Chapter 3: The Rise of the Global Empires
The Industrial Revolutions
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The Legacy of Pizarro's Conquest
In 1549 Diego Hualpa discovered a mountain of silver in the southern part of the Incan empire. The Spanish didn't know how to purify it, so they used llama dung and dry grass as fuel for smelting. In all, more than 150,000 tons of silver was extracted from Potosi from the 1500s to the 1700s. It's possible that over the years 8 million people there were worked to death.
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