Videos

In which John Green teaches you about one of the least funny subjects in history: slavery. John investigates when and where slavery originated, how it changed over the centuries, and how Europeans and colonists in the Americas arrived at...

Historians and experts examine the American system of racialized slavery and the hypocrisy it relied on to function.

In which John Green teaches you about America's "peculiar institution," slavery. I wouldn't really call it peculiar. I'd lean more toward horrifying and depressing institution, but nobody asked me. John will talk about what life was like...

In today's video we are discussing a difficult topic, and we have to say it would be impossible to sum up the African slave trade in a few short minutes, and it would be disrespectful to try. We want to make it clear that is not our intention...

From approximately 1525 to 1866 CE, 12.5 million Africans were forcibly transported across the Middle Passage to serve as slaves in the New World. Life aboard slave ships was agonizing and dangerous; nearly 2 million slaves would perish on...

You'll notice that many ex-British Colonies, like Australia, Canada and New Zealand don't use pounds like their former British overlords but instead use dollars. Why? What caused these nations to switch currencies and why did they prefer...

Michael Goudket, the Adjutant General of the Order of the Ancient & Honorable Huntington Militia, explains currency used in 18th Century Colonial America. To better understand daily life and material culture in Colonial America, one must...

Where did paper money come from? Despite it seeming like a modern invention, its origins go back to Ancient China. And, despite it now being hard to think of a world without paper money, in 1968, Americans could still redeem their U.S. bills...

Only a couple of decades after the end of the First World War—which was supposed to be the War that Ended All Wars—another, bigger, farther-flung, more destructive, and deadlier war began. Today, you'll learn about how the war in Europe progressed...

Our look at World War II continues with a closer examination of just how the war impacted soldiers in the field, and the people at home. For many of the combatants, the homefront and the warfront were one and the same. The war disrupted life...