The History of Silver — The Wealth That Starved A Monarchy

In the sixteenth century, a single mountain in the Andes produced so much wealth it systematically ruined the most powerful monarchy on Earth. Millions of men walked into its pitch-black tunnels to die, extracting a volume of ore that inadvertently crashed the global economy. How did the discovery of infinite riches guarantee the collapse of the nation that found it?

⏱ TIMESTAMPS
0:00 The Mountain That Ate Men
2:00 The Cupellation Furnace
3:40 The Patio Process
5:44 The Piece of Eight
7:27 The Madrid Hyperinflation
9:20 The Pacific Silver Drain
11:28 The Ming Tax Decree
13:10 The Opium Reversal
15:13 The Comstock Lode
16:50 The Demonetization Act
18:40 The Texas Corner
20:40 The Halide Reaction
22:26 The Solar Bottleneck
24:34 The Dust of Cerro Rico

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