Big History

This moment comes from Episode 17 of Big History — exploring how the modern world was made.

Not all innovations are equal. Some — like agriculture — are so significant they trigger a cascade of further change across societies, economies and technologies.

In the centuries after 1500, global trade networks allowed ideas to flow faster than ever. Scientific pioneers like Galileo and Newton reshaped how humans understood the world, sparking new innovations in navigation, farming, manufacturing and beyond.

Created by Emeritus Professor David Christian, Big History helps children understand how ideas connect across time — showing why some moments in history change everything that follows.

✔ Expert-led learning for curious 9–12 year olds
✔ One-off cost — no subscription, lifetime access
💡 Find out more on our website

This moment comes from Episode 11 of Big History - exploring what makes humans truly unique.

Collective learning is the ability to share, store and build on knowledge across generations. If one person discovers that chewing willow leaves relieves headaches, that knowledge can be passed on — and improved upon — for thousands of years.

No other species accumulates knowledge quite like this. And it’s the reason humans have been able to adapt to almost every environment on Earth.

Created by Emeritus Professor David Christian, Big History helps children understand ideas like this as part of one connected story — linking human behaviour, biology and history.

✔ Expert-led learning for curious 9–12 year olds
✔ One-off cost — no subscription, lifetime access

This moment comes from Episode 10 of Big History - exploring how a single catastrophic event reshaped life on Earth.

Around 65 million years ago, a massive asteroid struck Earth near modern Mexico, leaving a crater 200 kilometres wide. Tsunamis, acid rain and a vast dust cloud blocked out the sun for months — collapsing food chains across the planet.

The dinosaurs didn’t survive. But mammals did. And when the dust settled, a new chapter in the story of life had begun.

Created by Emeritus Professor David Christian, Big History helps children understand how moments like this connect — showing how catastrophe can open the door to extraordinary change.

✔ Expert-led learning for curious 9–12 year olds
✔ One-off cost — no subscription, lifetime access

Explore the Big History course via our website

This moment comes from Episode 5 of Big History - exploring how dying stars made the Universe more chemically interesting 🌌

A supernova is one of the most powerful events in the Universe. When the largest stars run out of fuel, they collapse and explode, with temperatures high enough to forge most of the elements in the Periodic Table.

From Earth, a supernova looks like a bright new star suddenly appearing in the night sky.

Created by Emeritus Professor David Christian, Big History helps children understand how events like this created the building blocks for planets, chemistry and life itself.

✔ Expert-led learning for curious 9–12 year olds
✔ One-off cost — no subscription, lifetime access

This moment comes from Episode 7 of Big History — exploring how the young Earth was shaped by some of the most violent events in our solar system’s history.

Scientists believe a planet roughly the size of Mars collided with the early Earth, blasting debris into space. Over time, that debris gathered together to form the Moon.

Since that distant collision, the Earth has slowly transformed into the planet we know today.

Created by Emeritus Professor David Christian, Big History helps children understand how our world formed — as part of one clear, connected story from the Big Bang to modern life.

✔ Expert-led learning for curious 9–12 year olds
✔ One-off cost — no subscription, lifetime access

This moment comes from Episode 10 of Big History — exploring how complex animals developed one of nature’s most extraordinary tools 🧠

As animals faced more decisions, nerve cells began clustering together, forming the first simple brains. Octopi still have several today, some in their tentacles.

In mammals, new regions evolved — including the cortex, the part of the brain most associated with reasoning and complex thought.

Created by Emeritus Professor David Christian, Big History helps children understand ideas like this as part of one connected story — from the first living cells to the modern world.

✔ Expert-led learning for curious 9–12 year olds
✔ One-off cost — no subscription, lifetime access
👉 Explore the Big History course via our website

For most of human history, distant civilisations had no knowledge of each other.

Then, from around 1500 CE, regular ocean voyages began linking once-isolated parts of the world. When European explorers first encountered cities like Tenochtitlan — the magnificent Aztec capital — they struggled to find words. One described it as an enchanted vision, almost too extraordinary to believe.

It was the moment humanity began to truly connect.

This moment comes from Episode 16 of Big History, exploring how our species became global and what that meant for the world we live in today.

Created by Emeritus Professor David Christian, Big History helps children understand how human societies became connected - linking geography, culture and history into one clear story.

✔ Expert-led learning designed for curious 9–12 year olds
✔ One-off cost — no subscription, lifetime access

Find put more on our website

The earliest human societies had few differences in wealth. Most things had to be carried, so accumulating possessions made little sense.

But as farming spread and people settled permanently, surplus food changed everything. For the first time, some people could specialise - as traders, warriors, craftspeople or rulers.

Significant differences in wealth and power began to emerge for the first time in human history.

This moment comes from Episode 14 of Big History, exploring how states and hierarchies emerged as agriculture transformed human societies.

Created by Emeritus Professor David Christian, Big History helps children understand how societies change over time — as part of one connected story.

✔ Expert-led learning for curious 9–12 year olds
✔ One-off cost - no subscription, lifetime access

Explore the Big History course via our website

A machine originally designed to pump water out of coal mines ended up transforming everything.

Steam engines drove factories, powered ships and trains, and lit up cities. They were followed by internal combustion engines, then oil, then natural gas - each unlocking vast new supplies of cheap energy that reshaped how humans worked, travelled and lived.

Within two centuries, living standards rose in ways that would have been unimaginable to earlier generations.

This moment comes from Episode 17 of Big History, which explores the making of the modern world — one of eight major thresholds in the story of everything.

Created by Emeritus Professor David Christian, Big History helps children understand how innovations like these connect across science, history and the world they see today.

✔ Expert-led learning designed for curious 9–12 year olds
✔ Helps children understand how the modern world was built
✔ One-off cost — no subscription, lifetime access

👉 Explore the Big History course via our website

Before farming, most human communities were tiny - rarely more than forty or fifty people living together for long periods.

To survive, they needed a lot of land, moving with the seasons to wherever food was most abundant. And they accumulated deep knowledge of their local environments, carefully passing it down through stories and rituals from generation to generation.

This moment comes from Episode 12 of Big History, which explores the Foundational Era - the longest and least understood chapter of the human story.

Created by Emeritus Professor David Christian, Big History helps children understand how our ancestors lived, adapted and laid the foundations for everything that followed.

✔ Expert-led learning designed for curious 9–12 year olds
✔ Helps children connect ideas across history and human society
✔ One-off cost — no subscription, lifetime access

👉 Explore the Big History course via our website