Life After People: Major Monuments 1,000 Years in the Future (S2, E10) | Full Episode | History

what would happen if every human being  on earth disappear this isn't the story   of how we might vanish it is the story of  what happens to the world we leave behind in this episode of life after  people the leaders of man are gone   how will the white house fall  who's really buried in grant's tomb   why will mao's body defy decay and from  this abandoned place one of mankind's most   powerful leaders unleashed the deadliest weapon  in history welcome to earth population zero   man's presidents prime ministers dictators and  kings are gone leaving behind their worlds of   extreme security and luxury from the white house  to the forbidden city and the palace at versailles   which of these powerful  places will last the longest   when there's no one to declare  war on nature's advancing armies one day after people the home of the most powerful  man in the world stands unguarded originally known as the president's  palace or the president's house   theodore roosevelt made a  long-standing nickname official in 1901   when he added the words white house  to the presidential letterhead   the white walls of this famous house will last for  a very long time but not their distinctive color   the walls are made from aqueous sandstone a local  rock prized for its toughness it was quarried   along a tributary of the nearby potomac river  and was also used to construct the u.s capitol   the white house facade is not at all smooth  it is sandstone and the sandstone is not white the white house sandstone is naturally grayish so why is the white house white legend has it that after the british set  fire to the house during the war of 1812   it was painted white to cover up the burn marks   but in truth soon after the walls  were first completed in 1798   workers applied coats of lime-based  whitewash to seal the rough stone later white paint was applied as a  more effective barrier against moisture   by the late 20th century the sandstone  walls were regularly repainted   each time requiring 570 gallons of white paint  if the walls are well protected the windows   are impenetrable the oval office  is fitted with bulletproof glass   it was first installed in 1941 after the  hysteria following the attack on pearl harbor now the bulletproof glass will keep nature out but there is an intruder in the oval office beau  the president's dog has crossed to the west wing he is the last in a long line of sometimes bizarre  presidential pets like woodrow wilson sheep   benjamin harrison's goat and  william howard taft's cow   beau is a portuguese water dog  originally bred to work on fishing boats   diving for fish retrieving broken nets  and guarding boats for their masters portuguese water dogs are one of the  oldest breed of domesticated dog going back   thousands of years they are very competent and  intelligent and can handle many different tasks   soon beau will have to leave the house  and use his intelligence to survive   what dangers await this pampered pet  on the streets of the nation's capital two days after people   in new york city the vast united nations complex   once welcomed leaders from  almost 200 member countries their flags arranged alphabetically from   afghanistan to zimbabwe still  flutter along first avenue the 39 story secretariat tower looms over  the cavernous general assembly building   where all 1800 seats are now empty   in the un's vast sub-basements an eerie glow  still filters through the hallways and offices these glow-in-the-dark markers guided  workers safely out of the building   during the 2003 northeast blackout  that darkened new york city they owe their glow to a substance  called strontium oxide aluminate   exposed to light its electrons are pushed to a  higher energy state in the dark they lose energy   giving it off in wavelengths of greenish yellow  light the emergency lighting basically takes   its energy from the regular building lights  so after the regular building lights go off   you're still going to see an eerie glow but  these markers can only glow for up to 20 hours   with no electric lights to recharge them this  vast labyrinth will soon join the rest of the city   and the world in total  darkness one week after people around the world mankind's leaders remain embalmed   and entombed for one great communist leader  the recipe for immortality was a botched job few dared to oppose china's premier mao zeitung   whose policies and execution orders are  believed to have killed up to 70 million people on september 9 1976 he died at the age of 82.  