Curated Video
The Botched Invasion: Bay of Pigs
One of the Cold War’s only violent actions, the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 proved to be a humiliating defeat for the U.S. government.
Curated Video
Teddy Roosevelt's Square Deal
In the early 1900s, President Theodore Roosevelt's progressive legislation, dubbed the Square Deal, aimed to limit the power of corporations, protect consumers, and conserve natural resources. The Square Deal drastically changed the...
Curated Video
Tammany Hall: Controlling New York Politics
It is the historic New York building that is synonymous with greed, crime and corruption, but what is the true story behind Tammany Hall?
Curated Video
Hoovervilles: Shantytowns of the Great Depression
As the Great Depression worsened in the 1930s, thousands of Americans lost their jobs and eventually their homes. Shantytowns dubbed “Hoovervilles” named after unsympathetic President Herbert Hoover, spread across the U.S.
Curated Video
Forced Removal to Mexico: Repatriation Drives
During the Great Depression, the U.S. government detained and deported almost 2 million Mexican American citizens and people of Mexican descent, in an initiative known as the Repatriation Drives.
Curated Video
Amanda Gorman
The youngest inaugural poet in history, Amanda Gorman introduced a new generation to the lyrical power of poetry and became a modern-day icon in the process.
Curated Video
Afong Moy
Afong Moy is believed to be the first Chinese woman to step foot on U.S. soil and her presence sparked an American fascination with Chinese culture, but her experience in the United States was far from welcoming.
Curated Video
Richard Wright
At a time when Jim Crow laws made racial segregation legal across much of the United States, author Richard Wright gave voice to a struggle – as the first African American author to achieve widespread critical and commercial success.
Curated Video
Chess as Social Empowerment: The Identity Maker
Tunde Onakoya, National Master and Founder at Chess in Slums Africa, talks about how his organisation uses the game of chess to foster the social and intellectual development of children in Africa and how it can give children an...
The Guardian
From dealing drugs to delivering food: Pastor Mick on Burnley's Covid crisis
Pastor Mick Fleming has devoted all of his time in this lockdown to supporting the poorest communities in Burnley. But his life hasn’t always been this way. He tells us how he swapped a life of crime for delivering food parcels seven...
Mr. Beat
The American Urban/Rural Political Divide
Mr. Beat explains why rural voters tend to lean more to the right politically and why urban voters tend to lean more to the left politically.
The Guardian
The Harsh Realities of Hidden Poverty
From struggling to afford a funeral or a wedding to being embarassed to have people to your flat, the hidden costs of poverty are social and emotional as well as financial. A group of women in Leeds is working together to combat that...
The Guardian
Dealing with the Shame of Unpaid Bills
Christine's only form of income is a government pension. The British pension is one of the worst in the industrialized world, leaving her struggling to pay the electricity bill most months. In the same town, a few women have developed a...
The Guardian
Feeding the Community with More Than Food
After noticing an increase in the number of people unable to afford food in their community, a group of women in Leeds began providing free meals for people out of a local church. In this video, one of the women explains some of the...
The Guardian
Made Homeless by a Stranger
A group of women use everyday items to tell of the sacrifices and difficult choices they face. Amina is a young woman living in temporary housing after she was illegally evicted from her home by a private landlord. Sarah lost her job...
Curated Video
Pauli Murray: Breaking Barriers of Race and Gender
As a queer Black lawyer, poet and civil rights activist, Pauli Murray understood how our different identities can overlap to create multiple levels of discrimination. Her groundbreaking work in championing equality for all helped change...
Curated Video
Mary McLeod Bethune: Fighting for Equality in the Classroom and Beyond
Mary McLeod Bethune, an influential educator activist, recognized that going to school could be a form of activism. Her groundbreaking work helped change America for the better.
Brainwaves Video Anthology
Elizabeth Hinton - From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America
Elizabeth Hinton is Associate Professor in the Department of History and the Department of African American Studies, with a secondary appointment as Professor of Law at Yale Law School. Hinton’s research focuses on the persistence of...
Schooling Online
Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own - Theme of Sexism and Female Oppression
It’s easy to forget that the rights and privileges women enjoy today had to be won. It’s been a tough, centuries-long fight against staunch opposition, especially for female writers. Woolf would know! Join us for a detailed analysis of...
Schooling Online
Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own - Chapters 3-4 Summary
Join us for a tour through literary history. In this lesson, Woolf explores the reasons why women have a less robust literary tradition. As the narrator peruses her bookshelves, we meet the heroes of women’s literature… and a few ghosts...
Vlogbrothers
Why Big Solutions Fail
In which Hank discusses loanword adaptation for two minutes in order to distract himself from the crushing reality of all of what he must do. One thing that I did not say in this video...that's just for you dear dedicated dooblydoo...
Vlogbrothers
The Largest Theft of All Time
I thought this video was going to be a fun top ten list, then I realized that most of the theft in America is the rich robbing the poor. Literally! Not even in a roudabout way...literally not paying them for more than twenty billion...
Vlogbrothers
Headless Monarchy: The French Revolution, Part II
In which John Green continues his introduction to the history of the French Revolution, discussing Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette's flight to Varennes, the constituent assembly's attempts to write a constitution of France, France's brief...
Vlogbrothers
Bill Gates and John Green Discuss Global Health
A special bonus video in which John Green and Microsoft founder Bill Gates talk about how Ethiopia has reduced its infant mortality dramatically in the past twenty years.