Full Width [alt+shift+f] Shortcuts [alt+shift+k]
Sign Up [alt+shift+s] Log In [alt+shift+l]
3
Nobody reads books anymore. Whether or not that notion strikes you as true, you’ve probably heard it expressed fairly often in recent decades — just as you might have had you lived in the Roman Empire of late antiquity. During that time, as ancient-history YouTuber Garrett Ryan explains in the new Told in Stone video […]
yesterday

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 Steps a President Would Take to Destroy His Nation, According to Grok

Just out of curiosity, and apropos of nothing, we asked Grok (the AI chatbot created by Elon Musk) the following question: If a president of a superpower wanted to destroy his own country, what steps would he take? Here’s what Grok had to say: If a president of a superpower aimed to deliberately undermine their […]

14 hours ago 1 votes
Watch Jazz ‘Hot’, the Rare 1938 Short Film With Jazz Legend Django Reinhardt

Here’s a remarkable short film of the great jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, violinist Stéphane Grappelli and their band the Quintette du Hot Club de France performing on a movie set in 1938. The film was hastily organized by the band’s British agent Lew Grade as a way to introduce the band’s unique style of guitar- […]

yesterday 2 votes
In 1927, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis Created a Dystopian Vision of What the World Would Look Like in 2026–and It Hits Close to Home

Ultra-tall high-rises against dark skies. A huge distance between the rich and the poor. Robber barons at the helm of large-scale industrial operations that turn man into machine. Machines that have become intelligent enough to displace man. These have all been standard elements of dystopian visions so long that few of us could manage to […]

2 days ago 2 votes
Watch Bob Dylan Make His Debut at the Newport Folk Festival in Colorized 1963 Footage

?si=l7KWVf9NZBUkPyM6 In July 1963, Bob Dylan made his first appearance at the Newport Folk Festival. On opening night, he captivated a crowd of 13,000 with a performance of “Blowin’ in the Wind,” accompanied by Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, and Peter, Paul, and Mary. Then, the following day, Dylan delivered a rendition of “With God On […]

2 days ago 3 votes

More in history

Excavations at Pompeii Reveal Rare Life-Sized Statues

An ongoing excavation at the ancient Roman city of Pompeii yielded an unusual pair of marble funerary statues. The figures depict a man in a toga and a bejeweled woman, who experts believe may have been a Pompeiian priestess.   Statues Found at Pompeii’s Porta Sarno Necropolis   Archaeologists unearthed the pair of relief […]

9 hours ago 2 votes
The Steps a President Would Take to Destroy His Nation, According to Grok

Just out of curiosity, and apropos of nothing, we asked Grok (the AI chatbot created by Elon Musk) the following question: If a president of a superpower wanted to destroy his own country, what steps would he take? Here’s what Grok had to say: If a president of a superpower aimed to deliberately undermine their […]

14 hours ago 1 votes
40k

Wrong Side of History Newsletter #61

an hour ago 1 votes
What Is an Ideal Government? A Philosophical Approach

What makes a perfect government? Is it one governed by the wisest people or one that ensures the greatest possible happiness for the largest number of citizens? These questions have fascinated thinkers since ancient times—from Plato and other classical philosophers to John Locke and more recent political theorists. In this article, we will take […]

17 hours ago 1 votes