It is utterly mind blowing that with just 2 major but easily passable exceptions, the Bosphorus Strait and the Strait of Gibraltar, in 138 AD you could WALK ON THE ROADS around THE ENTIRE Mediterranean Sea and end up in Rome! 😳🤯😳🤯😳🤯
@@dionh70 Of course, but the thought of being able to accomplish the feat nearly 2000 years ago simply mind blowing since most consider us so much more advanced today.
@@lukasmakarios4998 There are some surviving examples (copies of Tabula Peutingeriana), but of-course roman infrastructure is mostly gone. But you could still in large part follow the towns and cities on them.
"....the video about roman sewage is not particularly revolutionary to the modern mind but for some reason you guys really liked it!" Hey man, its some interesting shit!!
Factoid: Roman roads played an important role in WWII. U.S. General George S. Patton was a lifetime student of ancient warfare. He actually visited and walked many of the ancient battlefields to study the lay of the land and the ponder their tactics. Gen. Patton knew the names of the generals, what forces they had, what they did, and why they won or lost. He also knew where the old Roman roads were and he knew that although they didn't look like much to the modern eye, they were strong enough to hold modern tanks and military vehicles in bad weather while all other roads were a sea of mud. He put this knowledge to good use during the march on Germany, moving east when other armies were literally stuck in the mud.
Here in Spain where the geography is a real problem into designing a road, the most important highways follow the way of the ancient Roman road. Even many bridges still in use
"All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?" - Reg
@@matteobertotti (about the EU) Yeah, apart from free trade without excessive tolls or tariffs, unified rules of human rights and numerous other aspects of safety and quality improvements, simplified traveling requirements, and altogether easier interaction between nations...
@@pev_ You mean free trade which benefits Germany more than anyone else, having a common currency based on the average debt of all the EU countries, meaning a de facto dumping towards other countries like the US (which is the reason Trump heavily opposed the EU), and being a burden for countries like Italy with a higher public debt? "Unified rules of human and numerous other aspects of safety and quality improvements" means nothing, or worse, it's one of the reason illegal immigrants can come to European countries without sovereign nations being able to contrast this effectively. "Simplified traveling requirements" so less-paid workers from eastern Europe can come in western Europe and offer cheap labour, all at the benefit of the owners of these Frankestein-ish multinationals? But you are right, there's an easier interaction between nations, Germany and their little tax-heaven fellas (like the Netherlands and Luxembourg, which nobody would care of otherwise) get to dictate without trouble. Oh, and let's not forget that since the birth of the EU, member countries have been the ones whose economies have grown LESS THAN ANYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD. So sure, I feel safe to compare this abomination of international treaties to the culture who birthed Western civilization.
The aqueducts in Rome are also really cool. Worthy of their own Megaprojects video! (btw Simon, the promo code is spelled wrong in the description and pinned comment!)
It’s incredible that a logistical/ public works system established over 2000 years ago was so well conceived that it’s still used around the world today.
A episode on how the British dug out a mountain and turned it into a impenetrable fortress with submarine entrance. GIBRALTAR in Southern Spain 🇪🇸. Love your videos. Truly RUclips best Channels.
You should do a megaprojects on the Simon Whistler RUclips empire. You've got like 7 channels that upload regularly? Now that's a megaproject if I've ever seen one
When I was a child I lived near Boroughbridge in North Yorkshire, England. There was a wall stood next to the road outside the town. One day, somebody noticed it was Roman. It had stood there nearly 2000 years, never fell down, slightly weathered but solid as the day it was built. Astonishing builders the Romans. We still don't know how they made their cement.
We do know how they made their cement. They made it the same way we make a lot of our cement. Lime and rubble. The only difference is that sometimes the Romans used pozzolanic ash from Mt. Vesuvius which for some reason made for much better cement and concrete. Not even the Romans knew why this happened but they knew it worked. 1st century AD Roman architect Vitruvius talked about pozzolana and it's incredible properties and basically said "I have no fuggin clue how this works but it's awesome"
It does really good in water, which is what erodes most things, the reason for this is because unlike other concrete, the ingredients locked in the lime somehow and when water wore it away the lime reactivated the concrete and would basically self heal. Also salt water was used but I can’t remember if that was key or not. Hope that helps. They’ve figured out how it’s made but it’s not economical to use it on a large scale because how expensive it is.
Mandatory copypasta "The Space Shuttle and the Horse's Rear End" A: Say friend, did you know that the US Standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches. B: That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used? A: Because that's the way they built them in England, and the US railroads were built by English expatriates. B: I see, but why did the English build them like that? A: Because the first railway lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used. B: Well, why did they use that gauge in England? A: Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing. B: Okay! Why did their wagons use that odd wheel spacing? A: Because, if they tried to use any other spacing the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads. Because that's the spacing of the old wheel ruts. B: So who built these old rutted roads? A: The first long distance roads in Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of their legions. The Roman roads have been used ever since. B: And the ruts? A: The original ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagons, were first made by the wheels of Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were made for or by Imperial Rome they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. B: Thus, we have the answer to the original question. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman army war chariot. A: And the motto of the story is Specifications and bureaucracies live forever. B: So, the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right. Because the Imperial Roman chariots were made to be just wide enough to accommodate the back-ends of two war-horses. A: So, just what does this have to do with the exploration of space? B: Well, there's an interesting extension of the story about railroad gauge and horses' behinds. When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on the launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are the solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at a factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. A: The railroad from the factory runs through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than a railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses' behinds. So a major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was originally determined by the width of a horse's ass.
IMMIC It was meant to be 4'8" but there were wear and cornering problems. Rather than shortening all of the axles they pushed the rails a bit further apart. I believe there are other gauges that went through the same de-tolerancing process leading to some quite wierd numbers with strange fractions tagged on. Megaproject, the US Gauge Change. Gauge harmonisation across the US in what, 36 hours!!
