Britain's early forays into the middle east weave threads of spirit with the 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia. Aashrit also colours the episode with personal stories from his childhood in Dubai.

Horses give way to horsepower. The allies float to victory on a wave of oil.

The United States of America discovers oil in the 1800s and quickly ascends to its status as the world eater.

A childhood friendship results in the creation of the most important canal of the modern world; The Suez Canal.

Napoleon sets sail to conquer Egypt en route to India in the footsteps of Alexander the Great, but his luck runs out he becomes stranded. He stays in Egypt, and unintentionally lays the sociopolitical foundations of the world's future oil infrastructure.

James Drax lands an island colony named Barbados in 1627 with 300 Pounds in pocket and a dream to turn it into 10,000. He starts by living in a cave and shooting hogs, but soon his lofty goals become grounded in reality when he sets up a money making machine in the form of a sugar plantation. The roots of capitalism are laid down by enslaved hands on lands vacated by a mountain of the dead.

In 1519, Cortés releases a superweapon on Mexico that eradicates entire civilisations, causing the paths of America, Asia, and Africa to diverge forever.

Portugal's Prince Henry the Navigator leaps, or rather crawls, onto the world stage. His knights struggle for decades against the African Sahara looking for Mansa Musa's river of gold. Portugal unlocks a golden door to the modern era.