Open Culture
@openculture.bsky.social
A culture and education website that tries to make the web a more intelligent place. Features free courses, movies, audio books, ebooks & thought-provoking daily posts. Find us at: https://www.openculture.com/
Route 66 Turns 100 This Year: Take a Tour of America’s Most Famous Highway
Route 66 Turns 100 This Year: Take a Tour of America’s Most Famous Highway
This past summer, the United States of America celebrated 250 years of independence. But for a great many Americana-lovers around the world, this year also brings another, even more resonant date: the...
openculture.com
Historian Timothy Snyder Teaches a Free Course on Hitler, Stalin & How “It” Can Happen Here
Historian Timothy Snyder Teaches a Free Course on Hitler, Stalin & How “It” Can Happen Here
When the historian Timothy Snyder left Yale for the University of Toronto in 2024, he took with him the practice of occasionally putting his course lectures online, making them available to anyone who...
openculture.com
14 Self-Portraits by Pablo Picasso Show the Evolution of His Style: See Self-Portraits Moving from Ages 15 to 90
14 Self-Portraits by Pablo Picasso Show the Evolution of His Style: See Self-Portraits Moving from Ages 15 to 90
15 years old (1896) It’s possible to look at Pablo Picasso’s many formal experiments and periodic shifts of style as a kind of self-portraiture, an exercise in shifting consciousness and trying on of...
openculture.com
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Secret Career as a Japanese Art Dealer & How It Shaped His Architecture
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Secret Career as a Japanese Art Dealer & How It Shaped His Architecture
Frank Lloyd Wright was often strapped for cash. In that respect, he had something in common with Vincent van Gogh, who passed most of his much shorter life in more dire circumstances.
openculture.com
The Ancient Greek Water Clock That Kept the Most Accurate Time for 1,800 Years
The Ancient Greek Water Clock That Kept the Most Accurate Time for 1,800 Years
Today, we're surrounded by technologies we could justifiably describe as time thieves.
openculture.com
Historian Timothy Snyder Teaches a Free Course on Hitler, Stalin & How “It” Can Happen Here
Historian Timothy Snyder Teaches a Free Course on Hitler, Stalin & How “It” Can Happen Here
When the historian Timothy Snyder left Yale for the University of Toronto in 2024, he took with him the practice of occasionally putting his course lectures online, making them available to anyone who...
openculture.com
Meet Lloyd Kahn, the Counterculture Publisher Who Is Skateboarding at 91
Meet Lloyd Kahn, the Counterculture Publisher Who Is Skateboarding at 91
Lloyd Kahn worked as an insurance broker before quitting in 1965. Then, he took a turn into the DIY building movement that emerged with the 1960s counterculture.
openculture.com
If you're a creep, you're Republican leadership material.
Eric Umansky@ericumansky.bsky.social · 3d agoAn OB-GYN sued (often low-income, uninsured) patients for owing as little as $114. He charged them 18% interest. And oh, he had many of them *arrested* if they didn't follow through. That OB-GYN? Republican Senator Roger Marshall www.nytimes.com/2026/09/08/u... Insane story by Sarah Kliff
How the Japanese Practice of “Forest Bathing”—Or Just Hanging Out in the Woods—Can Lower Stress Levels and Fight Disease
How the Japanese Practice of “Forest Bathing”—Or Just Hanging Out in the Woods—Can Lower Stress Levels and Fight Disease
When the U.S. media began reporting on the phenomenon of “forest bathing” as a therapy for mental and physical health, the online commentariat—as it will—mocked the concept relentlessly as yet another...
openculture.com
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Secret Career as a Japanese Art Dealer & How It Shaped His Architecture
Frank Lloyd Wright’s Secret Career as a Japanese Art Dealer & How It Shaped His Architecture
Frank Lloyd Wright was often strapped for cash. In that respect, he had something in common with Vincent van Gogh, who passed most of his much shorter life in more dire circumstances.
openculture.com
Bertrand Russell Explains Why Karl Marx’s Philosophy Produced the Disaster of Communism
Bertrand Russell Explains Why Karl Marx’s Philosophy Produced the Disaster of Communism
In 1927, Bertrand Russell delivered a lecture titled 'Why I Am Not a Christian.' At the time, such a declaration was still fairly bold, as was the reasoning he provided for it.
openculture.com
After 9/11, Documents Suggest New Yorkers Were Misled About Air Quality Of course were lied to www.nytimes.com/2026/09/07/n...
After 9/11, Documents Suggest New Yorkers Were Misled About Air Quality
New York City officials are making public more than 170,000 pages of documents related to the air quality around the World Trade Center site in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks.
nytimes.com
Leonardo da Vinci’s Visionary Inventions Rendered in 3D Animation: Helicopters, Robotic Knights, The First Ever Diving Suit & More
Leonardo da Vinci’s Visionary Inventions Rendered in 3D Animation: Helicopters, Robotic Knights, The First Ever Diving Suit & More
To imagine ourselves into the time of Leonardo da Vinci, we must first imagine a world without such things as helicopters, parachutes, tanks, diving suits, robots. Yet those all existed for Leonardo h...
openculture.com
The Roman Colosseum Deconstructed: 3D Animation Reveals the Hidden Technology That Powered Rome’s Great Arena
The Roman Colosseum Deconstructed: 3D Animation Reveals the Hidden Technology That Powered Rome’s Great Arena
Most tourists in Rome put the Colosseum at the top of their to-see list.
