In the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, protests and unrest continued continued across Europe, and the Soviet Union was having increasing trouble holding its sphere of influence together. Today you'll learn about the labor strikes of...

The European Renaissance may have started in Florence, but it pretty quickly moved out of Italy and spread the art, architecture, literature, and humanism across Europe to places like France, Spain, England, and the Low Countries....

The aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact had a huge impact on the countries of Eastern Europe. As the former satellite states turned away from communism and Soviet influence, some of them shifted toward...

The thing about European History is that it tends to leak out of Europe. Europeans haven't been great at staying put in Europe. As human beings do, the people of Europe were very busy traveling around to trade, to spread religion, and in...

You may have noticed that the internet is terrible at religious discourse. Well, this is not a new phenomenon. In the early 16th century, the Roman Catholic church dominated Christianity in Europe, and the institution was starting to...

Today, rats are often regarded as the most successful invasive species in the world. The most common species of rat scurried onto the scene roughly 1 to 3 million years ago in Asia. There, they craftily survived Earth’s most recent ice...

When a ship sinks, lots of factors, like the ship’s materials, the water quality, and the depth of the seafloor all play a role in determining how long the ship will last down there - as a result, the Titanic will be gone in fifty years,...

Get to know plasma, the most common, but probably least understood, phase of matter in the universe!

Mars has a ton of amazing features waiting to be explored, but we have to get there first. Thanks to our partners at the Boston Museum Of Science for helping us think about everything we need to plan a trip! Squeaks and Jessi would love...

Put on your spacesuits, because we’re off to explore Mars! We’ll learn all about how we could live there, and meet the robots that already do!<br/>
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We know that gravity exerts its pull on light, and we have an explanation for why. Actually, we have multiple explanations that all predict the same thing. And at first glance, these explanations seem to describe completely different...

You’re alive right now… at least I’m pretty sure you are. But you’re not TOTALLY alive. Bits of you are always breaking down, being thrown out, and being replaced. Even right now, parts of you are dying. Some of your cells even died...

The shipping industry is vital to the global economy, but it's also a huge contributor to the climate crisis. Morten Bo Christiansen, a leader of the energy transition for the global shipping company A.P. Moller – Maersk, talks to TED's...

One reason the Bermuda Triangle has scared people for generations is the seaweed. And thanks to eutrophication and other human causes, that Sargassum seaweed is starting to travel the world. Here's how we're accidentally making more of...

For thousands of years, sailors have been telling stories of a mysterious phenomenon called dead water. Even after scientists figured out why it happens, it still affects swimmers today.

Bananas! They’ve got a long trip from harvest to table, and a lot of science goes into keeping them delicious. This episode was produced in collaboration with and sponsored by Emerson.

Some might call sand coarse, rough and irritating, but there’s no denying that it’s used everywhere: from glass to asphalt, sand is a key ingredient for all sorts of materials in construction and technology. But this heavy reliance on...

The equator is a clear and accurate line around Earth that makes measuring latitude a precise science, but when it came to figuring out how to do that with longitude, British sailors were at a loss. Until they devised a competition....

It's the end of the world, everybody. Well, it's the end of our mythology series, anyway. This week, we're talking about how mythological themes have made their way into the English language. We're taking on the Herculean task of...

"A Long Petal of the Sea," a new historical novel by renowned writer Isabel Allende, draws upon events spanning from the Spanish civil war to the 1973 coup in her native Chile -- and with resonance for the experience of refugees today....

Until the coronavirus pandemic struck, the cruise industry was enjoying a

boom period, generating $150 billion worldwide per year. Now most s
hips
have been grounded for months. But while operators wait to learn
when they...

Cruise liners offer scenic views you can’t replicate from land, but they also cause downstream consequences. In Europe, some beautiful waterfront cities are joining forces to limit the impact of thousands of passengers being disgorged...

Friday's jobs report offered mixed signals about the state of hiring, but

one thing was clear: more people are trying to get back into the
labor
force. Supply chain issues are one key challenge as companies c
ompete...

Hank explores different ways of understanding identity – including the Indiscernibility of Identicals, and essential and accidental properties. In what ways does affect identity? In what ways does it not? What does it mean for a thing to...