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ANCIENT HISTORY
View All PostsHow did Athens' greatest heroes become her enemies? These are the tragic stories of the Athenian generals Themistocles and Alcibiades.
Greek culture did not end with Roman conquest. From the 1st to 3rd centuries AD, Greek culture flourished in what is known as the Second Sophistic.
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HISTORY
View All PostsFor EA Wallis Budge, acquiring the Book of the Dead from Egypt involved a great deal of risk.
A seemingly innocuous tradition, the barber pole actually hearkens back to a gory practice in the Middle Ages.
PHILOSOPHY
View All PostsNietzsche despised Christianity for, in his view, naysaying life. Yet he took great inspiration from a devotional painting of Christ.
Altona is a play about bad faith. Ostensibly written about German guilt over World War II, the ideas are also applicable to French actions in Algeria.
ART & ARTISTS
View All PostsWalter Sickert invented his own form of Impressionism, which was dark and moody and centered around voyeuristic observations of the working class.
Van Gogh’s Yellow House in Arles became a significant part of both his life and art during the last few years of his life.
TRAVEL & CULTURE
View All PostsTwo hours in the British Museum won't make you an expert, but it will leave you astonished at what humans have created and passed down.
From Shakespeare to Neruda, explore the world’s best museums dedicated to authors and step inside the homes where literary history was written.

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View MapsReligion
View All PostsChristians assert that Jesus rose from the dead. Others question the reality of the Resurrection and offer non-miraculous explanations for the sightings of Jesus.
Despite the patriarchal slant of scripture, several influential women in the Bible stand out among the many because of their courage, steadfast faith, endurance, or impiety.
Stories
View All PostsHere are ten famous cocktails, listed alongside their origins and ingredients. But which historic figures were they named after, and why?
Jane Austen drew on her family life, social circle, and extensive education to write her beloved novels that reinvented the narrative of morality.




























