TED-Ed
TED-Ed: What really happened to the Library of Alexandria? - Elizabeth Cox
2,300 years ago, the rulers of Alexandria set out to fulfill a very audacious goal: to collect all the knowledge in the world under one roof. In its prime, the Library of Alexandria housed an unprecedented number of scrolls and attracted...
Crash Course
To the Lighthouse: Crash Course Literature 408
John Green teaches you about Virginia Woolf's modernist novel, To the Lighthouse. Let's face it. You're not reading To the Lighthouse for the plot. There's not a whole lot of plot, unless you count the tension about the beef stew. You're...
Crash Course
Language, Voice, and Holden Caulfield: The Catcher in the Rye Part 1
In which John Green examines JD Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye. John pulls out the old school literary criticism by examining the text itself rather than paying attention to the biographical or historical context of the novel...
TED Talks
Lakshmi Pratury: The lost art of letter-writing
Lakshmi Pratury remembers the lost art of letter-writing and shares a series of notes her father wrote to her before he died. Her short but heartfelt talk may inspire you to set pen to paper, too.
Crash Course
The Yellow Wallpaper: Crash Course Literature 407
Today on Crash Course Literature, John Green teaches you about The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The Yellow Wallpaper tells the story of a woman who is a prisoner in her own home, in the name of caring for her mental...
Crash Course
The Handmaid's Tale, Part 1: Crash Course Literature 403
In which John Green teaches you about Margaret Atwood's speculative fiction novel, The Handmaid's Tale. John looks at some of the themes in this classic dystopian novel, many of which are kind of a downer. The world of Gilead that Atwood...
Crash Course
George Orwell's 1984, Part 2: Crash Course Literature 402
In which John Green continues discussing George Orwell's 1984. Today we're talking about what the novel 1984 has to say about what some have called today's surveillance society. We'll also look at the idea that language can be used as a...
TED Talks
TED: For parents, happiness is a very high bar | Jennifer Senior
The parenting section of the bookstore is overwhelming -- it's "a giant, candy-colored monument to our collective panic," as writer Jennifer Senior puts it. Why is parenthood filled with so much anxiety? Because the goal of modern,...
Crash Course
If One Finger Brought Oil - Things Fall Apart part I: Crash Course Literature 208
In which John Green teaches you about Chinua Achebe's 1958 novel, Things Fall Apart. You'll learn about Igboland, a region in modern day Nigeria, prior to the arrival of the British Empire. Achebe tells the story of Okonkwo, an Igbo...
SciShow
Pliny The Elder: Great Minds
Before there was Google, there were encyclopedias. The very idea of these vast collections of knowledge can be credited to Pliny The Elder. So who was he, and why does he seem to pop up everywhere from Alchemy to Zoology? Hank has the...
Crash Course
Eugenics and Francis Galton: Crash Course History of Science
After Darwin blew the doors off the scientific community, a lot of people did some weird and unscientific stuff with his ideas. Francis Galton and a few others decided natural selection could be used to make the human race "better" and...
Crash Course
Newton and Leibniz: Crash Course History of Science
The standard story of the Scientific Revolution culminates with the long life of one man: Sir Isaac Newton—a humble servant of the Royal Mint, two-time parliamentarian, and a scientific titan whose name, along with Einstein’s, is...
Crash Course
The New Anatomy: Crash Course History of Science
There’s a question to consider that’s pretty daunting: what is life? And to try to answer that question, three tools stand out as being especially useful: A book, some experiments, and the microscope! In this episode, Hank talks to us...
3Blue1Brown
How pi was almost 6.283185...
A bit of the history behind how we came to use the symbol "pi" to represent what it does today, and how Euler used it to refer to several different circle constants.
SciShow
Alfred Wegener: Great Minds
Hank introduces us to Alfred Wegener, a voraciously curious guy who proposed the original theory of continental drift - and was laughed at for it.
TED-Ed
TED-ED: Why should you read James Joyce's "Ulysses"? - Sam Slote
James Joyce's "Ulysses" is widely considered to be both a literary masterpiece and one of the hardest works of literature to read. It inspires such devotion that once a year, thousands of people all over the world dress up like the...
Crash Course
1984 by George Orwell, Part 1: Crash Course Literature 401
In which John Green returns for a dystopian new season of Crash Course Literature! We're starting with George Orwell's classic look at the totalitarian state that could be in post-war England. Winston Smith is under the eye of Big...
Crash Course
DNA Structure and Replication: Crash Course Biology
Hank introduces us to that wondrous molecule deoxyribonucleic acid - also known as DNA - and explains how it replicates itself in our cells.
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: The meaning of life according to Simone de Beauvoir - Iseult Gillespie
At the age of 21, Simone de Beauvoir became the youngest person to take the philosophy exams at France’s most esteemed university. But as soon as she mastered the rules of philosophy, she wanted to break them. Her desire to explore the...
TED Talks
Lisa Bu: How books can open your mind
What happens when a dream you've held since childhood ... doesn't come true? As Lisa Bu adjusted to a new life in the United States, she turned to books to expand her mind and create a new path for herself. She shares her unique approach...
3Blue1Brown
Tattoos on Math
After a friend of mine got a tattoo with a representation of the cosecant function, it got me thinking about how there's another sense in which this function is a tattoo on math, so to speak.
Crash Course
Reader, it's Jane Eyre - Crash Course Literature 207
In which John Green teaches you about Charlotte Bronte's classic coming of age novel, Jane Eyre. Look, we don't like to make judgement values here, but Jane Eyre is awesome. By which we mean the book is great, and the character is...
Crash Course
Race, Class, and Gender in To Kill a Mockingbird: Crash Course Literature 211
In which John Green teaches you MORE about To Kill a Mockingbird. In this installment, John teaches you about race, class, and gender in the American south, as seen through the eyes of Scout and Harper Lee. John will talk about how Scout...
TED-Ed
TED-Ed: Why should you read "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding? | Jill Dash
After witnessing the atrocities of his fellow man in World War II, William Golding was losing his faith in humanity. Later, during the Cold War, as superpowers began threatening one another with nuclear annihilation, he was forced to...