Simon Mattacks
speaker
2,981 appearances
17 recordings
3 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard 13 Sep
Simon Mattacks’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 14 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 3.
Appearances
Many of the ships that pass through the strait transport essential resources like oil and liquefied natural gas.
But how did this waterway become a place of global importance?
and with headlines about the closure of the Strait, another question comes to mind.
Has anything like this ever happened before?
We'll find out tonight.
So just relax and let your mind drift as we explore the sleepy history of the Strait of Hormuz.
Our story begins about 35 million years ago, with the collision of two continents.
Over time, under the Earth, two continental plates met, the Arabian Plate and the Eurasian Plate.
they gradually became fused together, closing up an ancient sea known as Tethys and creating the Zagros Mountains in what is now Iran.
Tectonic movement also created a depression in the Earth, forming the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.
The water here was once shallow,
so shallow that at certain points you could have crossed the Gulf on foot.
But then the world's ice caps began to melt, leading to rising sea levels and the flooding of the Gulf.
For millions of years, change here was slow and geological.
But at some point, humans arrived and began to settle in the area around the Strait of Hormuz.
the once empty waters gradually became busy with ships, traders, and merchants.
But before we continue, let's take a look at the geography of the strait to understand how and why it became so important.
The Strait of Hormuz is located between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Amman.
The north coast now belongs to Iran.
And on the south coast, there's a mountainous region known as the Musandam Peninsula.
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