Where Did It Come From?

New York City's Time Warner Center is the state of the art in high-rise living. It features all the amenities that one can imagine. But high-rise, high-density living isn't a new idea.

Mining the earth for coal, erecting drilling rigs for oil and natural gas to pipe to our homes, smelting iron ore into buildings of iron and steel - all of these are fundamentals of the modern industrialised world, but they are nothing new.

Many years before modern air travel, the ancient Chinese had learned and were practising the complicated principles of fluid and aerodynamics in the kites they flew, the boats they sailed and the children’s toys they made.

The host travels to Egypt to understand how monumental masterpieces including the Great Pyramid and the Temple of Karnak were designed with primitive tools and labour.

2000 years ago, when Washington was still a swamp, the Maya were busy transforming some of the most inhospitable jungle imaginable into the New World’s first powerful metropolis.

Ever since the 1950s, the United States has been building freeways at an unprecedented rate. Host Michael Guillen takes us on a chariot ride through Ancient Rome and discovers that many of the highway amenities date back over 2000 years.

A look at how certain weapons invented by the ancient Chinese have contributed to nearly every military weapon in use today.

Host Michael Guillen travels to China to explore the roots of modern agricultural genius. He studies how the ancient Chinese invented advanced farming technology long before the west would use anything like it.

Many things we associate with the practice of modern medicine were actually introduced by the ancient Egyptians more than 5,000 years ago. We travel to Egypt for a first-hand look at the birthplace of modern medicine.

Where Did It Come From? travels to Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula to get a first hand look at the ancient world’s most skilled astronomers: the Maya.

Journey to Greece to examine the ancient origins of modern weapons of mass destruction like computer-guided nuclear warheads, anthrax and sarin gas.