Videos

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...

View full lesson: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-roman-soldier-robert-garland The year is 15 CE, and the Roman Empire is prospering. Most of the credit will go to the emperor, but this success wouldn’t have been possible...

View full lesson: ed.ted.com/lessons/history-vs-cleopatra-alex-gendler She was the most notorious woman in ancient history, a queen who enraptured not one but two of Rome’s greatest generals. But was she just a skilled seductress – or...