TED Talks
Jean-Baptiste Michel: The mathematics of history
What can mathematics say about history? According to TED Fellow Jean-Baptiste Michel, quite a lot. From changes to language to the deadliness of wars, he shows how digitized history is just starting to reveal deep underlying patterns.
PBS
The Other Explosion You Should Know About
Fossils found around the world suggest that multi-cellular life was not only present before the Cambrian Explosion, it was much more elaborate and diverse than anyone thought. This is the story of the sudden burst of diversity that...
TED Talks
TED: How we look kilometers below the Antarctic ice sheet | Dustin Schroeder
Antarctica is a vast and dynamic place, but radar technologies -- from World War II-era film to state-of-the-art miniaturized sensors -- are enabling scientists to observe and understand changes beneath the continent's ice in...
TED Talks
TED: Meet the inventor of the electronic spreadsheet | Dan Bricklin
Dan Bricklin changed the world forever when he codeveloped VisiCalc, the first electronic spreadsheet and grandfather of programs you probably use every day like Microsoft excel and Google Sheets. Join the software engineer and computing...
TED Talks
TED: Where on Earth will people live in the future? | Parag Khanna
From the return of nomadic living to a climate-disrupted world, author and global strategist Parag Khanna has some predictions for humanity. Get a fascinating glimpse at the future as he tackles an urgent question: Where on Earth will...
TED Talks
TED: Iran and Israel: Peace is possible | Trita Parsi
Iran and Israel: two nations with tense relations that seem existentially at odds. But for all their antagonistic rhetoric, there is a recent hidden history of collaboration, even friendship. In an informative talk, Trita Parsi shows how...
TED Talks
Tara Houska: The Standing Rock resistance and our fight for indigenous rights
Still invisible and often an afterthought, indigenous peoples are uniting to protect the world's water, lands and history -- while trying to heal from genocide and ongoing inequality. Tribal attorney and Couchiching First Nation citizen...
TED Talks
Ellen 't Hoen: Pool medical patents, save lives
Patenting a new drug helps finance its immense cost to develop -- but that same patent can put advanced treatments out of reach for sick people in developing nations, at deadly cost. Ellen 't Hoen talks about an elegant, working solution...
Crash Course
Scientific Revolution: Crash Course European History
There was a lot of bad stuff going on in Europe in the 17th century. We've seen wars, plagues, and unrest of all types. But, there is some good news. Huge advances were underway in the scientific community in Europe at this time. In this...
TED Talks
TED: The mission to safeguard Black history in the US | Julieanna L. Richardson
Black history in the US is rich, profound -- and at risk of being lost forever, if not for the monumental efforts of Julieanna L. Richardson. As the founder of The HistoryMakers -- the largest national archive of African American...
SciShow
The Strange Blue Glow That Saved Lives
Back in 1862, soldiers fighting in the American Civil War noticed a strange blue glow on their wounds. It took a couple of High School students to figure out what it was.
TED-Ed
The woman who stared at the sun | Alex Gendler
In 1944, amateur astronomer Hisako Koyama's latest endeavor was sketching the sun's shifting surface. She spent weeks angling her telescope towards the sun and tracking every change she saw with drawings. Little did she know, these...
TED Talks
David J. Bier: How guest worker visas could transform the US immigration system
The United States can create a more humane immigration system; in fact, it's been done before, says policy analyst David J. Bier. Pointing to the historical success of the US guest worker program, which allows foreign workers to legally...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: History vs. Henry VIII - Mark Robinson and Alex Gendler
He was a powerful king whose break with the church of Rome would forever change the course of English history. But was he a charismatic reformer who freed his subjects from a corrupt establishment or a bullying tyrant who used Parliament...
Curated Video
Alexander the Great and the Situation ... the Great? Crash Course World History
In which you are introduced to the life and accomplishments of Alexander the Great, his empire, his horse Bucephalus, the empires that came after him, and the idea of Greatness. Is greatness a question of accomplishment, of impact, or...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: What is MSG, and is it actually bad for you? | Sarah E. Tracy
In 1968, Dr. Robert Ho Man Kwok felt ill after dinner at a Chinese restaurant and wrote a letter to a medical journal connecting his symptoms to MSG. His letter would change the world's relationship with MSG, inspiring international...
Crash Course
Free Will, Witches, Murder, and Macbeth, Part 1: Crash Course Literature 409
The Sound! The Fury! Today, we're talking about Shakespeare's Scottish play, Macbeth. So, was Macbeth really predestined to do all the murdering and bad kinging and other terrible stuff? That's the big question in Macbeth, and it's one...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: A brief history of Spanish | Ilan Stavans
Beginning in the third century BCE, the Romans conquered the Iberian peninsula. This period gave rise to several regional languages in the area that's now Spain, including Castilian, Catalan, and Galician. One of these would become...
Crash Course
Wait For It...The Mongols! Crash Course World History
In which John Green teaches you, at long last, about the most exceptional bunch of empire-building nomads in the history of the world, the Mongols! How did the Mongols go from being a relatively small band of herders who occasionally...
TED Talks
Tim Brown: Designers -- think big!
Tim Brown says the design profession has a bigger role to play than just creating nifty, fashionable little objects. He calls for a shift to local, collaborative, participatory "design thinking" -- starting with the example of...
TED-Ed
TED-ED: The myth of Arachne and Athena - Iseult Gillespie
From sailors who were turned into pigs, nymphs that sprouted into trees, and a gaze that converted the beholder to stone, Greek mythology brims with shape-shifters. The powerful Gods usually changed their own forms at will - but for...
Crash Course
Columbus, de Gama, and Zheng He! 15th Century Mariners. Crash Course World History
In which John Green teaches you about the beginning of the so-called Age of Discovery. You've probably heard of Christopher Columbus, who "discovered" America in 1492, but what about Vasco da Gama? How about Zheng He? Columbus gets a bad...
TED Talks
Ariana Curtis: Museums should honor the everyday, not just the extraordinary
Who deserves to be in a museum? For too long, the answer has been "the extraordinary" -- those aspirational historymakers who inspire us with their successes. But those stories are limiting, says museum curator Ariana Curtis. In a...
TED Talks
TED: Why we need to end the War on Drugs | Ethan Nadelmann
* Viewer discretion advised. This video includes discussion of mature topics and may be inappropriate for some audiences. Is the War on Drugs doing more harm than good? In a bold talk, drug policy reformist Ethan Nadelmann makes an...