Why does Saturn have rings?
What are the different types of clouds?
How does an octopus swim?
Why does a tiger have stripes?
How do flowers grow?
Tell me why.
The video encyclopedia is a reference work that's designed to show the answers to questions that young people ask.
All materials used in this work are based upon the best-selling book series by Arkady Lyoko.
When did civilization begin?
It took man a long, long time to reach what we call a state of civilization.
At first he lived in a state of savagery, much like animals.
He had no language and he obtained food wherever he could find it.
Later on he had a family organization.
He learned to make fire and still later how to make tools and hunt for food.
He invented pottery so that he could cook his food.
He began to live in tribes and was able to move to new places.
The next stage of man, which is called barbarism, saw him learn how to raise food from seeds and how to tame animals.
Then he began to smelt metals, such as copper and iron, so that he could make better weapons.
He also began to build houses.
When he invented a system of picture writing, it marked the end of barbarism and the beginning of civilization.
The invention of writing is considered the beginning of civilization because it enabled man to keep records of past happenings.
People could learn from the experience of others.
This happened about five or six thousand years ago.
By the time man reached this stage, he had developed in other ways too.
He had built up agriculture and industry to the point where people could live in villages and even in cities.
There was government, trade laws, and migrations of people.
The earliest civilizations that are known to us in history are those of the Egyptians and the Babylonians.
The Egyptians had a form of writing 4,500 years ago.
They had a system of government and an understanding of mathematics, which was used in the building of pyramids.
They had a calendar, employed architects, and knew how to use various machines.
How did cities begin?
We think of cities as being part of civilization.
Both the words city and civilization come from the same Latin word, civis,
meaning a person who shares in both the duties and privileges of the community in which he lives.
When many different kinds of people learn to work and play together, great cities grew.
The main differences between a city, a town, or a village is size.
In most cases, the city is the largest.
Nearly all cities were first villages.
No one knows just when or where the first city was started.
It could have started when a wandering tribe of hunters found a spot they liked well enough to stay in.
This happened as long ago as 6,000 BC, and probably even earlier.
By 3000 BC, men were already building and living in quite large cities.
At a very early time in history, men discovered that food was easier to get if they could capture and tame animals.
Then they did not need to hunt them through the forest every time they got hungry.
Men also learned that they could have more fruits and grains if the plants were cared for.
In this way, men started agriculture or farming and animal raising.
But people cannot farm and move around all the time.
They must stay in the same place long enough to harvest crops.
It's also difficult and slow to move a herd of animals across the country.
As tribes settled down and stayed at one spot, a village or city began.
There is nothing left of the very first villages since the buildings were made of skins, wood, or mud.
By the time men learned to build with long-lasting materials,
the community had developed from the simple agricultural village to a city.
When did people begin to make homes?
A home is simply a place to stay, and human beings like other creatures at first found shelter and safety where they could.
This sheltered place was called a home.
Later on, men began to improve their dwelling places in various ways.
We cannot know which kind of home came first, but two of the earliest ones were the tree house and the cave house.
The tree house was used in the warm regions.
Primitive man made it from branches which he could bend into a kind of framework which was tied or woven together.
It was then thatched, that is, covered with overlapping rows of bundles of grass.
But in a cold climate, a tree house would not do, so man used a cave with a fire built outside the entrance.
The caveman probably learned his first lesson in building a stone wall when he piled up loose rocks to make a doorway in front of his cave.
In different parts of the world, homes began to be built that suited the climate and activity of the people.
In Europe, the first four-cornered house, instead of a round dwelling, was made with posts at the corners.
Branches or young saplings were woven in and out between the stakes.
When were stoves first used?
Stoves were used as early as the 15th century, even though the fireplace was still the main source of heat in the house.
Stoves were more efficient than fireplaces because a stove sits inside a room and heats by convection as well as radiation.
Convection means air flowing around a room in a circular fashion due to the fact that air rises as it warms and drops when it cools off.
The earliest stoves were made of clay or brick with wrought iron or bronze doors.
As wrought iron became less expensive, the stoves themselves were made of wrought iron.
Metal conducts heat much better than clay or brick, so these iron stoves were a big improvement.
They conduct more of the heat from the fire to the air in the room.
The first metal stoves that did not need to be set in a fireplace were made in Holland and Scandinavia.
They were called six-plate stoves because they were made of six cast iron plates, which formed the six sides of the box.
The stoves had a door for putting in fuel and removing ashes.
They also had a hole that allowed air to enter for proper draft, and they had a hole at the top to which a chimney pipe could be attached.
The Pilgrims lived in Holland for several years before they sailed to America and were familiar with these stoves.
