The Protestant Reformation didn't exactly begin with Martin Luther, and it didn't end with him either. Reformers and monarchs changed the ways that religious and state power were organized throughout the 16th and early 17th centuries....

The post-World War II decades in Europe are sometimes called the Thirty Glorious Years. As those years wore on, tensions between East and West grew, and economic growth slowed or was unevenly distributed across Europe, protests and...

We've been talking a lot about kings, and queens, and wars, and religious upheaval for most of this series, but let's take a moment to zoom out, and look at the ways that individuals' lives were changing in the time span we've covered so...

The recent charges against Telegram founder Pavel Durov by France, followed by similar actions from South Korea, highlight the growing tension between governments and global tech platforms. These cases underscore the challenges in...

TED’s Whitney Pennington Rodgers sits down with Eli Pariser examine the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov in France. The arrest sparked debates on free speech, tech regulation, and government oversight in digital platforms. The...

Wigs date at least as far back as ancient Egypt, where well-regarded hairdressers crafted them into intricate styles. And under certain ancient Roman dynasties, women’s wigs became particularly ornate. Yet it wasn’t until Louis XIII...

In which John Green teaches you about World War I and how it got started. Crash Course doesn't usually talk much about dates, but the way that things unfolded in July and August of 1914 are kind of important to understanding the Great...

At the end of World War II, the nations of Europe were a shambles. Today we'll learn about how the various countries and blocs approached the problem of rebuilding their infrastructure and helping their residents recover. You'll learn...

Do our modern horses descend from just one domesticated population, or did it happen many times, in many places? Answering these questions has been tricky, as we’ve needed to bring together evidence from art, archaeology, and ancient...

Megaloceros was one of the largest members of the deer family ever to walk the Earth. The archaeological record is full of evidence that our ancestors lived alongside and interacted with these giant mammals for millennia. But what...

During the 14th and 15th centuries, mercenaries known as condottieri dominated Italian warfare, profiting from— and encouraging— the region's intense political rivalries. As rulers competed for power and prestige, their disputes often...

The strange, sooty fungus growing on distillery walls has long been considered part of the process of making barrel-aged boozy beverages. And this fungus has a lot of tricks up its sleeve to make the most out of ethanol, which to most...

She was the Queen of France, notorious for living in opulence while peasants starved and became a symbol of everything wrong with monarchy. But was Marie Antionette a heartless, wasteful queen, or a convenient scapegoat in turbulent...

For almost two millennia, the Pope has been a figure of supreme spiritual authority for Catholics around the world. But in the late 14th century, Catholics found themselves with not one, not two, but three popes. Where did this plethora...

Prepare to be horrified, and to look into the face of inhumanity with the Grand Guignol. Mike Rugnetta teaches you about one of theater history's most horrible chapters. The Grand Guignol was a French theater based in Paris from the late...

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, theater was evolving rapidly in Europe. Impresarios like Georg II, Duke of the Duchy of Saxe Meinengen (in what is now Germany), were pushing theater troupes to new heights of realism. New...

Watch. Dime. Develop. Powder. Pantry. Dirt. That's right, it's time for a dip into the random, because we're talking about the Dada theater that grew out of Symbolism, and the Surrealist theater that followed Dada. You'll learn about...

I don't mean it mean, but today we're going to be cruel. It's the fun-loving Theater of Cruelty, which was pioneered by the genius Antonin Artaud in France during the inter-war period in twentieth century. The Theater of Cruelty was...

We've been talking a lot about kings, and queens, and wars, and religious upheaval for most of this series, but let's take a moment to zoom out, and look at the ways that individuals' lives were changing in the time span we've covered so...

The post-World War II decades in Europe are sometimes called the Thirty Glorious Years. As those years wore on, tensions between East and West grew, and economic growth slowed or was unevenly distributed across Europe, protests and...

Everyone knows, you need a bunch of rules to make good theater. That's what the French thought in the 17th century, anyway. The French Neoclassical revival had a BUNCH of French playwrights following a bunch of rules. Unsurprisingly,...

In which John Green teaches you about the war that was supposed to end all wars. Instead, it solved nothing and set the stage for the world to be back at war just a couple of decades later. As an added bonus, World War I changed the way...

The Protestant Reformation didn't exactly begin with Martin Luther, and it didn't end with him either. Reformers and monarchs changed the ways that religious and state power were organized throughout the 16th and early 17th centuries....

We've spent a lot of time focusing on France and the U.S. as that's where a significant amount of both infrastructure and business models were initially set up for film. But there were other countries adding their own stories to the...