CNN Perspectives - Millennium A Thousand Years of History (1999) Part 6 The Sixteenth Century Century of the Compass

Join CNN's MILLENNIUM for a panoramic sweep over the last 1,000 years, watching the people, events and achievements that shaped the world. The 10, one-hour episodes of MILLENNIUM are extraordinary in their range of vision and compelling in their presentation. Yet MILLENNIUM is neither chronological nor all-encompassing. Instead, it is eclectic, a pastiche of things great–or small–that sculpted the world. Each of the 10 episodes of MILLENNIUM focuses on a single century, brought to life by five vignettes from five different locations worldwide. Inspired by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto's book, “Millennium,” and filmed in 28 countries, the series is as geographically far-ranging as the world it covers. Its producers and crews spent more than two years and traveled 100,000 miles gathering footage. MILLENNIUM reconstructs the visual images of past ages using this footage, along with vivid re-enactments and computer-generated graphic animation.

Part 6 The Sixteenth Century Century of the Compass

This was a century when the empires and religions of the world expanded aggressively. Diego de Landa, a Spanish missionary, converted thousands of Mayans in Yucatan, torturing them brutally when they continued to honor their former idols in secret. The biggest land gain was made by Ivan the Terrible, who extended Muscovite rule from the Baltic to Siberia. For every conquest, there were many failures. In Japan, a ferocious military dictator, Hideyoshi, dreamed of conquering the world, beginning with Korea and China. But the Koreans defeated him, with “turtle” ships covered with iron spikes and breathing cannon fire through dragon's head prows. Muslim conquests were even more spectacular. Akbar conquered northern India and created the sophisticated Moghul empire. In Europe, people were fascinated by strange objects brought back from exotic corners of the world. Cabinets of Curiosities, containing objects as diverse as a lock of hair from Petrus Gonsalvus, the Hairy Man of Tenerife, to fossils and souvenirs of exotic animals, were displayed by famous collectors such as Emperor Rudolf II of Prague.

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