When American colonists in Massachusetts began making iron and iron products, this was the type of stove they made before 1650.
How did cooking begin?
The early caveman ate his food raw.
Even after fire was discovered, the only kind of cooking that took place was to throw the carcass of the animal on the burning embers.
It was only gradually that man learned to bake in pits with heated stones and to boil meats and vegetables by dropping red-hot stones into a vessel of water.
Primitive peoples used to roast animals whole on a spit over an open fire.
In time, people discovered how to bake fish, birds, or small animals in clay.
This sealed in juices and made the food tender.
When we come to the ancient Egyptians, we find that they had carried cooking to the point where public bakeries were turning out bread for the people.
Greek civilization advanced cooking to a stage of great luxury.
In ancient Athens, they even imported food from distant lands, and the Romans had magnificent banquets in their day.
Then, during the Middle Ages, the art of cooking declined, and the only place where fine cooking was found was in the monasteries.
When good cooking was revived again, Italy, Spain, and France led the way.
These countries prided themselves on having a more refined taste than England and Germany, where the people ate chiefly meat.
A curious thing about cooking is that primitive peoples knew almost every form of cooking that we practice now.
They just did it more crudely.
How did eating utensils originate?
The way man eats is considered one of the signs of his civilization, and since very earliest times, man has created various utensils to make his eating habits more civilized.
Some kind of spoon-like implement probably existed back in the Stone Age.
We know that thousands of years ago, spoons of wood, stone, and ivory were used by the Egyptians.
The fork was introduced to the table for eating purposes after the Christian era.
But as late as 300 years ago, knives and forks at the table were still curiosities.
In England, they were rare. In France, everyone ate with his fingers until the 17th century.
The knife developed from fragments of flint or other stone chipped to give it a cutting edge.
It was one of the first implements to be devised by man.
The use of the knife at the table also dates from about 300 years ago.
The earliest primitive men probably used naturally made dishes.
For example, a broad leaf was used as a plate, a gourd was used as a bowl, a half coconut was used as we use a cup.
When were bathtubs first used?
In ancient times, there were two reasons why people bathed in water, for cleanliness and for religious observance.
The ancient Greeks and Romans liked to take warm baths for relaxation and pleasure.
Bathing places became social centers, and bathing was also considered a way of treating diseases.
Among the ancient Egyptians, bathing was chiefly a religious rite.
The Hebrews also believed in bathing for religious reasons, as did the Hindus.
The earliest baths known to man are the palace baths at Knossos on Crete.
They are about 4,000 years old.
The palace had bathrooms with foot baths and tubs.
In fact, since a tub has to be shaped a certain way to be used by human beings,
the design of bathtubs has remained much the same throughout history.
The early Christian church did not preach that cleanliness had anything to do with religion.
There were even some Christians in early times who regarded being dirty as a way of atoning for sin.
This attitude began to change about the time of the Middle Ages.
After the Middle Ages, most Europeans used perfumes and cosmetics as a substitute for bathing.
There were very few private baths and homes.
Even the colonists who came to America frowned on bathing.
Benjamin Franklin, who took a bath regularly, was one of the pioneers of American bathing.
How did democracy originate?
The word democracy comes from the Greek language and means rule of the people.
As we use the word today, we usually mean a government where the people help to direct the work of the government.
Political democracy has appeared in two general forms.
A government in which all the people meet together to decide the policy and to elect the officials to carry it out is known as direct democracy.
When the people elect representatives to carry out their wishes, the government is known as a representative democracy.
Because direct democracy is not possible on a large scale with many people involved,
almost all forms of democracy practiced today are the representative kind.
Modern democracy owes a great deal to the Middle Ages.
One idea of the time was the contract theory.
It was believed that a contract existed between the rulers and their subjects, by which each was required to perform certain duties.
If the ruler failed to perform his duties, then the people had the right to take back the powers they had given him.
Modern representation also began in feudal times because of the need of kings.
The feudal monarchs called representative meetings in order to request grants of money.
They felt people wouldn't object to new taxes if their representatives agreed to them beforehand.
But this helped establish the idea of representation.
How did our laws originate?
The concept of justice, or law, comes into being as soon as any kind of social relationship is created.
The purpose of law is to set down and to make clear the social relationships among individuals and between the individual and society.
It tries to give each person as much liberty of action as fits in with the liberty of others.
Laws usually develop from the customs of a people.
The earliest known system of laws was formed around 1700 BC by Hammurabi, king of Babylon.
He set down a code, or complete list of laws, that defined personal and property rights, contracts, and so on.
Customs grew into laws because the force of government was put behind them.
