per person per day (and to $140 per day in some countries).

The first agricultural revolutions began about 10,000 BCE in Egypt, China and Mesopotamia (Iraq). Trading require counting and the first written language; in general use by 2600 BCE. The first epic poem, Gilgamesh, was written in cuneiform. The first alphabet assigned Semitic characters to Egyptian hieroglyphs about 2000 BCE. It was adopted by the Greeks about 800 BCE and later modified for the Roman Latin alphabet. The Chinese built the first blast furnaces (using piston-bellows driven by waterwheels) and cast iron farm tools and weapons were common by 500 BCE. Austronesians sailed outrigger canoes over 6,000 kilometers from Taiwan to reach New Zealand from about 3000 BCE. About 100 BCE the Malays of Indonesia traded between China, India and Africa in sailing ships carrying 1000 people and a 260 ton cargo. The Greek navigator, Pytheas, sailed to the north Atlantic about 325 BCE where he recorded polar ice, the Midnight Sun and lunar tides. The Roman Prefect of Egypt (26-24 BCE), Aelius Gallus, noted 120 trading ships leaving Myos Hormos for India. WHO THE HELL ARE WE? is a series of short books and videos describing the evolution of civilization. Almost everyone on the planet is five times wealthier than their ancestors only 50 years ago. This astonishing phenomenon has also improved health, education, and longevity. The cause; an explosive growth in ideas and productivity. It began when we learned to control fire, evolved articulate speech and stumbled onto the way to create infinite wealth; free trade. The discovery of agriculture made us richer but we also learned how to destroy wealth. Great civilization grew up but then disappeared leaving only incredible ruins and ideas. Later books detail some of the ideas and developments that increased the average life span from about 40 years to more than 80 and the average world income from less than $3 to more than $33 per person per day (and to $140 per day in some countries).

About 1.5 billion years ago, the single-celled eukaryotes became the common ancestors of all multicellular plants, animals, and fungi. Fish evolved a primitive lung sac and four limbs, 350 million years ago, so they could crawl between fresh water swamps. About 250 million years ago, the ancestors of all mammals, were tiny nocturnal insectivores and, about 6 million years ago, we began walking on two legs. The most recent Ice Age (2.6 million to 12,000 years ago), severely reduced rainfall in Africa, where Homo habilis was evolving. In Homo erectus (1.9 to 0.5 million years ago), cranial capacity increased to between 850 and 1000 cm3 implying the phenomenal increase of 125,000 more neurons with each generation. Between 70 and 50 thousand years ago, Homo sapiens spread out from east Africa. Then, about 20,000 years ago, evolution made a sharp change in direction. After 250 million years, we ceased to be hunter gatherers. The Neolithic Revolution meant we could never go back. WHO THE HELL ARE WE? is a series of short books and videos describing the evolution of civilization. Almost everyone on the planet is five times wealthier than their ancestors only 50 years ago. This astonishing phenomenon has also improved health, education, and longevity. The cause; an explosive growth in ideas and productivity. It began when we learned to control fire, evolved articulate speech and stumbled onto the way to create infinite wealth; free trade. The discovery of agriculture made us richer but we also learned how to destroy wealth. Great civilization grew up but then disappeared leaving only incredible ruins and ideas. Later books detail some of the ideas and developments that increased the average life span from about 40 years to more than 80 and the average world income from less than $3 to more than $33 per person per day (and to $140 per day in some countries).

Space and time began about 13.7 billion years ago but it consisted almost exclusively of hydrogen until some stars grew sufficiently massive to create the heavier elements in gigantic explosions called supernovae. The Sun formed about 4.6 billion years ago with an orbiting disk of debris that became the Solar System and, about 4.4 billion years ago, the Earth was cool enough for liquid water. Oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus make up 99% of the mass of the human body. These elements combine to form molecules ranging from water to the twin helices of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) that specify the genetic code. Life on Earth probably began with complex, virus-like molecules that over billions of years evolved cells and the ability to split carbon dioxide and water (H2O). The poisonous waste product, oxygen, released into the atmosphere, probably caused the first mass extinctions on Earth. WHO THE HELL ARE WE? is a series of short books and videos describing the evolution of civilization. Almost everyone on the planet is five times wealthier than their ancestors only 50 years ago. This astonishing phenomenon has also improved the health, education, and longevity of almost everyone. The cause; an explosive growth in ideas and productivity. Civilization began when we discovered how to use fire and stumbled onto the way to create infinite wealth; free trade. The discovery of agriculture and trade made us richer but we also discovered how to destroy wealth. Great civilization grew up but then disappeared leaving only incredible ruins and ideas. Later books detail some of the ideas and developments that increased the average life span from about 40 years to more than 80 and the average world income from less than $3 to more than $33 per person per day (and to $140 per day in some countries).

Author's note. This work has been largely updated, expanded and superceded by a a series. You will find all the books at https://www.wattpad.com/user/duncmacphun You may read them in any order and by any part (chapter); what ever takes your interest. Duncan MacPhun We are a violent, territorial species and constant warfare arguably drove the evolution of our larger brains and greater intelligence This is the true story of how we got to be the longest lived, wealthiest, heathiest, least violent, best educated and the most ingenious generation in history. It is the story of the people, discoveries and inventions that created our civilization. From small sail boats to railways, diesel engines, refrigeration and jet aircraft. From the invention of vaccines and antibiotics to clean water and sewage systems. From the discovery of electricity and electromagnetic radiation to radio and radar. From copper and iron to oxygen, hydrogen, aluminum, uranium and nuclear energy. Three seminal events in human history separated us from other animals and defined what we became. Our phenomenal use of technology began with the control of fire, which literally changed the course of our evolution and made us physically what we are. The evolution of articulate speech and the development of trade, eventually gave us unimaginable wealth and modern civilization. Wealth is created by specialization, education, trade, competition and large populations. It is destroyed by criminals, war, incompetent governments and natural disasters (disease, floods, droughts, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and ice ages). Thank you for reading, voting and following I enjoy comments and suggestions from readers. Regards, Duncan MacPhun.