Open Culture

The Ancient Greeks Who Converted to Buddhism It would hardly be notable to make the acquaintance of a Greek Buddhist today. Despite having originated in Asia, that religion — or philosophy, or way of life, or whatever you prefer to call it — now...

The Ancient Greeks Who Converted to Buddhism

How Hans Zimmer Created the Otherworldly Soundtrack for Dune Many emotional moments were made at this year’s big awards shows. The Slap, amidst so many historic wins; poignant tributes and criminal omissions; former actor-turned-wartime-hero-president Volodymyr...

How Hans Zimmer Created the Otherworldly Soundtrack for Dune

74 Ways Characters Die in Shakespeare’s Plays Shown in a Handy Infographic: From Snakebites to Lack of Sleep In the graduate department where I once taught freshmen and sophomores the rudiments of college English, it became common practice to include Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus on many an Intro to Lit syl...

74 Ways Characters Die in Shakespeare’s Plays Shown in a Handy Infographic: From Snakebites to Lack of Sleep

The Futurist Cookbook (1930) Tried to Turn Italian Cuisine into Modern Art With the savage cuts in arts funding, perhaps we'll return to a system of noblesse oblige familiar to students of The Gilded Age, when artists needed independent wealth or patronage, and wealthy indus...

The Futurist Cookbook (1930) Tried to Turn Italian Cuisine into Modern Art

Who Would Be Emperor If the Roman Empire Still Existed Today? During Wimbledon a few years ago, a thread about King Felipe VI of Spain went viral. It was posted to the social media platform formerly known as Twitter by Derek Guy, author of the menswear blog Die,...

Who Would Be Emperor If the Roman Empire Still Existed Today?

Inside the Automats Where Coin-Operated Machines Created a Modern, Democratic Dining Experience Alfred Hitchcock to the television viewers of America on March 25, 1959. 'Tonight I'm dining at my favorite club. There are many advantages here. As you can see, informality is the rule. There is also...

Inside the Automats Where Coin-Operated Machines Created a Modern, Democratic Dining Experience

AI Figures Out the Rules of a Mysterious 2,000-Year-Old Board Game from Ancient Rome Image by Walter Crist As far as enthusiasm for board games goes, no continent has yet outdone Europe.

AI Figures Out the Rules of a Mysterious 2,000-Year-Old Board Game from Ancient Rome

When Italian Futurists Declared War on Pasta (1930) Filippo Tommaso Marinetti Odds are Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, the father of Futurism and a dedicated provocateur, would be crestfallen to discover how closely his most incendiary gastronomical pronoun...

When Italian Futurists Declared War on Pasta (1930)

Why Most Ancient Civilizations Had No Word for the Color Blue In an old Zen story, two monks argue over whether a flag is waving or whether it’s the wind that waves.

Why Most Ancient Civilizations Had No Word for the Color Blue

Daisugi, the 600-Year-Old Japanese Technique of Growing Trees Out of Other Trees, Creating Perfectly Straight Lumber Necessity being the mother of invention, this led to the creation of an ingenious solution: daisugi, the growing of additional trees, in effect, out of existing trees

Daisugi, the 600-Year-Old Japanese Technique of Growing Trees Out of Other Trees, Creating Perfectly Straight Lumber

How Édouard Manet Became “the Father of Impressionism” with the Scandalous Panting, Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863) Manet's Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (1863) caused quite a stir when it made its public debut in 1863. Today, we might assume that the controversy surrounding the painting had to do with its containing a n...

How Édouard Manet Became “the Father of Impressionism” with the Scandalous Panting, Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (1863)

The Genius Urban Design of Amsterdam: Canals, Dams & Leaning Houses It's common to hear it said that some particular city — usually one of the American metropolises that sprang into existence over the past couple of centuries — 'shouldn't exist.' And indeed, as urban ...

The Genius Urban Design of Amsterdam: Canals, Dams & Leaning Houses

Inside the Automats Where Coin-Operated Machines Created a Modern, Democratic Dining Experience Alfred Hitchcock to the television viewers of America on March 25, 1959. 'Tonight I'm dining at my favorite club. There are many advantages here. As you can see, informality is the rule. There is also...

Inside the Automats Where Coin-Operated Machines Created a Modern, Democratic Dining Experience

AI Figures Out the Rules of a Mysterious 2,000-Year-Old Board Game from Ancient Rome Image by Walter Crist As far as enthusiasm for board games goes, no continent has yet outdone Europe.

