Americapox: The Missing Plague

“You can’t build a civilization on honey alone.” I guess hexagons aren't the bestagons.

The YouTube algorithm has a real dark sense of humour.

Thank you so much for this episode! Back when we learned about American colonization in school my history teacher actually told the class that most natives got killed by european diseases, but when I asked why the same didn’t happen to the europeans with american diseases, the answer I got was: “They just didn’t.” This has bothered me for ages

Speaking of cholera, I remember in high school when talking about Britain, my teacher said she rather have any alcohol than water back in those days, cause alcohol isn’t going to kill you like cholera.

"Being the patient zero of a new animal-to-human plague is winning a terrible lottery" Sheesh, couldn't be more right

Great, great video. I'd add one thing: As Grey points out, living in a city pre-1900 had some downsides, specifically you were quite likely to die of plague. But living outside of cities also had some disadvantages--you were quite likely to die of starvation. The Old World had all the domesticatable animals, but the New World had much better non-animal food. Tomatoes, potatoes, corn, avocados, beans, squash, blueberries, and the list goes on. Most of the non-meat, non-wheat foods we associate with contemporary life--from peanuts to peppers--existed only in the New World. -John

It is also worth bearing in mind that Europeans did continually have outbreaks from their own plagues after arriving in the New World but they simply died at lower rates.

Humans after dog domestication: “Hey bud, could you guard my cheeseburger factory?”

"Now most germs don't want to kill you for the same reason you don't want to burn down your house" this quote is absolutely perfect in every sense of the word.

i love how he used hexagons even back then

"You can't build a civilization on a foundation of honey alone" Ok then how did the bees do it?

"Nothing but drama, these llamas." Sounds like the opposite of their Old World cousins, the camels. When you're a camel, you can put up with anything. :P

"But you can't build a civilization on a foundation of honey alone." [Citation needed]

If smallpox is so deadly, I can't imagine how deadly BIGpox is

It doesn't really change things. But North America does have a number of native goat and sheep species. The NA Mountain Goat, Bighorn Sheep, and Dall Sheep being among the ones I know of. Natives used to collect their molted fur for weaving, but never domesticated them. Cool thing about Lamas is that coyotes and wolves are afraid of them. I used to work on a goat farm that had a number of lamas for the purpose of scaring away the coyotes. These species are also highly susceptible to diseases such as pneumonic plague from the old world.

Great video, though I feel it leaves out one important factor. Jared Diamonds in his book, 'Guns, Germs and Steel' discusses these questions in depth and also points at the orientation of the continents. In Eurasia, with its East-West orientation, most regions will have a neighbouring region on the same longitude. This means these regions probably have a similar climate, which facilitates the exchange of crops and domesticated animals as these can thrive in both regions. The America’s, on the other hand, have a North-South orientation and on top of this are cut through by various mountain ranges, deserts and jungles. This means that communities in neighbouring regions live on different longitudes and thus in a different climate. This makes for a much slower spread of domesticated plants and animals as direct neighbours have no reason to adopt these from eachother. The societies that do have a similar enough climate to potentially benefit from such an exchange are too far away, being on opposite sides of the equator, to learn about each other's livestock and plants.

sheep 1: "You're a conspiracy theorist." sheep 2: "No. The dog and the man are working together!"

Is nobody gonna talk about that CGP Grey changed the thumbnail of a 4 year old vid?

I have frequently wondered why the plagues from Western exploration of the new world only went one way. Thanks for explaining that one.

This had literally never occurred to me before, and you answered it so thoroughly and succinctly. Thank you!