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The Untold History of Earth: Hobbits Really Existed, Dinosaurs Had Feathers, and Yetis Roamed Our Planet

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Manage episode 462653086 series 2421086
Content provided by Support and History Unplugged. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Support and History Unplugged or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://staging.podcastplayer.com/legal.

The Old English poem Beowulf is a vital source of information on history, language, story and belief from the darkest of the Dark Ages. Only one copy is known to exist (it’s in the British Library), and that was rescued from a fire that is known to have destroyed many other manuscripts. If Beowulf didn’t exist, how much would we know about that period? It’s a sobering thought that between 410 and 597, no scrap of writing survives from what is now England. This is an interval comparable in length between now… and the Napoleonic Wars. The same is true about fossils — what we know of the fossil record is an infinitesimal dot on an infinitesimal dot on what really happened. Almost everything that once existed on our planet has been lost. This means that anything new we find has the potential to change everything.

Today guest, Henry Gee, author of A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth, zips through the last 4.6 billion years to tell a tale of survival and persistence that illuminates the delicate balance within which life has always existed.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  continue reading

991 episodes

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iconShare
 
Manage episode 462653086 series 2421086
Content provided by Support and History Unplugged. All podcast content including episodes, graphics, and podcast descriptions are uploaded and provided directly by Support and History Unplugged or their podcast platform partner. If you believe someone is using your copyrighted work without your permission, you can follow the process outlined here https://staging.podcastplayer.com/legal.

The Old English poem Beowulf is a vital source of information on history, language, story and belief from the darkest of the Dark Ages. Only one copy is known to exist (it’s in the British Library), and that was rescued from a fire that is known to have destroyed many other manuscripts. If Beowulf didn’t exist, how much would we know about that period? It’s a sobering thought that between 410 and 597, no scrap of writing survives from what is now England. This is an interval comparable in length between now… and the Napoleonic Wars. The same is true about fossils — what we know of the fossil record is an infinitesimal dot on an infinitesimal dot on what really happened. Almost everything that once existed on our planet has been lost. This means that anything new we find has the potential to change everything.

Today guest, Henry Gee, author of A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth, zips through the last 4.6 billion years to tell a tale of survival and persistence that illuminates the delicate balance within which life has always existed.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  continue reading

991 episodes

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