Later, laws grew from decisions that were made by courts and from books in which lawyers wrote down what had been learned.
Still later, laws were set down in statute books, or codes, by kings and legislators.
The Romans were a great law-making people, and the law books of Emperor Justinian summed up 1,000 years of their working out laws.
During the Middle Ages, people's actions were largely governed by the church, which developed a body of laws called canon law.
In the 12th century, the Roman law began to be studied in Italy and gradually spread to the rest of Europe.
Thus, a body of laws based on the Roman law developed into what is called civil law, as contrasted with the canon law.
At the same time, the courts of England were making many decisions about law, and from these grew up a body of laws called the common law.
In 1804, Napoleon put into a book all the civil laws of his time.
This Napoleonic code is the foundation of the law on the continent of Europe and in Central and South America.
The common law system, which developed in England, is the basis of the law in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
How did trial by jury begin?
When the Normans conquered England in 1066, they started a kind of jury.
But the men on a jury were not there to listen as witnesses.
They were supposed to decide a case on the basis of their own knowledge of the facts.
It was not until the reign of Henry II in the 12th century that a big change was made.
It was decided that the jury must decide a case solely on the evidence heard in court.
And this, of course, is the whole basis of the trial by jury system we have today.
Twelve members of the trial jury listen to the evidence given by witnesses, to the arguments of the lawyers, and to the instructions of the judge.
Then they retire to a room to decide on their verdict.
There seems to be no special reason why the number of jurors is 12, simply that Henry II in 1166 so decided, and it has been that way ever since.
When were the first elections held?
The word election comes from the Latin root meaning to choose.
And the feeling people have had that they should have the right to choose their leaders goes back thousands of years.
The ancient Hebrews and Greeks fought for that right.
The early kings of Israel were chosen by the people, and so were the generals of the ancient Greek armies.
The habit of freely choosing their leaders was brought to Britain by the Anglo-Saxon conquerors some 1500 years ago.
Thus, the right to vote for local officials became a part of English thinking and was brought to America by the early colonists.
Even before the American Revolution, Americans had been voting in their own town meetings and in colonial assemblies.
Voting was usually limited to free white men with certain property and religious qualifications.
Today, we wouldn't consider that as being fair or democratic.
By 1860, practically all the states allowed all white men over 21 to vote.
But Negroes and women could still feel they were not being treated as equals.
After the Civil War, the Constitution was amended to give the vote to Negro men.
In 1920, the 19th Amendment gave the vote to women.
So even though elections have been held for thousands of years, the right to vote has only recently been won by many groups of people.
How did the United Nations get started?
The first work in planning the United Nations was done in the United States Department of State during World War II.
At the Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministries in 1943, Secretary of State Cordell Hull was able to get the Soviet Union,
the United Kingdom, and the Republic of China to agree to the establishment of an international organization for keeping international peace and security,
to be open to all peace-loving nations.
The United Nations Conference on International Organization met at San Francisco between April 25 and June 26, 1945, with 46 and later 50 nations taking part.
It was here that the Charter of the United Nations was drawn up.
The United Nations is not merely an organization for keeping the peace.
It has other jobs, such as bringing about cooperation on economic and social problems, furthering respect for human rights,
and helping territories to develop economically and politically.
How did income tax start?
The idea of taxing incomes is an old one.
The ancient Hebrews had to pay as taxes one-tenth of all crops and of the increase of flocks.
There were taxes on income in ancient Greece and in medieval Europe,
but it was the English income tax, first levied in 1799, that proved that this tax could be an important source of revenue for the government.
Today, the federal government of the United States gets more than 80 percent of its revenues from the income taxes on individuals and corporations.
How did some of the government agencies begin?
Police date back to the very earliest history of man.
The leader or ruler of a tribe or clan in primitive times depended upon his warriors to keep peace among the people and enforce rules of conduct.
The pharaohs of ancient Egypt did the same thing, used their soldiers as police.
About the time of the birth of Christ, Caesar Augustus formed a special police force for the city of Rome, and this lasted for about 350 years.
But the job of this police force was still to carry out the imperial orders.
Sometime between the years AD 700 and 800, a new idea arose regarding a police force.
Instead of carrying out the king's orders against the people, it was felt a police force should enforce the law and protect the people.
It was this idea which influenced the development of the police force in England and later in the United States.
In almost all countries of the world, the police force is a national organization and is part of the national government.
But the United States has the most decentralized or independent police system in the world.
There are town police, city police, county police, and state police.
When was the first fire department?
Long ago there was no regular fire department. If a house caught fire, everybody became a firefighter.
