World history (very) quickly summarized in dazzling short videos

These two little videos are amazing, each covering centuries of time with dazzling, rapid-fire graphics.  While watching them takes a few minutes each, I promise those will be highly entertaining and informative minutes.  First, for the optimistic view, I offer "Swedish academic superstar" Hans Rosling, illustrating nothing less than the story of global development over the last 200 years.  Enjoy:

Thanks to my colleague Tom Cochran for sharing that one.

The second presents a more pessimistic view, and comes by way of one of my favorite writers, Jonathan Hiskes on Grist.  It presents 300 years of fossil-fuel history: 

Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and the environment.  For more posts, see his blog's home page.