In the African grasslands, a gazelle suffering from tuberculosis takes its last breath. The animal's corpse threatens to infect the water, but for the vulture, this isn't a problem: it's a feast. With a stomach of steel that can digest...

India has a historic opportunity to power its industrialization with clean energy -- and its energy choices will make or break the world's fight against climate change, says clean energy executive, physicist and author Varun Sivaram....

In which John Green teaches you about Imperialism, but not from the perspective of the colonizers. This week John looks at some Asian perspectives on Imperialism, specifically writers from countries that were colonized by European...

Nandan Nilekani, the visionary co-founder of outsourcing pioneer Infosys, explains four brands of ideas that will determine whether India can continue its recent breakneck progress.

Many of the bewildering correlations in our world - like that between Beryllium-7 and the Asian monsoon - are a result of huge and unseen forces that tie them together.

In which John Green teaches you about the post-World War II breakup of most of the European empires. As you'll remember from previous installments of Crash Course, Europeans spent several centuries sailing around the world creating...

In which John Green teaches you about nonviolence and peace movements in the 20th century. What is nonviolence? What is a peace movement? Well. traditionally, humans often resort to violence when they come into conflict. In the 20th...

Our diets are more global than we realize, because our common food crops and animals were domesticated far away in diverse locations.

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Why there will likely soon be more tigers in backyards in Texas than in the wilds of Asia.

With modern technology, a global exchange of goods and ideas can happen at the click of a button. But what about 2,000 years ago? Shannon Harris Castelo unfolds the history of the 5,000-mile Silk Road, a network of multiple routes that...

In rural India, the lack of toilets creates a big, stinking problem. It leads to poor quality water, one of the leading causes of disease in India, and has a disproportionately negative effect on women. Joe Madiath introduces a program...

An estimated 20 million cases of blindness worldwide are caused by cataracts, a curable condition affecting the lens that focuses images onto the eye's retina. But how are cataracts formed, and how can we prevent them? Andrew Bastawrous...

India and China have so many people today because they’re good for farming and big, but they’ve always been that way, so they’ve actually had a huge proportion of Earth’s people for thousands of years.

When bankers refused to serve her neighbors in rural India, Chetna Gala Sinha did the next best thing: she opened a bank of her own, the first ever for and by women in the country. In this inspiring talk, she shares stories of the women...

The tale of a major global cultural phenomenon: Cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle describes the spectacular arrival of fast-paced 20-20 cricket as it parallels the rise of modern India. He traces the game from its sleepy English roots to...

Hank scares our pants off with a tale of the five deadliest infectious diseases in the world.

Vaccines save millions of lives each year, so we owe a lot to the people that pioneered that medical breakthrough. But the concept of a vaccine had already existed for a long time before it was “discovered,” and the real story is way...

India has one of the world's highest rates of plastic recycling, thanks largely to an extensive network of informal recyclers known as "kabadiwalas." Entrepreneur Mani Vajipey discusses his work to organize their massive efforts into a...

With wisdom and wit, Anupam Mishra talks about the amazing feats of engineering built centuries ago by the people of India's Golden Desert to harvest water. These ancient aqueducts and stepwells are still used today -- and are often...

After World War II, Europe was changing radically, and its place in the world was changing as well. European powers had colonized around the world in the 18th and 19th centuries, and in the 20th century, it all came crashing down. Of...

Ever wonder what all those names on the periodic table actually mean? There's a whole lot of fascinating history on Mendeleev's table. Some carry names from antiquity, some are named for people, some are named for places, and some are...

In which John relates a condensed history of India, post-Indus Valley Civilization. John explores Hinduism and the origins of Buddhism. He also gets into the reign of Ashoka, the Buddhist emperor who, in spite of Buddhism's structural...

On November 26, 2020, trade unions in India reported that over 250 MILLION people took part in a strike. What could prompt such massive protest? Farming. Today, we’re going to take a closer look at GMOs, which are organisms whose DNA has...

You might have recognized the names of some of the Greek natural philosophers. They were individuals with quirky theories, and we have records about them. But they weren’t the only people making knowledge back in the day. Today, Hank...