despite mao's last wishes calling for his body to   be cremated officials debated over what to do with  his corpse initially mao's body lay in state for a   couple of weeks before they started to preserve  it in the 1970s embalming was rare in china   so the scientists charged with preserving mao's  corpse for posterity had to first do some research   one of the things that the scientists read  was that if you embalmed the body with   a large amount of formaldehyde solution it would  preserve the body indefinitely or so they thought   specifically 16 liters of fluid into  the system they went a little further   and infused 22 liters of fluid into the  system which was a complete disaster the mistake caused bloating  and extensive skin damage   but somehow they were still able to create  a presentable corpse that could be viewed   for decades in a court sarcophagus in tiananmen  square they bring the body up from the basement   every day for a few hours no more than four hours  sometimes they don't bring the body up at all   will the secret of mao's body finally  be revealed in a life after people two weeks after people in manhattan's riverside park no one is  buried in grant's tomb in fact nobody ever was the real answer to the classic riddle who's  buried in grant's tomb is that ulysses s   grant and his wife were both entombed here above  ground so they are technically not buried at all   ulysses s grant was once the  most famous man in the world   so popular was the former civil war  general and u.s president that in   1897 when his mausoleum was dedicated  more than one million people showed up the body of general grant took a  tortured path to its final resting place   like chairman mao he was the  victim of a botched embalming job   when grant a legendary chain smoker of  cigars died of throat cancer in 1885   it was hoped his body could be  preserved to go on public tour the body lay in the refrigerated coffin for  several weeks and if it's not at at least   uh 37 to 39 degrees fahrenheit this  wouldn't have preserved his body very well   the refrigeration that they  use was actually an ice box when the public got its first look at grant they  were horrified the face was blackened with decay   what no one knew was that the general's  face had begun to deteriorate before he died   the cancer blocked the blood circulation above  his neck the embalmer did the best he could   but the face itself deteriorated  more so than the rest of the body now his body rests in a granite sarcophagus  inside the largest mausoleum in north america grant seems well protected but an  enemy force has the general surrounded three weeks after people this nearly  200 year old mansion in virginia   houses the groundbreaking inventions  of one of america's greatest men   a great clock powered by descending cannonballs a  copying machine used to make duplicate documents and even one of the first indoor  toilets in american history the home is monticello personally built  and occupied by president thomas jefferson despite his opposition to slavery many of  jefferson's own slaves helped to build his dream   house and it was built to last like no other home  in america at the time it's extremely well made   it's all constructed out of brick which  is very unusual for this area most of   the houses around here were made of wood basically one of the more innovative features of  the house is this metal shingle roof   the current shingles are 316 grade  a surgical grade of stainless steel the roof was designed to include 13  skylights a concept far ahead of its time   now a potential gateway for destruction skylights  in any structure whether it's old or new do tend   to leak fairly quickly as compared to  the roof itself or even vertical windows   so those would be a particularly  vulnerable area of this building the home of the author of the  declaration of independence   is holding back mother nature's revolution for now   and across the atlantic the famous mirrors  of this legendary palace have killed before   what is their toxic secret one month after people   now that the world's leaders are gone  new forces are looking to seize power just outside of paris france   the palace of versailles with its  spectacular gardens sits untended this is one of the most opulent  homes built by any leader in history   the palace is 500 000 square feet  10 times larger than the white house   its construction in the late  1600s nearly bankrupted the nation and it was here that the angry  mobs of the french revolution   captured marie antoinette and  her husband king louis xvi   taking them away to paris and eventually the  guillotine overthrowing the french monarchy   in 1919 versailles was one of the few places that  could accommodate the hundreds of dignitaries that   had descended on france to negotiate the treaty  ending world war one the peace agreement that   would become known as the treaty of versailles was  signed here in the palace's famous hall of mirrors   at more than 235 feet the hall is longer than a  747 and it's lined along one wall with 367 mirrors   most originally installed in 1684 each  mirror contains a deadly ingredient mercury every 10 square feet of mirror required  more than 100 pounds of the toxic liquid metal   inhalation of mercury vapors can  cause inflammation of the lungs   and respiratory failure and in fact actually  killed some of the craftsmen who made the mirrors   now could this centuries-old poison determine the  fate of the historic hall in a life after people one year after people former president thomas  jefferson's monticello home continues to hold off   nature's assault even the skylights are holding  out thanks to jefferson's innovative design this is one of the main skylights over jefferson's  bed chamber if you notice the glass overlaps   shingle fashion so that you have the course  above overlapping that below it shedding   the water been very effective