openculture.com
Bertrand Russell Explains Why Karl Marx’s Philosophy Produced the Disaster of Communism
Bertrand Russell Explains Why Karl Marx’s Philosophy Produced the Disaster of Communism
In 1927, Bertrand Russell delivered a lecture titled 'Why I Am Not a Christian.' At the time, such a declaration was still fairly bold, as was the reasoning he provided for it.
openculture.com
Meet Lloyd Kahn, the Counterculture Publisher Who Is Skateboarding at 91
Meet Lloyd Kahn, the Counterculture Publisher Who Is Skateboarding at 91
Lloyd Kahn worked as an insurance broker before quitting in 1965. Then, he took a turn into the DIY building movement that emerged with the 1960s counterculture.
openculture.com
John Cleese on How “Stupid People Have No Idea How Stupid They Are” (Otherwise Known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect)
John Cleese on How “Stupid People Have No Idea How Stupid They Are” (Otherwise Known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect)
Monty Python icon John Cleese had this to say about Marjorie Taylor Greene yesterday: 'She is the perfect example of someone who is not intelligent enough to realise that she's not very intelligent. H...
openculture.com
Bertrand Russell’s 10 Commandments for Living in a Healthy Democracy #3: Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.
Bertrand Russell’s 10 Commandments for Living in a Healthy Democracy
Image by J. F. Horrabin, via Wikimedia Commons Bertrand Russell saw the history of civilization as being shaped by an unfortunate oscillation between two opposing evils: tyranny and anarchy, each of w...
openculture.com
The Very First Film Adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a Thomas Edison Production (1910)
The Very First Film Adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, a Thomas Edison Production (1910)
The story of humans creating monstrous beings in their image may have perennial relevance, even if it seems specific to our contemporary cultural moment. What, after all, is Oscar Isaac’s AI inventor ...
openculture.com
Curious Alice — The 1971 Anti-Drug Movie Based on Alice in Wonderland That Oddly Made Drugs Look Like Fun
Curious Alice — The 1971 Anti-Drug Movie Based on Alice in Wonderland That Oddly Made Drugs Look Like Fun
The Reagan presidency was probably the golden age of anti-drug messaging. America’s school kids were told that a brain was like an egg and drugs were like a frying pan. The First Lady told America’s s...
openculture.com
Brian Eno Creates a List of 20 Books That Could Rebuild Civilization
Brian Eno Creates a List of 20 Books That Could Rebuild Civilization
Creative Commons image via Wikimedia Commons Artist and music producer Brian Eno wrote one of my very favorite books: A Year with Swollen Appendices, which takes the form of his personal diary of the ...
openculture.com
Wes Anderson Picks Nine of His Favorite Criterion Films
Wes Anderson Picks Nine of His Favorite Criterion Films
Many an internet cinephile has wondered aloud if the Criterion Closet is a real place, or just a set thrown together to make videos when famous directors like Christopher Nolan, Francis Ford Coppola, ...
openculture.com
Discover J.R.R. Tolkien’s Personal Book Cover Designs for The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Discover J.R.R. Tolkien’s Personal Book Cover Designs for The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
In some rare cases, adaptations and interpretations of a literary work can surpass the source. Despite hundreds of valiant efforts on the part of fans, filmmakers, game/toy designers, and radio produc...
openculture.com
The Periodic Table of Endangered Elements: Visualizing the Chemical Elements That Could Vanish Before You Know It
The Periodic Table of Endangered Elements: Visualizing the Chemical Elements That Could Vanish Before You Know It
The Periodic Table of Elements lists the 118 chemical elements that make up everything in our world. Some you're familiar with—Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen, etc. Others maybe less so—Vanadium, Germanium...
openculture.com
Discover J.R.R. Tolkien’s Personal Book Cover Designs for The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
Discover J.R.R. Tolkien’s Personal Book Cover Designs for The Lord of the Rings Trilogy
In some rare cases, adaptations and interpretations of a literary work can surpass the source. Despite hundreds of valiant efforts on the part of fans, filmmakers, game/toy designers, and radio produc...
openculture.com
Wes Anderson Picks Nine of His Favorite Criterion Films
Wes Anderson Picks Nine of His Favorite Criterion Films
Many an internet cinephile has wondered aloud if the Criterion Closet is a real place, or just a set thrown together to make videos when famous directors like Christopher Nolan, Francis Ford Coppola, ...
openculture.com
How Leonardo da Vinci’s Procrastination Contributed to His Creativity
How Leonardo da Vinci’s Procrastination Contributed to His Creativity
At the height of their productivity as Beatles, neither Paul McCartney nor John Lennon could read or write music notation. Clearly it didn't keep them from making a cultural impact, and as with so muc...
openculture.com
How Phone Addiction Keeps You from Achieving a Productive “Flow State”
How Phone Addiction Keeps You from Achieving a Productive “Flow State”
If you have an iPhone, try pushing its side button three times in a row. Just like magic, the screen should turn from color into black-and-white, or rather grayscale.
openculture.com
The 1981 TIME Magazine Profile That Introduced Michel Foucault to America
The 1981 TIME Magazine Profile That Introduced Michel Foucault to America
These days, would we expect to find a profile of a homosexual radical-left philosopher specializing in discipline and punishment in the pages of Time magazine?
openculture.com