Love the works. All of them. How about one on the Roman Aqueducts? I am an engineer by virtue of my undergraduate education. I have always been fascinated by the Roman Aqueducts. To gravity feed the delivery of water over hundreds of miles all the way to Rome has amazed me my entire life. Again, thank you for your works. They are extremely informative and artistically well done. Bless you.
Hard not to love this fellows work. Bless you all. About the aqueducts: if not mistaken, the Romans delivered water all the way to Rome from Spain. All by gravity feed over hundreds of miles (1/8 inch drop per running foot). Quite an engineering marvel. Though such adventures may have violated natural laws against removal of water from a natural watershed, it was an amazing accomplishment.
Can you do the Inca road system? Not only is it incredibly impressive in its own right, but it was built up in only century. And your pronunciation of Incan names will be terrible.
Building roads and tunnels is an under appreciated wonder of any time. The English Chunnel began on both sides of the sea and met exactly. The fact that the bored, under ground, miles apart and met less than 2 inches off left, right, up or down is incredible.
At school we studied "The Roman Empire". In full. And now you have brought a very dry subject to life. I liked History. And did well at it. I have learnt more from the Internet in the past three years, than I did in ten years of normal school.Trade took over after the roads were built. And they also led to war as well.
Definitely a good episode. Anything about Rome's exploits, technologies, daily life, etc, is appealing to learn about by not only those of us interested in History but also people who just find it interesting much like Egyptian History. Not many other Cultures like those 2 that draw in the Masses to want to know, see, visit and buy in. Episodes that deal in them should do well for you and we will enjoy them. TY
.... Or just of civilization.... A great civilization would include freedom for the people... Low corruption.... Laws that protect people from the military. Now that's a great civilization.
@@sails3538 to be honest those are more or less luxuries that often great civilization has, but arnt necessarily hallmarks of one. you need decent sewage and roads just to be able to live in and build large cities such as Rome
I find it interesting that the Romans dug down 1m - 1,5m to build the road foundation, and they weren't even dealing with the kinds of vehicle weights we do today. Especially where I live, roads fail and have to be rebuilt at an interval of between a year to 2-3 years due to frost damage, melting in summer heat, asphalt with too little tar in it (not up to standard), basecourse of a cheap gravel that breaks up and grinds into dust quite quickly, and poor drainage. Perhaps our engineers could learn a thing or two from the meticulous Roman constructors.
It's not really a fair comparison. What really matters is the weight on each wheel and Roman loads on a wheel by wheel basis are likely more similar to today then you think. Additionally, modern roads see astronomically more vehicles per hour travelling at speed unimaginable to Rome.
The engineers of today know how to build lasting roads. It's not like it's lost knowledge. Blame instead the economists who rarely give them the funding for more than something that barely holds together.
@@Codraroll blame the political system, the top layer of the road is replaced every 4 years here, just together with the mayor, its kinda of funny, but no. And yes, its corruption, its not like they do any major infrastructure project ever, how would they justify taxes if they don't do anything. there you go, just replace the top layer of all roads in the city.
Love the high level content. Just enough to inspire someone to look into a subject more deeply. You might have included roadside advertisement, a thought that came to mind due to the number of commercial breaks in this episode.
I live incanterbury and honestly it’s amazing, the city walls are still in good condition, I never new watling street is one of the largest Roman roads!
Stealth360stealth the only thing we can cover for Britain is we’ve killed all our men in two wars “hey United States I know you fought a war to get away from us but will you send your youth over to die for us?” Think of how over populated you’d be if George 5 and churchill hadn’t of slaughtered a few mil. 😂😂😂
I like how you go about with the narration. The terminology on its own, is like a sweet melody to the ear. If all my teachers would present information in this manner, i would have loved school. You are simply amazing.
14:57 "The modern mile originated from the Latin milia passum, which meant 1000 paces" So the mile was essentially a metric measurement, and some guy had the bright idea to change it to 1760 yards? *facepalm
Outstanding presentation. Please consider producing more content regarding the efforts and innovations of both the Roman Empire and the Roman Republic.
Congratulations on 200k Simon, this channel is growing well and I'm pleased because that means you'll do lots more videos! This is definitely my favourite of your channels, followed by the legend that is Business Blaze.
Has there been a video on Roman sports and games? They had a soccer-like ball game called harpastum I've never scene depicted. It would also be interesting to explore pok-ta-pok, the Aztec proto-basketball sport. Ancient board games would also make a great topic. Forgive me if you've already published videos covering these areas, I was unable to find them if you have. How you create such astounding quality work in the volume you do is nothing short of miraculous.
Soon his beard will be a mega project! - - *Thanks for the love on this comment guys, as a longtime fan of Simon, I am hoping he references it in a video!*
Don't forget about the tens of thousands of underpaid, essentially slaved, people (the vast majority of whom were men), who shed their mortal coils over greed and/or future monetary gains of both corporate fat cats and those dabbling in public commercial trade.
I wonder if we tied Simon's hands if he would still be able to talk. But in all seriousness man I love the videos I love your personality and how you deliver the information is really good I think you would make an excellent teacher
Well done - I heard a lecture in college that the roads radiating from the cities outwards towards the main highways in the further realms of the empire were not as good as the main highways themselves. The reason stated was, if a city were to rise in revolt, it would take said rioters that much longer to reach the main roads but the legions could move quickly, using those outer main roads, to quickly quell the revolt. Why no mention of the word 'camber' -you did mention drainage but not that word and how it revolutionized road construction esp during storms. Lastly another lecturer stated the quality, depth, material, design of the Roman road system was not achieved in such magnitude until the federal interstate system on the 1950's (autobahn notwithstanding). Thank you Simon for a great video....let's hear about their stumbling on 'cement' and how it made monuments still here to this day.
