In which John Green teaches you about World War II, aka The Great Patriotic War, aka The Big One. So how did this war happen? And what does it mean? We've all learned the facts about World War II many times over, thanks to repeated...

In which John Green teaches you about World War II, and some of the causes behind the war. In a lot of ways, WWII was about resources, and especially about food. The expansionist aggression of both Germany and Japan were in a lot of ways...

When an Armenian resistance movement began to form in the 19th century, Sultan Abdul Hamid II took decisive action. He led the Hamidian Massacres— a relentless campaign of violence that killed over 150,000 Armenians. These massacres were...

In which John Green teaches you about World War I and how it got started. Crash Course doesn't usually talk much about dates, but the way that things unfolded in July and August of 1914 are kind of important to understanding the Great...

In which John Green teaches you WHY World War I started. Or tries to anyway. With this kind of thing, it's kind of hard to assign blame to any one of the nations involved. Did the fault lie with Austria-Hungary? Germany? Russia? Julius...

Democracy is about having choices — and authoritarianism is about not having them, says lawyer and writer Ian Bassin. Detailing the seven steps of the authoritarian playbook, he invites us all to put aside our differences and rethink our...

Economic crises can and do happen. But for every true crisis, there are many false alarms, says economist Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak. He explains how to live with the media's pervasive economic doomsaying, why we should stop treating...

Every year, hundreds of millions of people voluntarily turn their lives upside down by setting their clocks forward one hour in the spring and back one hour in the autumn on a particular date mandated by the government wherever they...

Prepare to be horrified, and to look into the face of inhumanity with the Grand Guignol. Mike Rugnetta teaches you about one of theater history's most horrible chapters. The Grand Guignol was a French theater based in Paris from the late...

It's time to go Back...to the Future. By which I mean, we're going back into the past to talk about Futurism. Which seems like it would be cool, but it was started by this terrible guy Martinetti, who also wrote the Italian Fascist...

Get ready to get weird. Mike Rugnetta teaches you about the Theater of the Absurd, a 1950s theatrical reaction to the dire world events of the 1940s. You'll learn about Jean Genet, Eugene Ionesco, Samuel Beckett, and the theatrical...

Between the war in Ukraine and tensions with China, President Biden's handling of foreign policy issues is being put to the test. In former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger's new book, "Leadership: Six Studies in World Strategy," he...

Journalist Haynes Johnson, historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Michael Beschloss, and retired Army Lt. Gen. Julius Becton discuss the 50th anniversary of President Harry S. Truman's executive order that formally integrated the armed forces.

Jim Lehrer discusses the significance of Cold War and the Cuban Missile Crisis with the presidential historians and Sergei Khrushchev, the son of the late Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev. (screening copy available upon request)

Book: Robert Kennedy: His Life

Book: Einstein

Taylor Branch, author of "Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-1965" discusses Martin Luther King Jr.'s spiritual and political legacy.

Book: The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler’s Germany

The Most Rev. Michael Curry is the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church of the U.S. His latest book "Love is the Way: Holding Onto Hope in Troubling Times," reveals how love fueled his journey from descendant of slaves to the top...

Book: The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany

An interview with former President Gerald Ford on the prospect of the United States going to war in the Persian Gulf, following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

The coronavirus pandemic is causing immense economic damage. The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits has surged as businesses nationwide close down and are forced to lay off workers. Has the country ever experienced...

David Gergen talks with George Kennan about his book At A Century's Ending: Reflections 1982-1995.

In a new book, Kevin Kruse and Julian Zelizer assemble a team of fellow historians to push back on what they see as the biggest myths and rampant misinformation about major issues facing this country and some of its most defining...