ShmoopTube

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look up in the sky it's a bird it's a plane it's a waterwheel [Waterwheel flying by in the sky]

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waterwheel that seems super dangerous anyway the waterwheel was used power [Hamster running in a wheel]

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mills and other devices all over the world for more than two thousand years

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dinky little farms cobble together small wheels to grind their wheat and big [Lots of wheat being poured into a pile]

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scary empires built huge waterwheel complexes to make food for their armies [Soldier telling the hamster to run faster]

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some of the biggest and most advanced water wheels were used in ancient Rome [Water wheel bounces in front of the colosseum]

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you know gladiators Julius Caesar toga party that ancient Rome let's think of

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its awesomeness the Roman Empire stretched over the entire Mediterranean [Roman empire spreading out over the globe]

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Sea for those of you keeping score at home that's a lot of mouths to feed and [Lots of hands reaching out to Cesar]

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if it turns out feeding so many people without modern industrial technology is [Water wheel rolls past hungry people]

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really really hard especially when Caesar refused to share his salad so the

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Romans had to go beyond the power of individual human labor they created huge

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waterwheels powered factories that ground massive amounts of grain these

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kind of innovations allowed the Romans to feed the entire empire and Caesar got [Food being handed out]

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to eat his precious salad around the same time in history water

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mills were becoming an important source of energy in the Han Dynasty in China [Water wheel next to the dynasty in China]

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its Chinese didn't just grind grain with them Chinese blacksmith also used water

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wheels that powered the bellows for their iron forges on Chinese farmers

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used water wheels to move water through irrigation ditches and into rice paddies [Water wheel being used on a farm]

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by 1086 ze over 5000 water wheels stretched all across England you will [Water wheel covering a map of the UK]

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Europe was a happenin place for water wheels Europeans were harnessing huge

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amounts of natural kinetic energy in those days so what did they do with it [2 men throwing a harness round a water wheel]

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also most of Western Europe relied on cereal crops like wheat barley Cap'n

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Crunch and oats survived all of which had to be ground before they were edible [The seeds and the box of cereal is planted]

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okay fine maybe not scab crush but waterwheels also powered giant hammers [Giant hammer hitting a pile of wood]

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and mule powered hammers could be used to smash wood into pulp to make paper the

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thing - without paper we wouldn't be able to procrastinate at work so [Guy chucking balls of paper into a bin]

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efficiently we'll also needed a beat-down before it could be turned into [Guy about to hit a sheep with a hockey stick]

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cloth and later on watermills were in charge of grinding

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gunpowder and that sounds totally safe precise yeah well all these new [Explosions at a factory]

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applications for water power had major consequences for Europe first the

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European economy could grow far beyond its smallish population because people

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were making more stuff with less labour and second European attitudes toward [Two guys assembling toys]

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technology and machines were changing sooo pretty soon Europeans were saying

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what are the sources of energy and we exploit along with Kentucky water will

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be flying in the sky that seems super dangerous yes ah what's up with that [Water wheel falls out the sky and hits a guy, then everyone else runs away]

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