I had just discovered your channel. Very interesting. Thanks. I would want to add a suggestion for you of something I´m looking after: the K-11 Spy Satellites. It would be great to see a video about that.
I think you have a wrong image of those roads. Most of the original roads are burried underneath of multiple layers of newer roads. Or modern roads have been built next to them. No truck and no car are driving on an original roman road - at least not the majority of the traffic. Also it depends really in what country you are travelling in Europe. Sometimes really crazy: While Germans allow you to drive as fast as you are able to on their Autobahns, they really dont spend a lot of money to maintain them. German Autobahns have many potholes and diffrent surfaces. Its awful. Then you have the smooth streets in the Netherlands where the general speed limit is about 130 kph. Of course Germany for example has much more traffic because its in the center of Europe. So a lot of foreign trucks and cars are passing through, which is wearing out their streets - Netherlands doesnt have this problem. Also heat is a problem. While an asphalt street in northern Europe holds pretty well for many years, the heat cracks the surfaces of the streets in southern Europe every year, making their roads shitty in comparison, or much more expensive to maintain. Most southern european countries dont care about the old surface. They dont remove it. They only apply another new layer on top of the older ones. It makes maintainance more easy, faster and cheaper. But the street is getting higher and higher each year. In northern Europe they are removing the old surface and renewing it to hold up for the next decade or so. Its quite interesting to see if you are travelling with your car around.
It depends upon the state. Vermont's highways are like an advertisement for Modern America, and a dramatic contrast to those in Quebec. Some roads should be left unpaved or even unbuilt, wonderful though road trips are. There can be too much of a good thing.
Simon! You are fantastic dude. I like your style haha Thank you for providing so much entertaining enlightenment buddy. I'm a bit drunk right now, but it's a crazy tight lockdown and I just wanted to thank you for all the videos and a like the new humorous style ✌️💪💯🌟
Supposedly, the Roman roads also led to a limit on the size of NASA’s rockets, because they are transported by rail and have to fit inside train tunnels.
It maybe isnt your typical mega project but the story of the britten v1000 race bike is most definitely worth looking into and maybe even a good topic for a video.
Do copper mines like Bingham Canyon. Biggest holes dug, tho not the deepest like the Kola Borehole. The machinery they use to dig them is pretty impressive too. Always wondered how they keep it from forming into a lake since it's basically a giant pothole that gets rained in.
Most open pit and under ground mines will have some form of a dewatering system. Many mines have been closed long before the ore body was depleted simply because the amount of incoming water to be removed made them uneconomical. One of the main uses behind the early stationary steam engines were there use as mine dewatering pumps. That technology slowly evolved into using steam power for hoisting equipment, air pumps, electrical generation etc.
How about a discussion of other ancient road systems, Simon? I know that the Roman roads were not the first in Britain, but the older roads were frequently built of logs, not stone, and have disintegrated over time.
If you’re saying “roads are not an impressive achievement by today’s standards” you haven’t been to Russia. A good road here is an impossible achievement.
Russia has abominable winters. No matter how well-built a road may be, the spring thaw will upheave the paving. I grew up in Northeast PA and, in the 1950s we had horribly cold, snowy, and miserable winters. Each spring, when the spring thaw commenced, chunks of roads would be heaved up and the road crews had a permanent job of trying to keep them patched. Even tearing up a section and repaving it from scratch didn't help. In the 1970s , there was a section on Interstate 80, heading toward NYC, that was notorious for a pothole that chewed up tires and ate hubcaps. No matter how many times it was repaired, it came back to terrorize motorists.
@@onemercilessming1342 I think the road problems in PA can be easily traced to the people of PA and that passing blame to the weather is more a statement about what the real problem is there. Don't feel bad, that whole north east part of the us takes pride in doing the lowest quality work possible, if they ever do anything at all.
@@jamesmonahan1819--That's not the all of it. The real problem is that the population in the coal towns of NE PA is dwindling and the remainder is aging fast. For instance, Schuylkill County has about 142,000 residents. The median age is 44.6, with a full 28% of the population over retirement age. The median income is about $44K and has dropped steadily each year recently. There is little chance for upward mobility and there are few options for well-paying jobs, as MAJIC--Mahanoy Area Joint Industrial Committee (which was supposed to bring jobs into the area when the mines failed)--apparently doesn't exist any longer, as I couldn't find ANYTHING on the Internet about it. There's a reason it's called "The Rust Belt". Even fracking isn't appearing to save the coal economy. www.deptofnumbers.com/income/pennsylvania/schuylkill-county/
@@onemercilessming1342 And yet Canada Finland and Sweden all seem to build winter proof roads ( Hint:- Finland has two weeks every spring where large trucks are banned from all roads)
49 seconds into the video and Simon already complement sides with how wonderful and entertaining his life is been which give him a upper hand doing these videos. Absolutely wonderful and incredible life keep up the good work Buddy.
Gotta say its pretty impressive how well the roman's recorded all of this, from the information and meaning of words to blueprints,tool, titles and so forth.
Simon please cover the Forbidden City of Beijing next time. It was the world's largest palace in history the size of a city. Also the nearby massive Summer Palace with massive man made lake where the soil dug from the lake used to make a gigantic hill with garden on top of it.
Simon, a mega project for suggestion, running an airport the size of Frankfurt, or the road A1A which takes you down through the florida keys, or even another, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel system.
Simon -- I hope this video does well. I tremendously enjoyed it. I hope you do more Roman videos. Not sure why -- but hearing you tell the tale of Rome makes it even more enjoyable than other documentaries telling the same tale.
