Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris: Three video tours
It was the most-visited monument in Paris, around 13-million people per year, before it caught fire on April 15th, 2019: Notre-Dame de Paris, the over-850-year-old cathedral on the Île de la Cité in...
View ArticleDiu Diu Deng, a Taiwanese folk song animated
A tiger chases a train, a dragon flies through the sky, women with pink flower petals transform the landscape, and a thoughtful girl rides the train through the Taiwanese countryside in this music...
View ArticleFive key locations on the Oregon Trail
Visit Five key locations on the Oregon National Historic Trail, perhaps the most famous of the Western Expansion Trails, with the America’s Parks YouTube channel. The vlogger and his daughter took a...
View Article5 Things You Didn’t Know About Icebergs
Why would an iceberg be bright blue or green? How are icebergs like taxis? And what can we learn about ancient, long-melted icebergs when we study seafloor sediment core samples? Learn 5 Things You...
View ArticleThe Messel Pit’s remarkable fossils
A time capsule of life around 48 million years ago, the Messel Pit is a treasure trove of well-preserved Eocene-era fossils, including fish, turtles, coprolites (fossilized poop), a diverse range of...
View ArticleHow Were the Pyramids Built?
Collectively known as the Giza Necropolis, The Great Pyramid of Giza, the Pyramid of Khafre, and the Pyramid of Menkaure are world wonders that rest with the Great Sphinx of Giza at the edge of Cairo,...
View ArticleMary Anning, the greatest fossilist the world ever knew
Around 1811, 12-year-old Mary Anning and her brother Joseph discovered what she would later find to be a remarkably complete Jurassic-era fossil of an Ichthyosaurus, a prehistoric marine reptile. It...
View ArticlePond Scum Under the Microscope
For most of human history, people thought of all life as being plants and animals. And the fact that species existed that were so small that you couldn’t even see them was completely unknown. That all...
View ArticleSee the history of the Universe in the blink of an eye
The deeper astronomers look into the night sky, the further back in time they see. The oldest observable light is the cosmic microwave background (CMB)—radiation left over from the Big Bang that was...
View ArticleNoor Inayat Khan: From Pacifist to Spy
In May 1940, with the German army ready to occupy Paris, Noor Inayat Khan was faced with a difficult choice: stand on the sidelines or join the Allied forces fighting the Nazis. After witnessing the...
View ArticleThe Trailblazing Women of NASA
It was on August 26th, 1920 that the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution was certified, giving some American women full voting rights. August 26th is now Women’s Equality Day. Designated...
View ArticleThe mysterious origins of life on Earth
Billions of years ago, simple organic compounds assembled into more complex coalitions that could grow and reproduce. At the time, Earth had widespread volcanic activity and a hostile atmosphere that...
View ArticleAlexander Girard: Architect of Modern Living
“Alexander Girard was a designer who defied easy categorization, mostly because he worked—and excelled—in every field. Tireless, creative, and immersive, Girard was most comfortable when absorbed in a...
View ArticleWhy are algorithms called algorithms?
We think of an algorithm as something new, but the term actually dates back about 900 years. The word algorithm comes from the name of a Persian mathematical genius, Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi. He...
View ArticleBuffalo ≠ Bison
In this animal-filled episode of the Smithsonian American Art Museum‘s Re:Frame video series, Melissa Hendrickson goes to the Smithsonian’s National Zoo to learn about North America’s largest land...
View ArticleWolves: How do we solve the problem of predators?
Humans don’t have a great track record of coexisting with top predators, and wolves are no exception. By the early 1900s, wolves were nearly extinct in all of Western Europe as a result of government...
View ArticleEarth’s Rotation & Revolution + Following the Sun
Where does the sun go when we can’t see it? It’s still there! We’re the ones who moved. In this episode of Crash Course Kids, Sabrina Cruz explains Earth’s Rotation & Revolution, specifically how...
View Article“Jazz is the mother of hip hop.”
“Jazz is the mother or father of hip hop music. They’re both musics that were born out of oppression. They’re both kind-of like protest music. You know, both going against the grain. If you’re a...
View ArticleA brief history of chess
Travel back to the 6th century where the history of chess finds its origins in an Indian strategy game called chaturanga, “which translates as “four divisions (of the military)”: infantry, cavalry,...
View ArticleMuddy Waters live on stage: Honey Bee
Born “into the deepest poverty on the Stovall Plantation in the Mississippi delta around Rolling Fork, Mississippi,” McKinley Morganfield entered the world on April 4, 1945. As the story goes, the...
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