Open Culture

Hayao Miyazaki’s Masterpieces Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke Imagined as 8‑Bit Video Games As an unapologetic member of the 'Millennial' generation, allow me to tell you how to win over a great many of us at a stroke: just appeal to our long-instilled affinity for Japanese animation and cla...

Hayao Miyazaki’s Masterpieces Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke Imagined as 8‑Bit Video Games

Bertrand Russell’s Advice For How (Not) to Grow Old: “Make Your Interests Gradually Wider and More Impersonal” Image by National Portrait Gallery, via Wikimedia Commons Advice on how to grow old frequently comes from such banal or bloodless sources that we can be forgiven for ignoring it. Public health officia...

Bertrand Russell’s Advice For How (Not) to Grow Old: “Make Your Interests Gradually Wider and More Impersonal”

Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: From the Walls of Babylon to the Sewers of Rome You may not be able to name all, or even most, of the seven wonders of the ancient world. But you almost certainly know that there were seven of them. In a way, that aligns well enough with the worldv...

Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: From the Walls of Babylon to the Sewers of Rome

The First Robot Movie: Watch a Newly Discovered Georges Méliès Film from 1897 Shell, The Iron Giant, WALL-E, Ex Machina: there is a parallel history of cinema to be told entirely through its robots. That such a history must begin with the work of Georges Méliès may not come as ...

The First Robot Movie: Watch a Newly Discovered Georges Méliès Film from 1897

A 900-Page Pre-Pantone Guide to Color from 1692: A Complete High-Resolution Digital Scan There’s ahead of its time, then there’s Traité des couleurs servant à la peinture à l’eau -- or, in its original Dutch title, Klaer Lightende Spiegel der Verfkonst, a 900-page book of paint colors mad...

A 900-Page Pre-Pantone Guide to Color from 1692: A Complete High-Resolution Digital Scan

Download 60,000 Works of Art from the National Gallery, Including Masterpieces by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Rembrandt & More As a young amateur painter and future art school dropout, I frequently found myself haunted by the faces of two artists, that famously odd couple from my favorite art history novelization—and Kirk Dou...

Download 60,000 Works of Art from the National Gallery, Including Masterpieces by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Rembrandt & More

Bed Peace Revisits John Lennon & Yoko Ono’s Famous Anti-Vietnam Protests: Watch the Documentary Online Briefly noted: Yoko Ono has posted on YouTube a 70 minute documentary that revisits John and Yoko's famous 1969 Bed-Ins, which amounted to a peaceful protest against the Vietnam War. The film has been...

Bed Peace Revisits John Lennon & Yoko Ono’s Famous Anti-Vietnam Protests: Watch the Documentary Online

The Most Distant Places Visited by the Romans: Africa, Scandinavia, China, India, Arabia & Other Far-Flung Lands As we still say today, all roads lead to Rome. Or at least they did at the height of its power, which historians tend to place in the second century.

The Most Distant Places Visited by the Romans: Africa, Scandinavia, China, India, Arabia & Other Far-Flung Lands

Why Do We Dream?: An Animated Lesson Why do we dream? It’s a question science still can’t answer, says the TED-Ed lesson above by Amy Adkins.

Why Do We Dream?: An Animated Lesson

Is “Rain” the Perfect Beatles Song?: A New Video Explores the Radical Innovations of the 1966 B‑Side God… of Ja actually—the god of marijuana, right? So Ja gave me that one.” The Beatles 1966 Revolver, a mini-masterpiece, contains all the elements that would inform the band’s revolutionary late-60s s...

Is “Rain” the Perfect Beatles Song?: A New Video Explores the Radical Innovations of the 1966 B‑Side

The First Robot Movie: Watch a Newly Discovered Georges Méliès Film from 1897 Shell, The Iron Giant, WALL-E, Ex Machina: there is a parallel history of cinema to be told entirely through its robots. That such a history must begin with the work of Georges Méliès may not come as ...

The First Robot Movie: Watch a Newly Discovered Georges Méliès Film from 1897

Download 60,000 Works of Art from the National Gallery, Including Masterpieces by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Rembrandt & More As a young amateur painter and future art school dropout, I frequently found myself haunted by the faces of two artists, that famously odd couple from my favorite art history novelization—and Kirk Dou...

Download 60,000 Works of Art from the National Gallery, Including Masterpieces by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Rembrandt & More

The Adventures of Prince Achmed, the Oldest Surviving Animated Feature Film, Is Now in the Public Domain (1926) Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed, or The Adventures of Prince Achmed, lays fair claim to being the earliest animated feature film in existence. If we do grant it that title, it beats the next contende...

The Adventures of Prince Achmed, the Oldest Surviving Animated Feature Film, Is Now in the Public Domain (1926)

Rome in 1890 Captured in Color Photographs: The Colosseum, Forum, Trevi Fountain & More For almost two hundred years, English gentlemen could not consider their education complete until they had taken the “Grand Tour” of Europe, usually culminating in Naples, “ragamuffin capital of the I...

Rome in 1890 Captured in Color Photographs: The Colosseum, Forum, Trevi Fountain & More

Ai Weiwei Creates Hand-Silkscreened Scarves Drawing on a Chinese Paper Cutting Tradition FYI: Ai Weiwei has created handwoven and hand-silkscreened scarves that aesthetically draw on a 2,000-year-old Chinese paper cutting tradition. 'The colored, intricately cut papers are used as a story...

