I'm going to show you how great I am.

This would have mighty power.

I just want to say from the bottom of me heart, I'd like to take this chance to apologize to absolutely nobody.

Hello and welcome to how to Take Over the World.

This is Ben Wilson.

Today we are talking about Charlemagne.

And Charlemagne is interesting to me for a number of different reasons.

But I think the primary reason I'm interested in him is that he is at the center of one of the most

interesting pivot points in all of history.

And that is the transition from the Germanic peoples being this sort of scary barbarian,

unknown backwater people to taking over the world.

You know, if you go back 2,000 years and you look at what Romans were saying about the Germans,

so you can read Tacitus of the great Roman historian.

And he writes about the Germanic peoples.

He says, quote, for my own part, I agree with those who think that the tribes of Germany

are free from all taint of intermarriages of foreign nations and that that they appear as a distinct, unmixed race, like none but themselves.

Hence to, the same physical peculiarities throughout so vast a population.

All have fierce blue eyes, red hair, huge frames, fit only for sudden exertion.

They are less able to bear laborious work, heat and thirst they cannot in in the least endure to cold and hunger their climate and their soil in near them.

And so you can hear in the tone of Tachatis this admiration for the Germanic peoples, but also this sort of derision, this condescension, views them as barbarians, right?

That's how everyone viewed them from the civilized world as uncontrollable barbarians.

And for the most part, they could be safely forgotten about.

...