we don't really see  any leakage at all occurring with these skylights   even in a blowing rain the skylights have proven  effective at keeping out moisture for many years   but jefferson's home might not be as strong as  it appears unlike the opulent kings of france   jefferson had to manage his budget carefully  jefferson was perennially short of funds   the problem with that is that he had  to live off the cash flow of his farm jefferson's money troubles forced  him to come up with some creative   construction techniques that  might doom his treasured home for eight years bo the former first dog  has survived on his own falling back on the   survival skills of his ancestors this portuguese  water dog has sought sustenance from the sea first scavenging at the banks of the potomac he  soon found his way to the nearby chesapeake bay   portuguese our dogs worked on fishing boats and  seafood was always a staple part of their diet   he could sniff out clams other shellfish  or dead fish that wash up on the shore   it's very likely that if you could  get south towards the chesapeake   it would be an abundant food source for boat  to scavenge and survive on for his lifetime by turning to the food source of his ancestors   beau has found a way to survive  and thrive in a life after people 20 years after people the white house has  returned to its original color gray birds   are the new unelected residents  the house itself is holding up well   its future might have been more bleak if it  wasn't for a renovation in the mid-20th century the wood had been rotting people had been drilling  through the beams to add a conduit for pipes and   electricity over time and it was determined that  it needed to be almost entirely reconstructed   now when truman was president they actually  had to move out of the white house because   it was becoming actually dangerous as it turned  out leaving the white house set up an even more   dangerous situation for the president during  the four-year renovation truman lived across   the street in blair house normally a guest  house for visiting heads of state on november   1st 1950 two puerto rican nationalists tried to  assassinate him there a gunfight broke out on the   steps killing a white house policeman and one  of the would-be assassins truman was unharmed   completed in 1952 the renovations gave the white  house a new 25 foot deep foundation supporting   interior steel frame walls the mansion's  exterior walls have a less certain future   the local sandstone turned out to be not as  tough as the original builders believed in 1814   the white house was gutted in  a fire set by british troops   the walls were still standing but the  workers sent in to repair the house   discovered that moisture had been penetrating  the stone for years causing extensive damage   after that marble and granite became the stones  of choice for the capital's monumental buildings   exposed to moisture over long periods of time  the surface of the sandstone white house walls   can turn to mud and that's exactly what's  happening now as the white house grounds   are already returning to the watery wetlands  they were before the first colonists arrived   20 years after people the places where  mankind's leaders exercised their greatest power   now conceal the greatest secrets  including one abandoned place in   america with a surprising link to the  most deadly weapon ever created by man 20 years after people the rusting buildings and splintered docks of  this former naval base conceal a dark history   from here at hunter's point in san francisco bay   the most fearsome weapon ever launched by one  of mankind's leaders set sail into world history home to 18 000 workers during world war  ii this place was the point of departure   for hundreds of warships heading to the pacific no mission was more important than the one  that began here in the summer of 1945 when   parts for the atomic bomb nicknamed  little boy were delivered to the base july 16 1945 the cruiser indianapolis was  alongside this wharf the components for little boy   were loaded ten days later she delivered the bomb  and it was shortly thereafter dropped on hiroshima it was the first atomic bomb to be used as  a weapon killing an estimated 140 000 people   and along with a second bomb dropped  on nagasaki it put an end to the war many of the buildings constructed on the  base during world war ii are still standing   the mess hall which once fed  thousands of sailors and dock workers is now a wreck of peeling lead-based paint  decaying fixtures and corroding appliances this is one of the oldest structures on this  base constructed of wood going through a lot of   deterioration but some of this is holding together  fairly well at this point but as we move across   over here we can see that the support is severely  deteriorated water and moisture have gotten   in caused rod of the ends of this beam it has  actually fallen down on the sides of the column   and what's left is a piece of conduit that  is really helping hold this thing together   after the war hunter's point took  on a newer and darker mission   it began in 1946 after the u.s military  conducted secret tests on the effects of   nuclear blasts on warships out in the pacific  the surviving