How One Family Built a British Banking Empire: Rothschild

0:00 The flag that stopped the gold price 0:41 Frankfurt's Judengasse and the family network 5:40 Moving gold through Napoleon's war 9:21 Slavery, debt and Lionel's political battle 14:00 Palaces, philanthropy and the Royal Mint Refinery 19:05 How the gold-fixing room worked 24:04 War, succession and the family's fractures 30:59 The last fixing and what remains A tiny Union Jack once had the power to stop the world's gold price—and its story reveals how the Rothschild family built, ruled and ultimately dismantled a financial empire. I trace the family from Frankfurt's Judengasse and Nathan Rothschild's beginnings in the cloth trade to the movement of military gold, the Suez Canal deal and the family's political battles. I also examine the Waterloo pigeon myth, the loan that financed compensation for slave owners, and the darker records linking the family to slavery. I follow the rise and decline of the Rothschild estates, the Royal Mint Refinery, social housing in Spitalfields and the New Court gold-fixing room. Finally, I ask why the family abandoned commodities in 2004—and what remains behind the glass today.