Just got back from vacation yesterday and had to cross the Chesapeake bay that tunnel and bridge network is stunning be a awesome mega project video 👍👌
To do that one justice, he's gonna have to go a few billion dollars over budget, delay it a few years, and once it's released, the play button won't work.
It is utterly mind blowing that with just 2 major but easily passable exceptions, the Bosphorus Strait and the Strait of Gibraltar, in 138 AD you could WALK ON THE ROADS around THE ENTIRE Mediterranean Sea and end up in Rome! 😳🤯😳🤯😳🤯
Both of those waterways surely had a ferry for hire at the time. I would be astonished if there wasn't, actually.
@@dionh70 Of course, but the thought of being able to accomplish the feat nearly 2000 years ago simply mind blowing since most consider us so much more advanced today.
Wow! Let's do it!
Does the itinerary still exist?
@@lukasmakarios4998 There are some surviving examples (copies of Tabula Peutingeriana), but of-course roman infrastructure is mostly gone. But you could still in large part follow the towns and cities on them.
Most roads in the Roman Empire weren't made of concrete or brick at all, nor were they paved with cut stone slabs
"....the video about roman sewage is not particularly revolutionary to the modern mind but for some reason you guys really liked it!"
Hey man, its some interesting shit!!
😆😆😄🤣😆
LMFAO
And good shit, too.
About being able to appreciate what people were able to do thousands of years ago, when that shit wasn't so easy.
Of all the comments you could've made, I find this one to be a waste.
I walked on the Roman road in Jordan as a child, even tied my shoes on remains of a pillar. Years later as an adult I wish I marveled at them
You guys should also do the Roman Aquaducts.
Plenty of different Roman Megaprojects.
HERE HERE!!!
I think they were at least partially covered in the sewer episode
Factoid: Roman roads played an important role in WWII. U.S. General George S. Patton was a lifetime student of ancient warfare. He actually visited and walked many of the ancient battlefields to study the lay of the land and the ponder their tactics. Gen. Patton knew the names of the generals, what forces they had, what they did, and why they won or lost. He also knew where the old Roman roads were and he knew that although they didn't look like much to the modern eye, they were strong enough to hold modern tanks and military vehicles in bad weather while all other roads were a sea of mud. He put this knowledge to good use during the march on Germany, moving east when other armies were literally stuck in the mud.
This is so cool! I didn't know that.
1:00 - Chapter 1 - An empire of roads
2:50 - Chapter 2 - All roads lead to rome
4:10 - Chapter 3 - Foreign lands
5:25 - Chapter 4 - The laws of the road
7:20 - Chapter 5 - Types of roman roads
8:25 - Mid roll ads
9:55 - Chapter 6 - Cost & responsibility
10:55 - Chapter 7 - Building the roads
13:35 - Chapter 8 - Bridges
14:30 - Chapter 9 - Mile markers
15:15 - Chapter 10 - Maps
16:00 - Chapter 11 - Early waystations
17:00 - Chapter 12 - Postal service
17:40 - Chapter 13 - End of the empire
Awesome categorization
Here in Spain where the geography is a real problem into designing a road, the most important highways follow the way of the ancient Roman road. Even many bridges still in use
"All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?" - Reg
I also love the Patrick Stewart remake, “What has the EU ever done for us?”
including the orgies
@@michaelhusada No, seriously, what has it done except for financial devastation?
@@matteobertotti (about the EU) Yeah, apart from free trade without excessive tolls or tariffs, unified rules of human rights and numerous other aspects of safety and quality improvements, simplified traveling requirements, and altogether easier interaction between nations...
@@pev_ You mean free trade which benefits Germany more than anyone else, having a common currency based on the average debt of all the EU countries, meaning a de facto dumping towards other countries like the US (which is the reason Trump heavily opposed the EU), and being a burden for countries like Italy with a higher public debt?
"Unified rules of human and numerous other aspects of safety and quality improvements" means nothing, or worse, it's one of the reason illegal immigrants can come to European countries without sovereign nations being able to contrast this effectively.
"Simplified traveling requirements" so less-paid workers from eastern Europe can come in western Europe and offer cheap labour, all at the benefit of the owners of these Frankestein-ish multinationals?
But you are right, there's an easier interaction between nations, Germany and their little tax-heaven fellas (like the Netherlands and Luxembourg, which nobody would care of otherwise) get to dictate without trouble.
Oh, and let's not forget that since the birth of the EU, member countries have been the ones whose economies have grown LESS THAN ANYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD.
So sure, I feel safe to compare this abomination of international treaties to the culture who birthed Western civilization.
Can you entertain us with a hypothetical break down of a space elevator? I loved the Dyson Sphere episode. PLEASE AND THANKS
That's a whole new channel 😂 Mega Concepts?
@@ANGRYP1R4TE Don't give him any ideas haha!
@@ANGRYP1R4TE Simon definitely doesn't have enough RUclips channels. Why is he so lazy...
ABSOLUTELY!!!!!!!
The a28 is a Roman road goes through ashford from Canterbury
The aqueducts in Rome are also really cool. Worthy of their own Megaprojects video!
(btw Simon, the promo code is spelled wrong in the description and pinned comment!)
Rick Rolled again lol never gonna give you up..........lmao
It's amazing that the aquaducts always had a 0.1 degree decrease in elevation so the water could flow perfectly
It’s incredible that a logistical/ public works system established over 2000 years ago was so well conceived that it’s still used around the world today.
Well, mostly just Europe and portions of the Middle East and North Africa
A episode on how the British dug out a mountain and turned it into a impenetrable fortress with submarine entrance. GIBRALTAR in Southern Spain 🇪🇸.
Love your videos.
Truly RUclips best Channels.
