Art, music, sports, entertainment, movies, and many other subjects—these elements define who we are as a society and how we express ourselves as a culture. Take a deep dive into the topics shaping our shared norms, values, institutions, and more.
Hours of research by our editors, distilled into minutes of clarity.
The two figureheads of existentialist thought were romantic partners, though they had a publicly open relationship and never lived together. As de Beauvoir says in the interview below, “third persons knew our relationship dwarfed any we could have with them.”
Modern artificial Christmas trees are built from bent steel frames and PVC plastic. The plastic is cut into strips and shredded to mimic the needles of an evergreen tree. See the factory process of these mass-produced holiday mainstays.
Studies suggest that yoga can help alleviate several diseases associated with aging by lowering blood pressure, reducing blood fat levels, and combating obesity. It has also been shown to increase telomerase activity, which helps slow cell aging.
The 1983 track “Beat Bop” features emcees Rammellzee and K-Rob rapping over a beat produced and arranged by Basquiat. Though it leans into several tropes from the early days of hip-hop, it’s also singular, with elements of dub, funk, and disco blending over its 10 minutes.
Cities in the US, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands all claim they have the world’s largest Christmas tree—ranging from massive evergreens, TV and communication towers, and hillside light displays.
Dickens planned to write a treatise on the day’s social issues and had a particularly dry working title: “An Appeal to the People of England on behalf of the Poor Man’s Child.” After a week, though, he decided to rework the ideas into a fictional story, working at a quick pace so it could be released in time for Christmas. It worked: The story was published on December 19, 1843.
The term was a reference to New Wave cinema, an iconoclastic, largely French form. Sire Records' Seymour Stein is believed to have pushed to use it to describe the label's bands, many of which came from the CBGB's scene, to avoid the negative associations with "punk rock." Sire ran a promotional campaign named "Don't Call It Punk" that made that message clear.
Charles Ingram won the show’s top prize in 2002, though producers found his performance, which featured several strange responses, suspicious. After reviewing the footage, the producers discovered several coughs that aligned with the correct answers and theorized that Ingram’s wife and another contestant were using the coughs to convey the correct answers to him. Ingram maintained his innocence, yet he was tried and convicted of fraud.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, founded in 1870, houses 1.5 million works spanning centuries—from ancient Egyptian artifacts to impressionist masterpieces. Its iconic Fifth Avenue building, designed by architect Richard Morris Hunt, and tranquil Cloisters location reflect its dedication to showcasing global creativity.
The writer’s 1873 book “The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today” (cowritten with newspaper editor Charles Dudley Warner) satirized the speculative investing and greed that took place following the Civil War. That era is now known as the Gilded Age, a term derived from the novel. This resource will be paywalled for some readers.