Ai Weiwei Creates Hand-Silkscreened Scarves Drawing on a Chinese Paper Cutting Tradition

An Animated History of Cats: How Over 10,000 Years the Cat Went from Wild Predator to Sofa Sidekick Dogs sees us as their masters while cats sees us as their slaves. - Anonymous The next time your friend’s pet cat sinks its fangs into your wrist, bear in mind that the beast is probably still laborin...

An Animated History of Cats: How Over 10,000 Years the Cat Went from Wild Predator to Sofa Sidekick

When Salvador Dali Met Sigmund Freud, and Changed Freud’s Mind About Surrealism (1938) The close associations between Surrealism and Freudian psychoanalysis were liberally encouraged by the most famous proponent of the movement, Salvador Dalí, who considered himself a devoted follower o...

When Salvador Dali Met Sigmund Freud, and Changed Freud’s Mind About Surrealism (1938)

The Adventures of Prince Achmed, the Oldest Surviving Animated Feature Film, Is Now in the Public Domain (1926) Die Abenteuer des Prinzen Achmed, or The Adventures of Prince Achmed, lays fair claim to being the earliest animated feature film in existence. If we do grant it that title, it beats the next contende...

The Adventures of Prince Achmed, the Oldest Surviving Animated Feature Film, Is Now in the Public Domain (1926)

Rome in 1890 Captured in Color Photographs: The Colosseum, Forum, Trevi Fountain & More For almost two hundred years, English gentlemen could not consider their education complete until they had taken the “Grand Tour” of Europe, usually culminating in Naples, “ragamuffin capital of the I...

Rome in 1890 Captured in Color Photographs: The Colosseum, Forum, Trevi Fountain & More

The Greatest Double Agent Ever: How a Spanish Chicken Farmer Became the Most Important Double Agent in WWII Juan Pujol García was one of the rare individuals whose participation in World War II made him a Member of the Order of the British Empire and earned him the Iron Cross. He gained that unlikely distin...

The Greatest Double Agent Ever: How a Spanish Chicken Farmer Became the Most Important Double Agent in WWII

Behold the First Realistic Depiction of the Human Face (Circa 25,000 BCE) In 1894, archaeologist Édouard Piette discovered the 'Venus of Brassempouy,' otherwise known as the “Lady with the Hood.” Unearthed in southwestern France and dating to around 25,000 BCE, this carving...

Behold the First Realistic Depiction of the Human Face (Circa 25,000 BCE)

Can Modern-Day Italians Understand Latin? A YouTuber Puts It to the Test on the Streets of Rome Of all the Romance languages, none is more Romantic than Italian, at least in the sense that it has changed the least in its long descent from Latin to its current form.

Can Modern-Day Italians Understand Latin? A YouTuber Puts It to the Test on the Streets of Rome

The Photo That Triggered China’s Disastrous Cultural Revolution (1966) In 1958, Mao Zedong launched the Great Leap Forward. Eight years later, he announced the beginning of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. Between those two events, of course, came the Great Chi...

The Photo That Triggered China’s Disastrous Cultural Revolution (1966)

Mythology Expert Reviews Depictions of Greek & Roman Myths in Popular Movies and TV Shows It's safe to say that we no longer believe in the gods of the ancient world — or rather, that most of us no longer believe in their literal existence, but some of us have faith in their box-office pot...

Mythology Expert Reviews Depictions of Greek & Roman Myths in Popular Movies and TV Shows

How Japanese Masters Turn Sand Into Swords: The Art of Traditional Sword Making from Start to Finish We made sand think: this phrase is used from time to time to evoke the particular technological wonders of our age, especially since artificial intelligence seems to be back on the slate of possibilit...

How Japanese Masters Turn Sand Into Swords: The Art of Traditional Sword Making from Start to Finish

Cab Calloway’s “Hepster Dictionary,” a 1939 Glossary of the Lingo (the “Jive”) of the Harlem Renaissance The lists are in. By overwhelming consensus, the buzzword of 2014 was “vape.” Apparently, that’s the verb that enables you to smoke an e-cig. Left to its own devices, my computer will still autocorrec...

Cab Calloway’s “Hepster Dictionary,” a 1939 Glossary of the Lingo (the “Jive”) of the Harlem Renaissance

The Greatest Double Agent Ever: How a Spanish Chicken Farmer Became the Most Important Double Agent in WWII Juan Pujol García was one of the rare individuals whose participation in World War II made him a Member of the Order of the British Empire and earned him the Iron Cross. He gained that unlikely distin...

The Greatest Double Agent Ever: How a Spanish Chicken Farmer Became the Most Important Double Agent in WWII

Behold the First Realistic Depiction of the Human Face (Circa 25,000 BCE) In 1894, archaeologist Édouard Piette discovered the 'Venus of Brassempouy,' otherwise known as the “Lady with the Hood.” Unearthed in southwestern France and dating to around 25,000 BCE, this carving...

Behold the First Realistic Depiction of the Human Face (Circa 25,000 BCE)

How Medieval Islamic Engineering Brought Water to the Alhambra Between 711 and 1492, much of the Iberian Peninsula, including modern-day Spain, was under Muslim rule.

How Medieval Islamic Engineering Brought Water to the Alhambra

A 13th-Century Cookbook Featuring 475 Recipes from Moorish Spain Gets Published in a New Translated Edition Some of the distinctiveness of Spain as we know it today comes as a legacy of the period from 700 to 1200, when most of it was under Muslim rule. The culture of Al-Andalus, as the Islamic states of mo...

A 13th-Century Cookbook Featuring 475 Recipes from Moorish Spain Gets Published in a New Translated Edition