History Summarized: Great Zimbabwe

I wish Blue had an “artifacts” series. Where he could talk about the history, the makers, the meaning, the importance, or whatever he wanted, about famous artifacts like The Terra Cotta Warriors, or King Tuts mask. He could even go as vague as kinds of swords, or robes, or boats, just talking about whatever his heart desires. Only if he wanted to tho!

As a Zimbabwean this makes me so happy to see our history being talked about 😭🇿🇼

I really appreciate how you make an effort in covering non european civilization as you don't see that very often on YouTube

Over 20 years ago when I was in high school, we had a World History project. We'd all pick a country we wanted to do a report on, and we had to report on their history, government, and culture. Trouble was, in order to avoid two or more students choosing the same country, we all had to announce one at a time, and we went last-name-alphabetical. Our teacher advised us to choose multiple back-up countries on the offchance our first choice had been chosen by another student. Exactly that happened for pretty much everybody. My last name comes late in the alphabet, however, so ALL of my back-up countries had been chosen. Teacher got impatient with me because I had literally no idea what to choose. I chose Zimbabwe off the top of my head completely at random, just looking at a map. But the headaches didn't end there. Due to the very bias Blue talks about in this video, it was pretty much impossible for me to actually FIND any information on Zimbabwe back in 2000. Nothing in my public library had anything, nothing on the internet had anything, nothing in the school library had anything. NOTHING. Did not get a good grade on it, and the teacher said I could have worked harder. Me, my mom, my stepdad, and even a few of my friends all searched feverishly to help me. NONE OF US COULD FIND ANYTHING.

I think it's really great that you use this 'simpler' kind of format to explore underrepresented areas of history. Hearing about topics we've already heard more details on is boring and these places deserve more attention!

This man has taught me more history than years of the public school system ever could hope to do

Wonderful to see the history of an African country. Need more this and of the Caribbean done in respectful ways.

I was so happy to see this pop up in my notifications! Great Zimbabwe is one of the coolest structures I've learned about when learning about African history. I hope to one day see it in person, it's so cool! Great video as always, I love when OSP discusses underrepresented cultures and structures.

When even the ruins that have been abandoned for several hundred are beautiful, you know the original settlements must have been something else. I'd love to visit these sites some day. I love all Blue's history videos, but it always makes my day when Blue ventures outside of Europe. It's such a big planet with such a long and varied history, and I love it all.

As an American kid in a mostly white school in the 90s, I was taught a little about a couple African empires (Mali, Benin) and nothing at all about Great Zimbabwe. Literally the first time I saw a picture of it was on one of those ancient-aliens shows, and they didn't mention the name but claimed (duh) that aliens had built it. When I finally DID find the name years later (thanks, PBS!), it became my go-to example for arguments with racist relatives, both because it's an awesome place built by Black Africans and because THEY didn't learn about it in school either. As I like to say, "Bias leaves holes in our knowledge, and some of those holes are the size of Great Zimbabwe."

Blue's hatred in the description of mortar wouldn't exist if evil Zimbabwe used it to create domed architecture.

Wow... As a some what long term watcher, it's took me by surprise to see my home country as the title. Great Zimbabwe is such a beautiful structure, and a pure shame it wasn't maintained due to colonialism. The topography of Zim aids to how strong the stone structures lasted. Sadly I didn't learn much about it because, colonization also changed how and what we learn as important. We brushed on it a little in school but not to the extent it deserves. Thanks for the video Blue😊

"Ceremonial" is a great excuse archeologists use when they don't know what something was used for.

"contrasting the scale of what a human is with the scale of what they can do" is profoundly concise.

It's baffling to me how there are still people to this day and age who will call this unimpressive. People who are constantly trying to make Africans look like these bumbling fools who couldnt build impressive structures or have complex societies/empires. Thank you for shedding some light on one of the marvels of Southern African engineering, craftsmanship and culture, Blue.

A great video about a criminally overlooked topic!

I know it gets messy when covering the history of places like Africa and South America but I always love hearing about it. Especially from a person who is properly skeptical of information written down by colonizers who have a very strong bias to make things seem a certain way. Always loved hearing about Zimbabwe too, very cool place

I literally just had my last lesson on Great Zimbabwe yesterday for anthropology, and the biggest take away was the weird censorship and promotion of aliens in the area, a big part of our class is that anthropology had it's start in racism and it's now the job of anthropologists to undo that old racist works while pushing forward still so a perfectly time video for me I would say

Yes, you are finally covering another African civilization! I have waited so long you to cover Great Zimbabwe and it’s finally here.

As a Zimbabwean I'm overjoyed! You ended the video on a much needed high note 🙂. Brilliant work 😁 👏