Ahem, bordering the south of Spain, it's certainly not IN Spain;)
Holy crap 63 days for the post to arrive in Roman times?!? That's like ... 4 days faster than today's postal services!
You should do a megaprojects on the Simon Whistler RUclips empire. You've got like 7 channels that upload regularly? Now that's a megaproject if I've ever seen one
"A beard you could hide a badger in"
-Black Adder
Hey Simon! Love the content.
You should do an episode on ITER. The massive tokamak being built in France for a shot at fusion power.
Was there an episode on the LHC?
@@SigitG Yeah, I think so
ITER is completely different from the LHC. Definitely need to do an episode on ITER considering it is being built right now
I live just 100m from a major Roman road :)
Its the "limes road" or "western Rhine road" that connected the military camps along the Rhine
When I was a child I lived near Boroughbridge in North Yorkshire, England. There was a wall stood next to the road outside the town. One day, somebody noticed it was Roman. It had stood there nearly 2000 years, never fell down, slightly weathered but solid as the day it was built. Astonishing builders the Romans. We still don't know how they made their cement.
We do know how they made their cement. They made it the same way we make a lot of our cement. Lime and rubble.
The only difference is that sometimes the Romans used pozzolanic ash from Mt. Vesuvius which for some reason made for much better cement and concrete. Not even the Romans knew why this happened but they knew it worked.
1st century AD Roman architect Vitruvius talked about pozzolana and it's incredible properties and basically said "I have no fuggin clue how this works but it's awesome"
It does really good in water, which is what erodes most things, the reason for this is because unlike other concrete, the ingredients locked in the lime somehow and when water wore it away the lime reactivated the concrete and would basically self heal. Also salt water was used but I can’t remember if that was key or not. Hope that helps. They’ve figured out how it’s made but it’s not economical to use it on a large scale because how expensive it is.
Mandatory copypasta
"The Space Shuttle and the Horse's Rear End"
A: Say friend, did you know that the US Standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches.
B:
That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used?
A:
Because that's the way they built them in England, and the US railroads were built by English expatriates.
B:
I see, but why did the English build them like that?
A:
Because the first railway lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.
B:
Well, why did they use that gauge in England?
A: Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing.
B: Okay! Why did their wagons use that odd wheel spacing?
A: Because, if they tried to use any other spacing the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads. Because that's the spacing of the old wheel ruts.
B: So who built these old rutted roads?
A: The first long distance roads in Europe were built by Imperial Rome for the benefit of their legions. The Roman roads have been used ever since.
B: And the ruts?
A: The original ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagons, were first made by the wheels of Roman war chariots. Since the chariots were made for or by Imperial Rome they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.
B: Thus, we have the answer to the original question. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8 1/2 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman army war chariot.
A: And the motto of the story is Specifications and bureaucracies live forever.
B: So, the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right. Because the Imperial Roman chariots were made to be just wide enough to accommodate the back-ends of two war-horses.
A: So, just what does this have to do with the exploration of space?
B: Well, there's an interesting extension of the story about railroad gauge and horses' behinds. When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on the launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are the solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at a factory in Utah. The engineers who designed the SRBs might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site.
A: The railroad from the factory runs through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than a railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses' behinds.
So a major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was originally determined by the width of a horse's ass.
Simon! We want a video on horses' asses!
I believe this is, sadly, an urban legend.
I'd like it to be true though
Christopher Lawley It is an urban legend considering the standard wasn’t even the standard in England while the US was building railroads.
IMMIC It was meant to be 4'8" but there were wear and cornering problems. Rather than shortening all of the axles they pushed the rails a bit further apart. I believe there are other gauges that went through the same de-tolerancing process leading to some quite wierd numbers with strange fractions tagged on.
Megaproject, the US Gauge Change. Gauge harmonisation across the US in what, 36 hours!!
The width of 2 horses asses to be exact.
Love the works. All of them. How about one on the Roman Aqueducts? I am an engineer by virtue of my undergraduate education.
I have always been fascinated by the Roman Aqueducts. To gravity feed the delivery of water over hundreds of miles all the way to Rome has amazed me my entire life.
Again, thank you for your works. They are extremely informative and artistically well done. Bless you.
Hard not to love this fellows work. Bless you all.
About the aqueducts: if not mistaken, the Romans delivered water all the way to Rome from Spain. All by gravity feed over hundreds of miles (1/8 inch drop per running foot). Quite an engineering marvel. Though such adventures may have violated natural laws against removal of water from a natural watershed, it was an amazing accomplishment.
Can you do the Inca road system? Not only is it incredibly impressive in its own right, but it was built up in only century.
And your pronunciation of Incan names will be terrible.
He's so bad at pronunciations of names from other countries, it's fantastic lol
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I would watch the HELL outta that video, you gotta do it Simon!
Seconded, just to hear those pronunciations!
Building roads and tunnels is an under appreciated wonder of any time.
The English Chunnel began on both sides of the sea and met exactly. The fact that the bored, under ground, miles apart and met less than 2 inches off left, right, up or down is incredible.
At school we studied "The Roman Empire". In full. And now you have brought a very dry subject to life. I liked History. And did well at it. I have learnt more from the Internet in the past three years, than I did in ten years of normal school.Trade took over after the roads were built. And they also led to war as well.
Definitely a good episode. Anything about Rome's exploits, technologies, daily life, etc, is appealing to learn about by not only those of us interested in History but also people who just find it interesting much like Egyptian History.
Not many other Cultures like those 2 that draw in the Masses to want to know, see, visit and buy in.
Episodes that deal in them should do well for you and we will enjoy them.
TY
"So yes, that's a lot of roads"
^Simon's skill for the understatement on display once again XD
From an American perspective, that's a skill possessed by just about every Brit, ever.
