Videos

Hadrian… the restless emperor or, less flatteringly, the absent emperor. Hadrian is best remembered for the monuments he built; not least of these was Hadrian's wall in northern England; it stands today as an evocative symbol of Roman power...

As Princesses of Crete and daughters of the fearsome King Minos, Ariadne and her sister Phaedra grow up hearing the hoofbeats and bellows of the Minotaur echo from the Labyrinth beneath the palace. The Minotaur - Minos's greatest shame and...

The Battle of Kadesh was waged between Ancient Egypt under the rule of Ramesses II (also known as Ramesses the Great), and the Hittite Empire under King Muwatalli II. According to Egyptian chronology, the battle was fought in 1274 BCE at...

In which John Green teaches you about the beginning of the so-called Age of Discovery. You've probably heard of Christopher Columbus, who "discovered" America in 1492, but what about Vasco da Gama? How about Zheng He? Columbus gets a bad...

In which John Green teaches you about the European Renaissance. European learning changed the world in the 15th and 16th century, but was it a cultural revolution, or an evolution? We'd argue that any cultural shift that occurs over a couple...

In which John Green teaches you about the changes wrought by contact between the Old World and the New. John does this by exploring the totally awesome history book "The Columbian Exchange" by Alfred Cosby, Jr. After Columbus "discovered"...

In which John Green discusses the strange and mutually beneficial relationship between a republic, the citystate of Venice, and an Empire, the Ottomans—and how studying history can help you to be a better boyfriend and/or girlfriend. Together...

John Green teaches you about the so-called Dark Ages, which it turns out weren't as uniformly dark as you may have been led to believe. While Europe was indeed having some issues, many other parts of the world were thriving and relatively...

Founded by Antisthenes, a student of Socrates, the Cynics would be a minor philosophical school throughout the Greco-Roman classical period. Famous for their obscenity, asceticism and virtue they challenged convention and influenced the later...

The Maya are a people indigenous to Mexico and Central America who have continuously inhabited the modern regions of Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Campeche, Tabasco, and Chiapas in Mexico and southward through Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and...