ships from what was called   operation crossroads were towed back  to hunter's point for decontamination   workers sandblasted the halls unknowingly exposing  themselves to dangerous levels of radiation   and allowing radioactive paint  scraps to fall into the bay   it was the beginning of a  toxic saga at hunter's point   the knowledge gained from decontaminating  the ships from operation crossroads   saw the naval radiological defense  lab established here at hunters point scientists with the nrdl turned the base  into the world's most advanced laboratory   for studying the effects of nuclear radiation  on everything including living creatures   some believe there may have been human  testing but what is certain is that   farm animals were systematically exposed to  radiation to simulate the effects of nuclear fallout the research here  caused widespread contamination but all the while people continued  to live and work in this place   where now locker rooms stand forgotten and latrines are deep in the clutches of mold  and decay weeds choke the officer's quarters and broken windows offer  refuge for hundreds of birds the vast manufacturing buildings where submarines  and other warships were welded together   are empty and silent this was once a plate shop men and women  were here burning welding during the war   now the concrete's chipped starting to crack  paint's coming down the windows are broken   the ceiling's falling in the shipbuilding machine  tools were long ago removed and sold for scrap but much of the office furniture and business  machines from another era sit in forgotten decay the radiation laboratory was shut down  in 1969 but the work done here is still   blamed for abnormally high rates of certain  cancers found in the san francisco bay area   in 1989 the base was declared a toxic superfund  site and slated for cleanup and decontamination   that work was still going on in 1991 when the  u.s government finally shuttered hunter's point   along with dozens of other military bases  as part of a widespread cost-cutting measure built for a time of war it's a time of peace  that is finally tearing hunter's point apart thirty years after people one great leader of mankind chinese premier  mao zeitung remains surprisingly intact in   his quartz sarcophagus with none of the  environmental control systems operational   mao's body should have long ago decomposed the chinese really botched job of uh infusing the  formaldehyde which is going to lead to problems   later no matter what they do they've still created  a huge problem from which they can't recover   because the body has to deteriorate  there is no way that it won't deteriorate so why might this human form still  be visible after all these years   some believe the body isn't mao at all one of the  things they did was to create a wax figure of mao   and the wax figure looked more like mao zeitung  than mao's actual body he looked exactly like him   if this is the case the body on display in beijing  is destined to crack and warp rather than decay 50 years after people just  one mile from mao's mausoleum   the imposing wooden buildings of the forbidden  city are covered in a thick blanket of snow for 500 years this massive complex was the seat  of power for china's emperors built in the 1400s   it has 9999 rooms why not 10 000 because  nine is a lucky number in chinese culture   the tallest of all the structures is the  122 foot high hall of supreme harmony   the emperor's ceremonial seat of power in the  hall center sits the emperor's ornate throne   it's surrounded by six gold-covered  columns rising 100 feet to support the roof   each one carved from a single piece of wood now extensive wood rot and termite damage have  put the hall of supreme harmony in a dangerously   unharmonious condition the smaller columns can no  longer support the weight pressing down from above   the pillars making up the outer walls of the  palace will be particularly vulnerable to attack   by water a high wind perhaps might cause it to  break sooner or heavy snow load on the ceiling but the six solid wood golden pillars still  protect the emperor's throne and those six pillars   are likely to continue standing those  pillars are the emperor's sentinels snow and rain have bestowed a different fate upon   the great palace of versailles the once  famous gardens are now consumed by forest   inside the palace louis xiv great hall  is the mirror image of devastation   the famous gardens have worked their way indoors   the hall of mirrors has so many little  nooks and crannies these nooks and crannies   naturally catch the soil and create mold  and dust and seeds from the gardens below   the chandeliers and much of the roof fell   long ago and the 8 000 square feet  of mirrors are in dire straits the roof of the hall of mirrors  as it fails would leak quite a bit   and water would cascade down the walls  that actually hold the mirrors in place   water would be both behind the  glass and in front of the glass but the mercury in the mirrors has actually  prevented mold and fungus from colonizing them   keeping the antique glass from  deteriorating and falling out of its framing   but now water is steadily rotting the oak  supports that hold the mirrors to the walls   and one