AI Figures Out the Rules of a Mysterious 2,000-Year-Old Board Game from Ancient Rome

A Brief History of Chess: An Animated Introduction to the 1,500-Year-Old Game Duchamp 'Over the roughly one and half millennia of its existence, chess has been known as a tool of military strategy, a metaphor for human affairs, and a benchmark of genius,” points out the TED-Ed ...

A Brief History of Chess: An Animated Introduction to the 1,500-Year-Old Game

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Bush 2003: “Facing clear evidence of peril, we can't wait for the final proof that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud”

Trump 2026: "Our objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime"

The Famous Letter Where Freud Breaks His Relationship with Jung (1913) Freud and Jung. Jung and Freud. History has closely associated these two who did so much examination of the mind in early 20th-century Europe, but the simple connection of their names belies a much mo...

The Famous Letter Where Freud Breaks His Relationship with Jung (1913)

The Piano Played with 16 Increasing Levels of Complexity: From Easy to Very Complex Remember the feeling of accomplishment as a child, picking out a simple tune after your first piano lesson? Then the day you begin to play with both hands? So grown up. Eventually you start using mo...

The Piano Played with 16 Increasing Levels of Complexity: From Easy to Very Complex

Salvador Dalí Goes to Hollywood & Creates a Wild Dream Sequence for Alfred Hitchcock Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel reportedly carried rocks in their pockets during the premiere of their first film Un Chien Andalou, anticipating a violent reaction from the audience. It was a fair conc...

Salvador Dalí Goes to Hollywood & Creates a Wild Dream Sequence for Alfred Hitchcock

Like when Nero fiddled as Rome burned.

So how is the Epstein War going?

David Lynch’s Eraserhead Remade in Clay David Lynch spent five years working on his surrealist film Eraserhead, and when it finally hit cinemas in 1977, critics panned the film. (Variety called it a 'sickening bad-taste exercise.') Then, ad...

David Lynch’s Eraserhead Remade in Clay

A Brief History of Chess: An Animated Introduction to the 1,500-Year-Old Game Duchamp 'Over the roughly one and half millennia of its existence, chess has been known as a tool of military strategy, a metaphor for human affairs, and a benchmark of genius,” points out the TED-Ed ...

A Brief History of Chess: An Animated Introduction to the 1,500-Year-Old Game

Cats Migrated to Europe 7,000 Years Earlier Than Once Thought The animals were imperfect, long-tailed, unfortunate in their heads. Little by little they put themselves together, making themselves a landscape, acquiring spots, grace, flight.

Cats Migrated to Europe 7,000 Years Earlier Than Once Thought

How the Brilliant Colors of Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts Were Made with Alchemy Today the word 'alchemy' seems used primarily to label a variety of crackpot pursuits, with their bogus premises and impossible promises.

How the Brilliant Colors of Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts Were Made with Alchemy

Sun Tzu’s The Art of War: An Animated Chapter-by-Chapter Breakdown of the Ancient Chinese Treatise Though not a long book, The Art of War is nevertheless an intimidating one. Composed in the China of the fifth century BC, it comes down to us as perhaps the definitive analysis of military strategy, ...

Sun Tzu’s The Art of War: An Animated Chapter-by-Chapter Breakdown of the Ancient Chinese Treatise

The Cameraman’s Revenge (1912): The Truly Weird Origin of Modern Stop-Motion Animation These days, ever more ambitions computer-animated spectacles seem to arrive in theaters every few weeks. But how many of them capture our imaginations as fully as works of the thoroughly analog art of...

The Cameraman’s Revenge (1912): The Truly Weird Origin of Modern Stop-Motion Animation

Isaac Asimov Laments the “Cult of Ignorance” in the United States (1980) In 1980, scientist and writer Isaac Asimov argued in an essay that there is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been.

Isaac Asimov Laments the “Cult of Ignorance” in the United States (1980)

Monet’s Water Lilies: How World War I Inspired Monet to Paint His Final Masterpieces & Create “the World’s First Art Installation” When one considers which artists most powerfully evoke the horrors of trench warfare, Claude Monet is hardly the first name to come to mind.

Monet’s Water Lilies: How World War I Inspired Monet to Paint His Final Masterpieces & Create “the World’s First Art Installation”

An Introduction to the Literary Philosophy of Marcel Proust, Presented in a Monty Python-Style Animation Those who know the name Marcel Proust, if not his work itself, know it as that of the most solitary and introspective of writers—a name become an adjective, describing an almost painfully delicate var...

An Introduction to the Literary Philosophy of Marcel Proust, Presented in a Monty Python-Style Animation