Commenting until Simon makes that video on cargo ships he said he would do
All intelligent people know that modern, clean, efficient sewage facilities are the hallmark of a great civilization.
Lesser intelligent people would think that a clean water supply and perhaps a food supply system would be a true hallmark. Those fools. Lol.
You know nothing John Snow.
.... Or just of civilization.... A great civilization would include freedom for the people... Low corruption.... Laws that protect people from the military.
Now that's a great civilization.
@Archock Encanto I wouldnt call them flush toilets, but they defiantly did have toilets that lead from inside their house into a central sewer system
@@sails3538 to be honest those are more or less luxuries that often great civilization has, but arnt necessarily hallmarks of one. you need decent sewage and roads just to be able to live in and build large cities such as Rome
I find it interesting that the Romans dug down 1m - 1,5m to build the road foundation, and they weren't even dealing with the kinds of vehicle weights we do today. Especially where I live, roads fail and have to be rebuilt at an interval of between a year to 2-3 years due to frost damage, melting in summer heat, asphalt with too little tar in it (not up to standard), basecourse of a cheap gravel that breaks up and grinds into dust quite quickly, and poor drainage. Perhaps our engineers could learn a thing or two from the meticulous Roman constructors.
Alex462047 sounds like your contractors could learn a thing or two as well...
It's not really a fair comparison. What really matters is the weight on each wheel and Roman loads on a wheel by wheel basis are likely more similar to today then you think. Additionally, modern roads see astronomically more vehicles per hour travelling at speed unimaginable to Rome.
The engineers of today know how to build lasting roads. It's not like it's lost knowledge. Blame instead the economists who rarely give them the funding for more than something that barely holds together.
@@Codraroll blame the political system, the top layer of the road is replaced every 4 years here, just together with the mayor, its kinda of funny, but no. And yes, its corruption, its not like they do any major infrastructure project ever, how would they justify taxes if they don't do anything. there you go, just replace the top layer of all roads in the city.
Sounds like money laundering.
Love the high level content. Just enough to inspire someone to look into a subject more deeply. You might have included roadside advertisement, a thought that came to mind due to the number of commercial breaks in this episode.
I live incanterbury and honestly it’s amazing, the city walls are still in good condition, I never new watling street is one of the largest Roman roads!
The Autobahn revolutionised the freeway system as we know it.... It would be a fitting sequel to this
Autobahn and british motorways combined would be awesome!
Stealth360stealth the only thing we can cover for Britain is we’ve killed all our men in two wars “hey United States I know you fought a war to get away from us but will you send your youth over to die for us?” Think of how over populated you’d be if George 5 and churchill hadn’t of slaughtered a few mil. 😂😂😂
@@5777Whatup weird flex
Garrett Poppell Who hurt you
@@thehistoryguy987 a red coat slapped his granny.
Loving the evolution of Simons beard
I like how you go about with the narration. The terminology on its own, is like a sweet melody to the ear. If all my teachers would present information in this manner, i would have loved school. You are simply amazing.
I would like to see an episode on the Tokyo Flood Tunnels. Serious infrastructure right there.
literally everything rome did was a megaproject
Not the temple of Portunus. Cutest little temple ever.
Only the mega projects are left
Well if you listen to Augustus, suuuuuure.
@@kl1970 There are a number of smaller things left too.
You have to impress you enemies....
Gotta love it. The Romans built roads that are still usable 2000 years later. The state of Illinois can't build a road that lasts more than 3 years.
Well they disnt have mass transport with 18 wheelers are hauling cargo and everyone having a car
@@raimondainsar4519 While this is true, I was more making a point about how modern roads just aren't nearly as well built.
3 years? If they last the winter around here we are doing good!
Good to know. I thought we were the only guys getting ripped off
The same here
3:49 - forehand on head, jolt back, eyeroll, and finish with limp wrist...
Most dramatic and camp thing I've ever seen *_you_* do Simon
14:57 "The modern mile originated from the Latin milia passum, which meant 1000 paces"
So the mile was essentially a metric measurement, and some guy had the bright idea to change it to 1760 yards? *facepalm
It makes sense that a kilometer is 1,000 paces.
Anyone who has a 64" (1.625m) stride would be a giraffe
A mile was 1000 paces with each foot. A pace was defined as 2 1/2 feet, so a roman mile was 5000 Roman feet long.
Can you do a video on the legendary F14 Tomcat? I really enjoy these aircraft videos you post.
Luscious beard, bald, sleek glasses, delightful accent and a channel packed with knowledge.
Vsauce Michael is my favorite RUclipsr
Outstanding presentation. Please consider producing more content regarding the efforts and innovations of both the Roman Empire and the Roman Republic.
No cocaine here. Only fun construction facts.
Business blaze has spoiled us
Legendary
This is weed Simon.
Allegedly!
Cocaine only mentioned on the Blaze.
Congratulations on 200k Simon, this channel is growing well and I'm pleased because that means you'll do lots more videos! This is definitely my favourite of your channels, followed by the legend that is Business Blaze.
Simon I love you, but seriously you screwed up all of those names ;) Thanks for the video! As always great!
He was channeling his inner Business Blaze!!! 🤣
SMASH THAT DISLIKE BUTTON!!!
Has there been a video on Roman sports and games? They had a soccer-like ball game called harpastum I've never scene depicted. It would also be interesting to explore pok-ta-pok, the Aztec proto-basketball sport. Ancient board games would also make a great topic. Forgive me if you've already published videos covering these areas, I was unable to find them if you have. How you create such astounding quality work in the volume you do is nothing short of miraculous.
Suggestion: Large international airports, such as Heathrow, JFK and Los Angeles.
Changi Airport too
Denver.