by one the glass that once  reflected the faces of world leaders   as they ended the war to end all wars  submits to a final surrender itself 100 years after people in manhattan  grant's tomb is holding strong   but a relentless force is moving to attack the building is going to stand for a long  time but it's going to be assaulted and   the troops that are going to assault it  first are the trees you see around you   the trees are london plains so  notorious for producing organic debris   that new york city officials banned any  new plantings of these trees for decades   london planes are bad for buildings because they  shed their bark all throughout the year the shed   bark plus the leaves from the tree form soil very  very fertile area for ivy and other vines to grow   grant's tomb has been left unattended before  beginning in the 1960s mismanagement by the   national park service left the monument  exposed to damage from water intrusion   plant growth and extensive vandalism the tomb  was even used for ritual animal sacrifices   possibly by caribbean immigrants practicing  a religion called santeria grant's tomb was   viewed as a national disgrace before it was  finally restored and rededicated in 1997   now a century of unchecked tree growth   and creeping vines has draped the  granite mausoleum like a shroud and down the coast in the  nation's capital the white   house is falling victim to a problem  every homeowner on earth once feared 150 years after people with no maintenance monticello's 13  ingenious skylights are long gone   they're glass destroyed by hail and  falling tree branches and the stainless   steel shingles could not prevent the wooden  roof supports from rotting and collapsing thomas jefferson's home was a masterpiece  but money troubles sometimes dogged him   the result is that he kind of cheated on the  materials used in the home the facade in the   entryway looked like stone but it was really wood  painted with sand particles to resemble stone   the stone columns on the west side of the  house were actually brick covered with stucco   jefferson's cheats were convincing  but there's no fooling mother nature 175 years after people in new  york city the general assembly   chamber at the united nations is long out  of session and about to adjourn permanently the general assembly building is a steel and  concrete structure with a very irregular roof the   roof beams have to span a very very wide area  and anytime you have a large space enclosed with   no interior columns you have a failure point here  the chatter of dozens of languages was once heard   now what's about to happen  requires no translation at all the general assembly is outlasted  by the 39-story secretariat tower   but just barely the steel curtain  frame is a teetering rusted skeleton   despite a deep foundation and a  heavy-duty steel and concrete base   the secretariat was built on filled in land  reclaimed from the east river the problem is   that there are areas of the sub-basements that  are actually below the level of the water line   because the lower levels would flood it  does expose the steel framework to brackish   water to salt water so you got major motions of  the water slamming into this thing continuously   the salt water itself could cause enough  corrosion to bring the building down all at once 175 years of neglect has left the white  house looking anything but presidential although the walls are intact  parts of the roof have fallen   and nothing can stand up to what's  happening now in washington d.c in 2006 2007 there was a army corps of engineers  study on the area around the white house in the   capitol mall and it turns out that the levees  are inadequate to prevent flooding of the area   and in fact the white house sits right in the  middle of what's known as 100-year floodplain   even though the white house itself is on a little  hill the sub-basement goes down about 25 feet   and the sewer lines from the white house back  down to the mall have to cover that slope   and as water rises to the south of  the white house those sewer lines   will fill with water and overflow right  back into the white house sub-basement the porous white house sandstone  is degrading to mud at the home of   every president since john  adams slides into a watery grave   230 miles away in a tangle of dense  forest along new york's hudson river   this presidential monument is  losing its battle with the trees   ulysses s grant's granite tomb was built to last   but the destructive london plane  trees have breached the inner sanctum the area around this mausoleum  basically is a soil creation machine   and once you start creating a lot  of soil you create even more trees in the time of humans grant's body lay  in a sarcophagus above ground level   but now the relentless soil production and tree  growth has covered him beneath six feet of earth for the first time in history there is  truly someone buried in grant's tomb mankind's leaders had the power to  reshape the world in their image   now mother nature rules over all  the land in a life after people you

Channel: HISTORY

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Id: JL9PZvdDpcU

Length: 44min 6sec (2646 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 28 2021