People formed bucket brigades to fight fires. They stood in line to make a human chain from the burning house to the river or well.
In 1666, London had a fire that burned down 13,000 buildings, including St. Paul's Cathedral.
The English then began to develop hand-operated pumps so firefighters could spray water through a hose.
Citizens began to join together in volunteer fire companies.
These volunteers promised to drop everything and rushed to fight fire whenever it broke out.
The first paid fire department was established in Boston in 1679.
There had been a series of big fires there in 1653 and 1676.
Boston ordered a hand-operated fire engine from England and it appointed 13 men to man it.
The first volunteer fire department in the United States was founded in 1736 in Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin.
It replaced the bucket brigades that had existed up to then.
In 1835, New York City established its first paid fire patrol. There were four members who were paid $250 a year.
The following year there were 40 members who were known as fire police.
The first fire house was organized in 1855 in New York City.
How did the postal system start?
In ancient times in Persia and Rome, the government did arrange for the sending of messages, but these were only concerned with government business.
During most of the Middle Ages, merchant guilds and associations and certain universities maintained a limited messenger service for the use of their members.
It was in the 16th century that governments began to have regular postal services.
They had three chief reasons for doing this.
One was to enable them to inspect suspicious correspondence.
The second was to produce revenue and the third was to provide a service for the public.
This last reason is practically the only purpose of the postal service today.
Henry VIII had a government postal service in England and this was enlarged by later rulers.
In 1609, no one was allowed to carry letters except messengers authorized by the government.
But in 1680, a London merchant started his own penny post for the city and suburbs and it became quite successful.
So the government took it over and continued the service until 1801.
The whole system was finally changed in 1840.
Stamps were introduced and rates made uniform for all distances within the country, varying only according to the weight of the piece of mail.
All other countries modeled their postal systems on that of Great Britain.
Tell me why.
A video encyclopedia series designed to answer the questions that kids ask most.
It's a unique tool, a well-thought out educational project created to take advantage of every child's fascination with video.
Tell me why turns that fascination into an invaluable learning experience, providing kids with the answers they want and need through a series of 26 information-packed volumes.
Tell me why. It's the perfect way to turn the family television set into a second classroom.
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Tell me why is an innovation in education with exciting cool footage from organizations such as NASA, the National Aquarium, and the National Hurricane Center,
as well as an easy style and colorful graphics.
Children will want to watch each volume again and again.
Quick search numbers have been provided in the lower right-hand corner so that you can fast forward to the section you want to view.
This video encyclopedia is modeled after the nationally syndicated newspaper column and the critically acclaimed book series of the same name created by Arkany Lyokan.
Inspired by questions asked by his own children, Lyokan has captivated a generation of children with explanations on a myriad of topics.
These volumes answer approximately 50 questions each.
Volume 1, space, earth, and atmosphere. How big is the universe?
How does a body fall through space? How are stars formed?
What are comets? What is the solar system?
Volume 2, water and weather. What makes the weather?
Why does it rain on certain days and not on others?
What is a storm? What makes water?
Volume 3, flowers, plants, and trees. How do flowers grow?
Who do one cell plants? Why do trees have rain?
What is botany? What is forestry?
Volume 4, gems, metals, and minerals. Where do soil and sand come from?
Why are there fossils? Why are there so many different kinds of rocks?
What is atomic weight?
Volume 5, insects. How is honey made?
What is a moth? Can butterflies smell?
How are flies born? What are grasshoppers?
Volume 6, America. Who are some of the people who helped develop the new land?
What is the Liberty Bell? Where is Mount Rushmore?
Who owns the Statue of Liberty? What are the armed forces?
Volume 7, life forms and animal oddities.
What are animals? What are vertebrates?
What are worms? What is a duck-billed platypus?
Volume 8, birds and rodents. What are penguins?
Why do birds migrate? What is a mouse?
What is a turtle?
Volume 9, mammals. What is a mammal?
What are whales? What are polar bears?
What is a rhinoceros?
Volume 10, animals and arachnids.
What is the origin of the dog?
How do wolves hunt?
What are tarantulas? What is a scorpion?
Volume 11, fish, shellfish and other underwater life.
What do sharks eat?
Why do salmon go upstream to spawn?
What is a lobster? What is an octopus?
Volume 12, prehistoric animals, reptiles and amphibians.
What are prehistoric animals? What is a reptile?
What are snakes? What is an amphibian?
These volumes plus many more to come
cover the subjects of interest of our children in our world.
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The complete Tell Me Why video encyclopedia is available on a subscription basis
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Tell Me Why. It's entertaining, educational, informative, repeatable and collectible.