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In most places across the world, speak the name of Dante, and your listeners will think of Inferno. Since its first publication more than 700 years ago, its depiction of Hell has become influential enough to shape the perceptions of even those who don’t believe that such a place exists. Take the thoroughly Dantean idea […]
10 hours ago

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More from Open Culture

Who Really Built the Egyptian Pyramids—And How Did They Do It?

Although it’s certainly more plausible than hypotheses like ancient aliens or lizard people, the idea that slaves built the Egyptian pyramids is no more true. It derives from creative readings of Old Testament stories and technicolor Cecil B. Demille spectacles, and was a classic whataboutism used by slavery apologists. The notion has “plagued Egyptian scholars […]

2 days ago 4 votes
How Italy Became the Most Divided Country in Europe: Understanding the Great Divide Between North & South

Prada, Alfa Romeo, Pellegrino, Ferrari, Illy, Lamborghini, Gucci: these are a few Italian corporations we all know, though we don’t necessarily know that they’re all from the north of Italy. The same is true, in fact, of most Italian brands that now enjoy global recognition, and according to the analysis presented in the RealLifeLore video […]

3 days ago 7 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 […]

4 days ago 7 votes
Why the Romans Stopped Reading Books

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 […]

4 days ago 7 votes

More in history

Archeology... Or Grave Robbing?

Is it OK to dig up the Dead?

an hour ago 1 votes
‘Queen James’ by Gareth Russell review

‘Queen James’ by Gareth Russell review JamesHoare Mon, 04/07/2025 - 09:00

11 hours ago 1 votes
Against Critical Trade Theory

He’s given the word populism a bad name

2 hours ago 1 votes
Who Was Flavius Josephus? The Problematic Chronicler of the Jewish War

Flavius Josephus was a Jewish aristocrat who was initially a general in the Jewish rebellion of 66-71 CE, but soon surrendered to the Romans and became a collaborator during the destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem. He famously ingratiated himself with the Romans by sharing a prophecy that their general Vespasian would become […]

22 hours ago 1 votes