Open Culture

The Genius Urban Design of Amsterdam: Canals, Dams & Leaning Houses It's common to hear it said that some particular city — usually one of the American metropolises that sprang into existence over the past couple of centuries — 'shouldn't exist.' And indeed, as urban ...

The Genius Urban Design of Amsterdam: Canals, Dams & Leaning Houses

Inside the Automats Where Coin-Operated Machines Created a Modern, Democratic Dining Experience Alfred Hitchcock to the television viewers of America on March 25, 1959. 'Tonight I'm dining at my favorite club. There are many advantages here. As you can see, informality is the rule. There is also...

Inside the Automats Where Coin-Operated Machines Created a Modern, Democratic Dining Experience

AI Figures Out the Rules of a Mysterious 2,000-Year-Old Board Game from Ancient Rome Image by Walter Crist As far as enthusiasm for board games goes, no continent has yet outdone Europe.

AI Figures Out the Rules of a Mysterious 2,000-Year-Old Board Game from Ancient Rome

A Brief History of Chess: An Animated Introduction to the 1,500-Year-Old Game Duchamp 'Over the roughly one and half millennia of its existence, chess has been known as a tool of military strategy, a metaphor for human affairs, and a benchmark of genius,” points out the TED-Ed ...

A Brief History of Chess: An Animated Introduction to the 1,500-Year-Old Game

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Bush 2003: “Facing clear evidence of peril, we can't wait for the final proof that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud”

Trump 2026: "Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime"

The Famous Letter Where Freud Breaks His Relationship with Jung (1913) Freud and Jung. Jung and Freud. History has closely associated these two who did so much examination of the mind in early 20th-century Europe, but the simple connection of their names belies a much mo...

The Famous Letter Where Freud Breaks His Relationship with Jung (1913)

The Piano Played with 16 Increasing Levels of Complexity: From Easy to Very Complex Remember the feeling of accomplishment as a child, picking out a simple tune after your first piano lesson? Then the day you begin to play with both hands? So grown up. Eventually you start using mo...

The Piano Played with 16 Increasing Levels of Complexity: From Easy to Very Complex

Salvador Dalí Goes to Hollywood & Creates a Wild Dream Sequence for Alfred Hitchcock Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel reportedly carried rocks in their pockets during the premiere of their first film Un Chien Andalou, anticipating a violent reaction from the audience. It was a fair conc...

Salvador Dalí Goes to Hollywood & Creates a Wild Dream Sequence for Alfred Hitchcock

Like when Nero fiddled as Rome burned.

So how is the Epstein War going?

David Lynch’s Eraserhead Remade in Clay David Lynch spent five years working on his surrealist film Eraserhead, and when it finally hit cinemas in 1977, critics panned the film. (Variety called it a 'sickening bad-taste exercise.') Then, ad...

David Lynch’s Eraserhead Remade in Clay

A Brief History of Chess: An Animated Introduction to the 1,500-Year-Old Game Duchamp 'Over the roughly one and half millennia of its existence, chess has been known as a tool of military strategy, a metaphor for human affairs, and a benchmark of genius,” points out the TED-Ed ...

A Brief History of Chess: An Animated Introduction to the 1,500-Year-Old Game

Cats Migrated to Europe 7,000 Years Earlier Than Once Thought The animals were imperfect, long-tailed, unfortunate in their heads. Little by little they put themselves together, making themselves a landscape, acquiring spots, grace, flight.

Cats Migrated to Europe 7,000 Years Earlier Than Once Thought

How the Brilliant Colors of Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts Were Made with Alchemy Today the word 'alchemy' seems used primarily to label a variety of crackpot pursuits, with their bogus premises and impossible promises.

How the Brilliant Colors of Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts Were Made with Alchemy

Sun Tzu’s The Art of War: An Animated Chapter-by-Chapter Breakdown of the Ancient Chinese Treatise Though not a long book, The Art of War is nevertheless an intimidating one. Composed in the China of the fifth century BC, it comes down to us as perhaps the definitive analysis of military strategy, ...

