history
In “Moral Ambition,” Dutch historian Rutger Bregman argues that all would benefit from a collective redefinition of success.
Concerns about privacy and pressures regarding the physical appearance of women and their homes contributed to the failure of AT&T’s 1960s Picturephone.
Each year, over half a million migrants cross the deadly jungle separating Colombia from Panama in search of a better life in the United States.
In ancient Sparta, it was accepted practice for more women to marry and have children by more than one man.
Architecture in the age of AI — argues professor Nayef Al-Rodhan — should embed philosophical inquiry in its transdisciplinary toolkit.
God is not a vending machine, but is it wrong to treat him like one?
Misinterpreted data may be distorting Western predictions about the future of China’s economy.
How (not) to end up in the ash heap of history.
Because of their large and unfriendly neighbor to the east, the Baltics would rather be Scandinavian.
The burial spot was found in one of the Herculaneum scrolls charred by Mt. Vesuvius.
“I believe that in the future, there will be a Francis Bacon of AI art,” Saltz tells Big Think. “We just haven’t seen that artist yet.”
Author A.J. Jacobs explores how voting has changed since the days of the Founding Fathers — for better and for worse.
If the past is any guide, things are going to take off quickly.
The fellowship’s journey through Middle-Earth mirrors the modernization of the English countryside.
Digital analyses of Enlightenment-era letters are teaching us a thing or two about Locke, Voltaire, and others.
A poignant, 2,000-year-old burial in northern Italy could be the latest evidence of an ancient friendship.
Consumer debt shapes American lives so thoroughly that it seems eternal and immortal, but it’s actually relatively new to the financial world.
Japanese thought can’t be easily characterized by just a few books — but this essential guide is a great place to start.
“Hardcore History” host Dan Carlin recently spoke with Big Think about the history of humanity’s drive to create — and whether or not we can control it.
This map samples some of the digits that make up the DDC system, invented by the brilliant but flawed Melvil Dewey.
Although human beings arrived on Earth just ~300,000 years ago, we’ve transformed the entire planet completely. Here’s how we did it.
From before the Big Bang to Voyager 1, particle physicist Harry Cliff takes us on a whiz-bang tour of the Universe’s evolution.
Despite billions of years of life on Earth, humans first arose only ~300,000 years ago. It took all that time to make our arrival possible.
Lord Kelvin is thought to have said there was nothing new to discover in physics. His real view was the opposite.
On the morning of April 20, 1961, all conditions were “go” for an attempt at free flight. A man was on standby with a fire extinguisher. Just in case.
For billions of years on Earth, life was limited to simple unicellular, non-differentiated organisms. In a mere flash, that changed forever.
Known as the Great Oxygenation Event, Earth froze over as oxygen accumulated in our atmosphere, nearly driving all life extinct.
Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder has been a controversial diagnosis since it was first described, back in the 1940s.
Plagues, war, and genocide were literally frozen in time.
Dennis Klatt developed trailblazing text-to-speech systems before losing his own voice to cancer.