Atlanta
Schiphol is built on the bottom of a lake, that would be interesting maybe. also for Heathrow "unfinished London" made an amazing video on it.
Specifically why LAX is one of the worst airports on the planet
Great Megaprojects video! Thank you!
Soon his beard will be a mega project! - - *Thanks for the love on this comment guys, as a longtime fan of Simon, I am hoping he references it in a video!*
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Came here to say this!!
It’s a glorious beard to be sure
Was just gonna comment on that 🤪
I was coming down here to make the exact same comment. Lol
When I’m sick your videos are the only thing that are able to distract me, thank you
You should do the panama or Suez canasl! So much interesting history, massive feats of engineering, and really vital to global trade.
He has done both of those on his Geographics channel.
Don't forget about the tens of thousands of underpaid, essentially slaved, people (the vast majority of whom were men), who shed their mortal coils over greed and/or future monetary gains of both corporate fat cats and those dabbling in public commercial trade.
just found this page when telling someone about the maginot line.
great stuff love it
Producer: "How many ads did you want on this video"
"Yes!"
No ads here.
What ads?
Most interesting. I second the motion for a more complete video of the Roman Aqueducts.
I wonder if we tied Simon's hands if he would still be able to talk.
But in all seriousness man I love the videos I love your personality and how you deliver the information is really good I think you would make an excellent teacher
Simon IS an excellent teacher.
I do the same. I can't hold a normal conversation without moving my hands. My feeble brain just won't allow it
No he wouldn't! He'd have to have WAY TOO DAMN MANY ADS!
I just finished watching the original Roman roads video and a few minutes later this is released. Thanks.
Simon that beard is out of control. If it catches fire, or it strangles you, who will make these great videos?
Awesome videos please keep them coming as long as you can.
Well done - I heard a lecture in college that the roads radiating from the cities outwards towards the main highways in the further realms of the empire were not as good as the main highways themselves. The reason stated was, if a city were to rise in revolt, it would take said rioters that much longer to reach the main roads but the legions could move quickly, using those outer main roads, to quickly quell the revolt.
Why no mention of the word 'camber' -you did mention drainage but not that word and how it revolutionized road construction esp during storms. Lastly another lecturer stated the quality, depth, material, design of the Roman road system was not achieved in such magnitude until the federal interstate system on the 1950's (autobahn notwithstanding). Thank you Simon for a great video....let's hear about their stumbling on 'cement' and how it made monuments still here to this day.
Then why do we tear them up every few years
I had just discovered your channel. Very interesting. Thanks.
I would want to add a suggestion for you of something I´m looking after: the K-11 Spy Satellites. It would be great to see a video about that.
It's crazy that these roads are still used today and yet in America the roads go to shit after a year.
Having on average heavier trucks and cars damages the roads faster than in Europe...
Luminoth Lumi Exactly lol. They’re made of two different materials and the roads in the US have more people constantly riding on top of them.
I think you have a wrong image of those roads. Most of the original roads are burried underneath of multiple layers of newer roads. Or modern roads have been built next to them. No truck and no car are driving on an original roman road - at least not the majority of the traffic.
Also it depends really in what country you are travelling in Europe. Sometimes really crazy: While Germans allow you to drive as fast as you are able to on their Autobahns, they really dont spend a lot of money to maintain them. German Autobahns have many potholes and diffrent surfaces. Its awful. Then you have the smooth streets in the Netherlands where the general speed limit is about 130 kph. Of course Germany for example has much more traffic because its in the center of Europe. So a lot of foreign trucks and cars are passing through, which is wearing out their streets - Netherlands doesnt have this problem.
Also heat is a problem. While an asphalt street in northern Europe holds pretty well for many years, the heat cracks the surfaces of the streets in southern Europe every year, making their roads shitty in comparison, or much more expensive to maintain.
Most southern european countries dont care about the old surface. They dont remove it. They only apply another new layer on top of the older ones. It makes maintainance more easy, faster and cheaper. But the street is getting higher and higher each year. In northern Europe they are removing the old surface and renewing it to hold up for the next decade or so.
Its quite interesting to see if you are travelling with your car around.
It depends upon the state. Vermont's highways are like an advertisement for Modern America, and a dramatic contrast to those in Quebec.
Some roads should be left unpaved or even unbuilt, wonderful though road trips are. There can be too much of a good thing.
@@Gentleman...Driver you forgot the Belgian and French concrete slate roads. very very noisy roads.
Simon! You are fantastic dude. I like your style haha Thank you for providing so much entertaining enlightenment buddy. I'm a bit drunk right now, but it's a crazy tight lockdown and I just wanted to thank you for all the videos and a like the new humorous style ✌️💪💯🌟
I read somewhere that roman roads and the gauge of their common carts ultimately led to the gauge of our trains today? Amazing if correct!
Was taught that when I became a light rail engineer, when we learned about the tracks.
More indirectly than directly, the road and rail are based on the width of 2 horses side by side, which is roughly a cart.
Supposedly, the Roman roads also led to a limit on the size of NASA’s rockets, because they are transported by rail and have to fit inside train tunnels.
It maybe isnt your typical mega project but the story of the britten v1000 race bike is most definitely worth looking into and maybe even a good topic for a video.
I'd like to see a mega projects video of Simon trying to say mega hard sentences
Do copper mines like Bingham Canyon. Biggest holes dug, tho not the deepest like the Kola Borehole. The machinery they use to dig them is pretty impressive too. Always wondered how they keep it from forming into a lake since it's basically a giant pothole that gets rained in.
Most open pit and under ground mines will have some form of a dewatering system. Many mines have been closed long before the ore body was depleted simply because the amount of incoming water to be removed made them uneconomical. One of the main uses behind the early stationary steam engines were there use as mine dewatering pumps. That technology slowly evolved into using steam power for hoisting equipment, air pumps, electrical generation etc.