Sun Tzu’s The Art of War: An Animated Chapter-by-Chapter Breakdown of the Ancient Chinese Treatise

The Cameraman’s Revenge (1912): The Truly Weird Origin of Modern Stop-Motion Animation These days, ever more ambitions computer-animated spectacles seem to arrive in theaters every few weeks. But how many of them capture our imaginations as fully as works of the thoroughly analog art of...

The Cameraman’s Revenge (1912): The Truly Weird Origin of Modern Stop-Motion Animation

Isaac Asimov Laments the “Cult of Ignorance” in the United States (1980) In 1980, scientist and writer Isaac Asimov argued in an essay that there is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been.

Isaac Asimov Laments the “Cult of Ignorance” in the United States (1980)

Monet’s Water Lilies: How World War I Inspired Monet to Paint His Final Masterpieces & Create “the World’s First Art Installation” When one considers which artists most powerfully evoke the horrors of trench warfare, Claude Monet is hardly the first name to come to mind.

Monet’s Water Lilies: How World War I Inspired Monet to Paint His Final Masterpieces & Create “the World’s First Art Installation”

An Introduction to the Literary Philosophy of Marcel Proust, Presented in a Monty Python-Style Animation Those who know the name Marcel Proust, if not his work itself, know it as that of the most solitary and introspective of writers—a name become an adjective, describing an almost painfully delicate var...

An Introduction to the Literary Philosophy of Marcel Proust, Presented in a Monty Python-Style Animation

Cats Migrated to Europe 7,000 Years Earlier Than Once Thought The animals were imperfect, long-tailed, unfortunate in their heads. Little by little they put themselves together, making themselves a landscape, acquiring spots, grace, flight.

Cats Migrated to Europe 7,000 Years Earlier Than Once Thought

Roman Statues Weren’t White; They Were Once Painted in Vivid, Bright Colors The idea of the classical period—the time of ancient Greece and Rome—as an elegantly unified collection of superior aesthetic and philosophical cultural traits has its own history, one that comes in l...

Roman Statues Weren’t White; They Were Once Painted in Vivid, Bright Colors

The Origins of Anime: Watch Early Japanese Animations (1917 to 1931) Japanese animation, AKA anime, might be filled with large-eyed maidens, way cool robots, and large-eyed, way cool maiden/robot hybrids, but it often shows a level of daring, complexity and creativity ...

The Origins of Anime: Watch Early Japanese Animations (1917 to 1931)

Isaac Asimov Laments the “Cult of Ignorance” in the United States (1980) In 1980, scientist and writer Isaac Asimov argued in an essay that there is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been.

Isaac Asimov Laments the “Cult of Ignorance” in the United States (1980)

What the Great Pyramids of Giza Originally Looked Like Ask anyone who's traveled to the Great Pyramids of Giza: no matter how many times you've seen them in photographs or on television, you're never really prepared to come face-to-face with them in real ...

What the Great Pyramids of Giza Originally Looked Like

How People Imagined in 1948 What Cars Would Look Like in the Future With a few exceptions, car design of the last two decades has been stuck in a rut, with a sameness on the outside—-aerodynamic, sleek, rounded—-hiding the advancements under the hood and in the contro...

How People Imagined in 1948 What Cars Would Look Like in the Future

All the Rivers & Streams in the U.S. Shown in Rainbow Colors: A Data Visualization to Behold This is a sight for sore eyes.

All the Rivers & Streams in the U.S. Shown in Rainbow Colors: A Data Visualization to Behold

Roman Statues Weren’t White; They Were Once Painted in Vivid, Bright Colors The idea of the classical period—the time of ancient Greece and Rome—as an elegantly unified collection of superior aesthetic and philosophical cultural traits has its own history, one that comes in l...

Roman Statues Weren’t White; They Were Once Painted in Vivid, Bright Colors

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

DOJ to release more than 47,000 additional Jeffrey Epstein files by end of week The Justice Department has said it will release nearly 50,000 documents related to the case of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein by the end of this week.

Cuba is screwed