Tom Holland

Now history lives in the contradictions.

Yes, Dominic, I've always been fascinated by the question of how humans came to make and use fire.

How did that originate?

And a tremendous discovery was announced just last year that the place where it seems fire was invented was Suffolk.

Try Claude for free at claude.ai slash rest is history.

Hello and welcome back to The Rest Is History.

It is April 1533 and for weeks now, the gold of the Incas has been rolling into this room that has a white line around it.

The gold has to reach that white line or else Atahualpa is going to be killed.

And Dominic, every day that hoard is getting higher, isn't it?

Because you've got streams of porters, streams of llamas, and they are just bringing in gold from across Peru and beyond.

And as he's starting to think, can I even trust them to set me free when the line gets reached?

I mean, imagine they turn up in Mecca and say, we've been sent to despoil the mosque.

Yeah.

That wouldn't go down well.

Seems incomprehensible they're not just lynched.

I mean, isn't it that Kiskis is actually...

He's in command of an occupying force.

Yeah.

And presumably shares Atahualpa's contempt for what Cuzco represents.

I'm sure.