Full Width [alt+shift+f] Shortcuts [alt+shift+k]
Sign Up [alt+shift+s] Log In [alt+shift+l]
30
As of this writing, the Beatles’ “Revolution 9″ has more than 13,800,000 plays on Spotify. This has no doubt generated decent revenue, even given the platform’s oft-lamented payout rates. But compare that number to the more than half-a-billion streams of “Blackbird,” also on the Beatles’ self-titled 1968 “white album,” and you get an idea of […]
4 months ago

Improve your reading experience

Logged in users get linked directly to articles resulting in a better reading experience. Please login for free, it takes less than 1 minute.

More from Open Culture

The World’s Oldest Cookbook: Discover 4,000-Year-Old Recipes from Ancient Babylon

If asked about your favorite dish, you’d do well to name something exotic. Gone are the days when a taste for the likes of Italian, Mexican, or Chinese cuisine could qualify you as an adventurous eater. Even expeditions to the very edges of the menus at Peruvian, Ethiopian, or Laotian restaurants, say, would be unlikely […]

2 days ago 4 votes
Tomorrow Never Knows: How The Beatles Invented the Future With Studio Magic, Tape Loops & LSD

“Tomorrow Never Dies” couldn’t be made today, and not just because the Beatles already made it in 1966. Marking perhaps the single biggest step in the group’s artistic evolution, that song is in every sense a product of its time. The use of psychedelic drugs like LSD was on the rise in the counterculture, as […]

3 days ago 5 votes
Stephen King’s Top 10 All-Time Favorite Books

Image by The USO, via Flickr Commons So you might think that if Stephen King – the guy who wrote such horror classics like Carrie and The Stand – were to rattle off his top ten favorite books, it would feature works by the likes of Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft or maybe J. […]

3 days ago 6 votes
The Invisible Horror of The Shining: How Music Makes Stanley Kubrick’s Iconic Film Even More Terrifying

Inexplicable as it may sound to readers of this site, there are movie-lovers who claim not to enjoy the work of Stanley Kubrick. But even his most steadfast non-appreciators have to hand it to him for The Shining, his 1980 Stephen King adaptation widely considered one of the scariest — quite possibly the scariest – […]

4 days ago 7 votes
A Rabbit Rides a Chariot Pulled by Geese in an Ancient Roman Mosaic (2nd century AD)

If you head to the Louvre, make sure you visit the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and Liberty Leading the People. But then swing by the Department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities. There you might find (no guarantee!) a Roman mosaic featuring a rabbit riding a chariot pulled by geese. Discovered at Hadrian’s villa […]

4 days ago 7 votes

More in history

Porto for Art Lovers: Galleries, Architecture, and Street Art

Porto is famous for its incredible past and its monuments. This mesmerizing city holds some of the most iconic historical buildings in the country besides renowned contemporary art galleries.   Baroque, Neo-Classical, and Art Nouveau Landmarks   Igreja and Torre dos Clérigos   Built in 1779, the Clérigos Church and Tower are among the […]

21 hours ago 2 votes
Stephen Salmieri: First Photos of Coney Island, 1967 – 1972

“I used to be a fireball of energy – if I had two or three days a week to spare where I wasn’t on an assignment I was out with my camera in the city. I covered this city like an archeologist.” – Stephen Salmieri, Coney Island Trips, 1967 – 1972     Between 1967 … Continue reading "Stephen Salmieri: First Photos of Coney Island, 1967 – 1972" The post Stephen Salmieri: First Photos of Coney Island, 1967 – 1972 appeared first on Flashbak.

7 hours ago 2 votes
The Tumultuous Life of Gaius Marius, the Roman General Who Broke All the Rules

Gaius Marius is one of the most compelling personalities of the Roman Republic. Entering politics as a “novus homo” from Italy with few political connections, he proved both his military skill and unbridled ambition during the Jugurthine War. He was subsequently elected consul an incredible seven times as he was seen as the only […]

23 hours ago 2 votes
Weekly Wisdom Quiz

Destiny and... Death Rays?

an hour ago 1 votes
What Happened to the Neanderthals?

Contrary to popular belief, the Neanderthals had language, hunting strategies, sophisticated tools, art, and jewelry. In many ways, they were not dissimilar from us. Having co-existed for thousands of years, there must be more to the story than humans simply wiping them out. For decades, academics have debated and questioned what caused their extinction, […]

yesterday 2 votes