Paul and Joanne gave a lecture in the National Science Foundation funded series hosted by the Evolutionary Studies program at SUNY New Paltz on April 11, 2011. This talk is a broad introduction to the power of our fundamental theory to explain human origins, properties and history. We review the fundamental theory and its accounts of the fossil record of human emergence, the origin of the uniquely powerful human mind, and the diverse transitions of the historical record, including the behaviorally modern human revolution, the agricultural revolutions and the rise of the modern state.