TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How did Apartheid happen, and how did it finally end? | Thula Simpson
For 46 years, South Africans lived under Apartheid, a strict policy of segregation that barred the country’s Black majority from skilled, high-paying jobs, quality education, voting, and much more. So, how did these laws come to be? And...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Should you be suing your government? | Shannon Odell
Since 2015, an unprecedented movement has been sweeping courts around the world. Groups of young plaintiffs are suing their governments for their inaction on tackling climate change. These suits argue that climate inaction violates their...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: A tour of the ancient Greek Underworld | Iseult Gillespie
Achilles, just slain in the Trojan War, arrives in the Underworld and is greeted by Sibyl of Cumae— a prophetess and also the realm’s local guide. Though it gets a bad rap, Sibyl is determined to prove to the newcomer that hell is...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Surviving the coldest place on Earth | Nadia Frontier
The vast, white surface of Antarctica stretches for over 3 million square kilometers. On the coast of this expanse, just a few meters beneath the ice, lies a remarkably diverse realm that is home to over 8,000 species of sea denizens who...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The largest river on Earth is actually in the sky | Iseult Gillespie
The largest rainforest in the world, the Amazon, exists between two rivers — but not in the way you might think. At ground level, the Amazon River and its tributaries weave their path. But above the canopy, bigger waterways are on the...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The diseases that changed humanity forever | Dan Kwartler
Since humanity’s earliest days, we’ve been plagued by countless disease-causing pathogens. Invisible and persistent, these microorganisms and the illnesses they incur have killed more humans than anything else in history. But which...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why did the US try to kill all the bison? | Andrew C. Isenberg
By the mid-1700s, many Plains nations survived on North America’s largest land mammals: bison. They ate its meat, made the hides into winter coats and blankets, and used the bones and horns for tools. But in the following decades,...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: What really killed the dinosaurs? (It wasn’t just the asteroid) | Sean P. S. Gulick
Sixty-six million years ago, near what’s now the Yucatán Peninsula, a juvenile sauropod feasted on horsetail plants on a riverbank. Earth was a tropical planet. Behemoth and tiny dinosaurs alike soared its skies and roamed its lands...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Can you solve the secret assassin society riddle? | Alex Rosenthal
Your agent has infiltrated a life or death poker game in a hidden back room of a grand casino. Your team is on the trail of an elite society of assassins, each of whom carries a signature playing card corresponding to their role—...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Sherlock Holmes and the case of the Red-Headed League | Alex Rosenthal
One day in the fall, you called upon your friend, Sherlock Holmes, and found him in conversation with Jabez Wilson. Wilson had been working for the mysterious League of Red-Headed Men. Today, he arrived at work to find the group had...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: What really caused the Irish Potato Famine | Stephanie Honchell Smith
For over 200 years, potatoes thrived in Ireland; roughly half the country’s residents lived almost entirely on potatoes. But when harvesting began in 1845, farmers found their potatoes blackened and shriveled. While this failed harvest...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The conspiracy to take down the Inca empire | Gabriel Prieto
It's daybreak in the city of Chan Chan, and former soldier Maxo has been up all night fretting. Last night, a friend stopped by and instructed him to go to the plaza at noon to receive an important message. But with the recent defeat of...
SciShow Kids
How Do Lakes Form? | Goodbye, Mister Brown! | SciShow Kids
Mister Brown is moving away to Wisconsin, so Jessi, Squeaks and all of his Fort friends are here to say goodbye. But before he goes, Mister Brown want to teach everyone about the place he's moving to and all the amazing glacial lakes...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The one thing stopping jellyfish from taking over | Mariela Pajuelo and Javier Antonio Quinones
Over the past two decades, jellyfish have begun to overwhelm our oceans. If things stay on their current trajectory, we could be headed for a future where the entire ocean is thick with jellyfish. So, is there anything that can keep...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: A 5,300-year-old murder mystery | Albert Zink
In September 1991, two hikers discovered a corpse emerging from the ice. Researchers soon realized they were looking at the mummified body of a man who'd lived about 5,300 years ago, and theorized he got caught in bad weather and froze....
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: How dangerous was it to be a jester? | Beatrice K. Otto
Contrary to common belief, jesters weren't just a medieval European phenomenon but flourished in other times and cultures. The first reliably recorded jester is thought to be You Shi, of 7th century BCE China. Jesters had unique...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: One of history's most dangerous myths | Anneliese Mehnert
From the 1650s through the late 1800's, European colonists descended on South Africa. They sought to claim the region, becoming even more aggressive after discovering the area's abundant natural resources. To support their claims to the...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The merciless mercenaries of the Italian Renaissance | Stephanie Honchell Smith
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...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: What's happening to Earth's core? | Shannon Odell
A hydrogen atom is traveling high within the outermost layer of Earth's atmosphere. This particular atom first entered the exosphere millions of years ago, but today it overcomes Earth's gravitational pull and escapes, joining the...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The science of falling in love | Shannon Odell
Love is often described as heartwarming, heart-wrenching, or even heartbreaking— and your brain is responsible for all these feelings. The journey from first spark to the last tear is guided by a symphony of neurochemicals and brain...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: What caused the Rwandan Genocide? | Susanne Buckley-Zistel
For one hundred days in 1994, the African country of Rwanda suffered a horrific campaign of mass murder. Neighbor turned against neighbor as violence engulfed the region, resulting in the deaths of over one-tenth of the country's...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why is Marie Antoinette so controversial? | Carolyn Harris
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...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The epidemics that almost happened | George Zaidan
In 2013, an Ebola outbreak began in Guinea. The country had no formal response system and the outbreak became the largest Ebola epidemic in recorded history. Guinea then completely overhauled their response system, and were able to...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: 1816: The year with no summer | David Biello
In 1815, Mount Tambora erupted and its emissions spread across the globe, blotting out the sun for almost an entire year. This wreaked havoc on agriculture, leading to famines all across the Northern hemisphere. It was the year without...