Plot Synopsis

MANKIND: THE STORY OF ALL OF US uses computer graphics and dramatic reconstructions to examine the history of the human race through the ages -- from the ancient Ice Age to the current Age of Biomedicine -- while focusing on key historical events, important eras and brilliant breakthroughs: surviving the Ice Age, discovering farming techniques, the sacking of Rome, empire-building under Genghis Kahn, inventing movable type, discovering the New World, the fall of the Aztec Empire, creating the Industrial Revolution, exploring space, re-engineering the human body and so much more. Mankind has been in a brutal fight for survival, with the odds against us at every turn -- over 99% of all species of the earth have gone extinct. It takes nine billion years for the ideal planet to form, four billion more for the right conditions to emerge before it finally happens: mankind begins. From the dawning of time, mankind has faced numerous obstacles and made surprising leaps forward. Each event has been chosen because it's a key turning point -- a stepping stone in our journey from hunter-gatherer to global citizen. This program's story is all about connections -- why some ideas take hold and spread around the world and how the lives of people in one part of the world are shaped by events in another. How the power of science -- from geology and astronomy, to physics and biology -- combined to shape our shared human journey, revealing astounding global connections, and an astonishing interconnected story.