Videos

View full lesson: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-the-world-s-first-subway-system-was-built-christian-wolmar It was the dawn of 1863 CE, and London's not-yet-opened subway system — the first of its kind in the world — had the city in an...

View full lesson: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/did-the-amazons-really-exist-adrienne-mayor It was long assumed that Amazons, the fierce and fearsome women warriors of Greece, were imaginary. But curiously enough, stories from ancient Egypt...

Take a closer look at the life of escaped slave and American icon Harriet Tubman (1822–1913 CE), who liberated over 700 enslaved people using the Underground Railroad. — Download a free audiobook version of "The Underground Railroad"...

View full lesson: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/is-there-any-truth-to-the-king-arthur-legends-alan-lupack King Arthur has risen again and again in our collective imagination, along with his retinue of knights, Guinevere, the Round Table...

View full lesson: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/what-really-happened-to-the-library-of-alexandria-elizabeth-cox 2,300 years ago, the rulers of Alexandria set out to fulfill a very audacious goal: to collect all the knowledge in the world...

View full lesson: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/history-vs-henry-viii-mark-robinson-and-alex-gendler He was a powerful king whose break with the church of Rome would forever change the course of English history. But was he a charismatic reformer...

View full lesson: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/the-dangerous-and-daring-race-for-the-south-pole-elizabeth-leane By the early 1900’s CE, nearly every region of the globe had been visited and mapped, with only two key locations left: the North...

View full lesson: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/ugly-history-the-1937-haitian-massacre-edward-paulino When historians talk about the atrocities of the 20th Century CE, we often think of those that took place during and between the two World...

View full lesson: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/why-is-herodotus-called-the-father-of-history-mark-robinson 2,500 years ago, the writing of history as we know it didn’t exist. The past was recorded as a list of events, with little explanation...

View full lesson: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-inca-empire-gordon-mcewan It was the western hemisphere's largest empire ever, with a population of nearly 10 million subjects. Yet within 100 years of its rise in the...