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Thank you We sneak well back in the day Major

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african kingdoms got more and more sparse The further south

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you cruise down the east coast it's Not like there

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wasn't anybody down there but let's Just say it was

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the opposite of the mall on the day before thanksgiving

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Why did africans tend to dodge southern africa like the

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plague Well maybe because there was a plague a deadly

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disease called sleeping sickness which is carried by the tsetse

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fly While it may sound like a good excuse if

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you get caught napping in calculus sleeping sickness is no

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joke And it's still killed several thousand people every year

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To make matters worse especially for cows the sleeping sickness

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parasite carried by the tsetse fly also kills livestock Oh

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and on top of all that a lot of southern

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africa is rocky and a hot making growing crops a

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serious challenge This place makes tough mudder look easy Put

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all that together and we've got a place where the

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threat of death from disease and starvation was well more

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than just a threat It was downright likely so it's

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Pretty easy to see why southern africa wasn't the most

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Sought after real estate even if the real estate brokers

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did have free cookies at open house Still despite all

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these challenges some medieval africans managed to carve really deal

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kingdoms out of some of the toughest real estate around

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Like how about a little place called great zimbabwe Okay

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well maybe not so little by medieval standards it was

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actually midsize with around eighteen thousand people Back then when

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people saw great zimbabwe they were like look at that

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big city with its eighteen thousand people We wonder if

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it has a chinese restaurant Makita great zimbabwe's success was

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location location and yes location His world city was built

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way up high so the people in their animals were

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safe from those pesky seats he flies proving once again

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that it's easier to get things done when you're not

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worried about sleeping death great zimbabwe had it all gold

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mines soldiers gold markets gold and a big government Did

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we mention gold had a lot of gold by the

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fifteenth century great zimbabwe was actually one of the world's

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major producers of gold And unlike some other cultures out

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there they didn't squander it all on personal bling Nope

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These guys used it for trade Archaeologists poking around in

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the ruins of great zimbabwe have found stuff from all

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over the world including persian bowls and chinese dishes And

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what can we say They weren't into the bling but

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they did like to dine in style Nobody knows exactly

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why great zimbabwe eventually fell The biggest theory is that

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the population just grew too big for the area But

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even though the great city was eventually abandoned around fourteen

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fifty eighty the ruins of its walls lasted through the

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centuries When the english eventually colonized zimbabwe re dubbing it

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rhodesia they didn't know what to make of the ruins

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Evidence of sophisticated african civilizations blew all kinds of holes

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in their theory that africans were primitive people who are

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better off being colonized instead of going uh well maybe

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because people are so primitive English made up stuff you

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know like saying that the city was built by arabs

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or phoenicians Zimbabweans didn't buy this hogwash which is good

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because hogwash is gross The ruins were a major symbol

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of national pride throughout the years and they still are

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today great zimbabwe proves that zimbabweans have the ability to

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build great nations in their genes which sounds a little 00:03:27.75 --> [endTime] uncomfortable We're surprised more zimbabweans don't wear baggy jeans

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