"... we could probably do a whole video on these roads..." Could you? I mean, please? :D
Another amazing episode! Thanks for the detailed and well thought over description of these ancient beauties!!
How about a discussion of other ancient road systems, Simon? I know that the Roman roads were not the first in Britain, but the older roads were frequently built of logs, not stone, and have disintegrated over time.
I love the ancient wonders/building videos for one. Keep it up!
I am actually from Chicago and would like to watch the hobbit lol
Also so a video on us interstate system
Which video streaming service offers it?
Love these video. Especially projects of ancient history
If you’re saying “roads are not an impressive achievement by today’s standards” you haven’t been to Russia. A good road here is an impossible achievement.
Not an issue if you use tanks.
Russia has abominable winters. No matter how well-built a road may be, the spring thaw will upheave the paving. I grew up in Northeast PA and, in the 1950s we had horribly cold, snowy, and miserable winters. Each spring, when the spring thaw commenced, chunks of roads would be heaved up and the road crews had a permanent job of trying to keep them patched. Even tearing up a section and repaving it from scratch didn't help. In the 1970s , there was a section on Interstate 80, heading toward NYC, that was notorious for a pothole that chewed up tires and ate hubcaps. No matter how many times it was repaired, it came back to terrorize motorists.
@@onemercilessming1342 I think the road problems in PA can be easily traced to the people of PA and that passing blame to the weather is more a statement about what the real problem is there. Don't feel bad, that whole north east part of the us takes pride in doing the lowest quality work possible, if they ever do anything at all.
@@jamesmonahan1819--That's not the all of it. The real problem is that the population in the coal towns of NE PA is dwindling and the remainder is aging fast. For instance, Schuylkill County has about 142,000 residents. The median age is 44.6, with a full 28% of the population over retirement age. The median income is about $44K and has dropped steadily each year recently. There is little chance for upward mobility and there are few options for well-paying jobs, as MAJIC--Mahanoy Area Joint Industrial Committee (which was supposed to bring jobs into the area when the mines failed)--apparently doesn't exist any longer, as I couldn't find ANYTHING on the Internet about it. There's a reason it's called "The Rust Belt". Even fracking isn't appearing to save the coal economy. www.deptofnumbers.com/income/pennsylvania/schuylkill-county/
@@onemercilessming1342 And yet Canada Finland and Sweden all seem to build winter proof roads ( Hint:- Finland has two weeks every spring where large trucks are banned from all roads)
49 seconds into the video and Simon already complement sides with how wonderful and entertaining his life is been which give him a upper hand doing these videos. Absolutely wonderful and incredible life keep up the good work Buddy.
*"Modern Shipping Container"* and the Trade, Ships, Harbours that make our globalized world possible in the first place, no1 really talks about!
Gotta say its pretty impressive how well the roman's recorded all of this, from the information and meaning of words to blueprints,tool, titles and so forth.
We still say "via" to indicate the path we took to some conclusion.
In practical use, it literally translates to "by way of".
Simon please cover the Forbidden City of Beijing next time.
It was the world's largest palace in history the size of a city. Also the nearby massive Summer Palace with massive man made lake where the soil dug from the lake used to make a gigantic hill with garden on top of it.
You did this on TodayIFoundOut 10 months ago, no?
And I thought with this being sponsored, that adds weren't necessary? They come more and more often.
Agreed, i am a huge fan but the ads are a bit ridiculous.
Let the man make a living if you don't like it then "smash that dislike button" 😂
Svalbard Seed Vault? Great video!
Simon's beard is getting insane. He's beginning to look like a caveman.
If a werewolf went bald! Lol
More like wise man
Keep doing these, they are wonderful.
You know it's time to do Inca roads
Please do a video on the Tabini? in the Rhineland . Thanks so much for your videos, great teamwork and one totally awesome beard mate. :)
Wouldn't the Romans have called it, "Route II"?
I love your videos sir. You could do an entire series on various topics about Rome and I would watch everyone. Another great video sir. Thank you.
Went a little mid-roll ad crazy....
ahaha if you think 4-5 ads is “crazy” try watching any of the popular hype-beasts, upwards of 10 a video! and the videos are only 10 minutes long!
how about something on the Bagger 258, that was a pretty badass machine, that must have been a pretty big project to build and run.
"enemies could use the roads"
Ha! Never implemented toll gates.
French upgraded theirs with shading poplar trees. Stopped the polish on jackboots from melting.
Really appreciate your videos, very accurate and well done. Best of luck
Rome had the colossus of roads.
Simon, a mega project for suggestion, running an airport the size of Frankfurt, or the road A1A which takes you down through the florida keys, or even another, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel system.
"THE COLOSSEUM"!
Almost as good as the Flavian Amphitheatre.
@@QqJcrsStbt Lindybeige!
Simon -- I hope this video does well. I tremendously enjoyed it. I hope you do more Roman videos. Not sure why -- but hearing you tell the tale of Rome makes it even more enjoyable than other documentaries telling the same tale.
If Rome hadn't been conquered we'd have flying cars by now.
Just got back from vacation yesterday and had to cross the Chesapeake bay that tunnel and bridge network is stunning be a awesome mega project video 👍👌
"Did not have the best reputation and where a place to find a prostitute be robbed or both" Man some things just stand the test of time !
The history of the world is replete with Gold Digging Whores.
It is called the "World's oldest profession."
As always, Educational, Entertaining, Amusing. In reverse order of importance.
Can you pls do a video on the f-35
To do that one justice, he's gonna have to go a few billion dollars over budget, delay it a few years, and once it's released, the play button won't work.
Lots of fascinating detail thanks for posting.