Explore 1,500 Soviet propaganda posters showcasing the USSR’s visual cultu

Explore the material culture of socialist Cuba

Even the objects of everyday life were politicized under socialism. This catalog of Cuban artifacts, collected between 1959 and the fall of the Soviet Union, reveals how revolutionary values infiltrated the most ordinary of items—from cocktail coasters to cologne.

Propaganda became a key weapon in the US–Soviet Cold War

Both superpowers waged a global battle for hearts and minds through propaganda—using film, radio, art and education to promote their values. The US emphasized freedom and prosperity, while the USSR championed socialism and anti-imperialism.

A rich archive of the visual imagination of the Cold War era

The blog aggregates art, design, fashion, and technology from the atomic and space age, spanning mid-century American futurism and its Soviet counterpart. The content has a broad range: escape pods from a B-58 bomber sit alongside Tour de France caravan vehicles and unidentified industrial designs.

Russian Revolution of 1917: a gallery

Being in a place where history happened is a special feeling. This interactive photo gallery from the Guardian captures that experience with then-and-now images of landmarks that played a part in the Russian Revolution. Scroll through archival photos of Bolshevik supporters marching down St. Petersburg’s Nevsky Prospekt, then move the slider to the right to see how the same street looks today.

Explore a timeline tracing the Soviet Union’s collapse from 1985 to 1991

This interactive webpage charts the USSR’s final years—from Gorbachev’s rise to the 1991 dissolution—using infographics, key quotes, and profiles of prominent political figures to explain how the Soviet state unraveled, and Russia emerged in its place.

The Soviet Union explained

From 1922 to 1991, the Soviet Union spanned one-sixth of Earth’s landmass and housed nearly 300 million people. As the most significant test of Marxist governance, it sat at the center of the century’s defining struggle between capitalism and communism.

See how Britain promoted imperial trade through 1920s propaganda posters

This photo gallery showcases posters from the Empire Marketing Board, created after Canada gained dominion status in 1926. The campaign encouraged Canadians to buy goods from across the British Empire, producing more than 800 posters displayed nationwide.

Gulags were a vast network of Soviet forced-labor camps under Stalin

The USSR’s gulag system imprisoned millions in harsh, often deadly conditions from the 1930s to the 1950s. This resource features an interactive map that shows the locations of individual camps and includes stories of those who were imprisoned.

Sparkling wine was a political tool in the Soviet Union

To show the world that the Soviet Union had recovered after the devastating famine of the early 1930s, leader Josef Stalin turned to a surprising source: sparkling wine. Stalin believed that if everyday citizens could access luxury goods like caviar and Champagne, it would show socialism had succeeded. The result was Sovetskoye Shampanskoye, a Soviet-made sparkler that achieved his goal of availability and affordability if not quality.

Pop art explored the concepts of mass production and consumerism

Consumerism emerged from industrial capitalism, promoting the idea that consuming goods was linked to personal success and happiness. Artists, especially pop artists, approached this cultural phenomenon through various perspectives, some supportive of consumerism and others against. Figures like Andy Warhol embraced mass media imagery and mimicked its style, while many artists rejected the “commodification” of things by creating art that couldn’t be sold or focusing on experiences rather than objects.

Visualizing the symbols and history of world flags

More than 200 world flags feature high-intent designs, projecting ideals and values to the world through archetypal symbols, colors, and shapes. This page effectively depicts the data behind symbol and shape usage, how much each country's flag has changed over time, the most popular colors used, and more in a series of elegantly simple charts.

See a massive collection of Norman Rockwell's paintings

Rockwell's works sought to capture authentic scenes from American life and, in the process, came to define the American ideal. This collection includes 244 of his paintings, from his early days at the Saturday Evening Post through his more socially minded work for Look, to the end of his career. Below is 1951's "Saying Grace."

The world's most famous portraits

"Afghan Girl" (1984), "Migrant Mother" (1936), and Marilyn Monroe in a billowing skirt (1954) are among the most famous portraits of all time. Capturing both unbelievable tragedy and delight, these 15 images are some of the most captivating in human history.

This poster helped publicize the Social Security Act

When the Social Security Act was passed in 1935, this poster was distributed across the US as part of a publicity campaign to help spread the news about how Social Security benefits for retirees worked.

See a visual history of the State of the Union

This gallery offers a visual archive of the State of the Union, featuring photographs from each president's address, beginning with Franklin D. Roosevelt. Explore decades of presidential moments, settings, and historical context tied to the annual speech.

Explore a gallery of astronomical images curated by the European Space Agency

The collection includes illustrations and images of aurorae, planets, stars, galaxies, stellar nurseries, star clusters, exoplanets, quasars and black holes. Mission photography of astronauts, shuttles and telescopes is also featured.

A literary critic on why classic Russian literature matters

Gary Saul Morson has spent his life studying Russian writers like Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy. In this 2022 talk at Hillsdale College, Morson focuses on classic texts like "The Brothers Karamazov" and "War and Peace," suggesting these Russian novels had as much to say about their home country as they did about the larger world. Most importantly, he argues, they still have much to offer modern readers.

Meet Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space

In addition to being the first human in space, Yuri Gagarin was a charismatic propaganda icon and a diplomatic headache for the West. This article examines why his image—and legacy—endured long after he died in 1968.

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

Check out pictures from the Bauhaus' elaborate costume parties

Bauhaus is known for its innovation, but, at the end of the day, it was still an art school. That means parties were regular occurrences and often featured elaborate costumes—Gropius once dressed as the renowned architect Le Corbusier, while Kandinsky was known for pretending to be an antenna.

What do psychedelic plants look like?

Far from the drippy aesthetic often associated with psychedelics, the plants powering naturally occurring psychoactive experiences may not stand out as anything special. This database offers a visual guide to psychoactive plants and fungi. Clicking on the title of a particular plant, such as yerba mate, will bring up a secondary screen with various hyperlinked images, such as the plant itself, related botanical drawings, and molecular structures.

See every Coachella lineup from the festival's 2-plus decades

The unveiling of the Coachella poster has become an annual cultural tradition (and an amusing internet meme). This official collection of every poster from the festival's lifespan showcases the undercard acts that eventually became headliners, as well as the big names that fell into obscurity. The collection shows not only a fascinating illustration of the evolution of pop culture, but also subtle changes in Coachella's design, offering a case study in slowly refining a brand's identity.

Explore an archive of Budweiser’s past Super Bowl ads

With about 47 of them airing over the past few decades, Budweiser’s Clydesdale ads have basically become synonymous with the Super Bowl—but how many have you actually seen? From 1991 to 2024, this website includes many of Budweiser’s most famous Super Bowl ads.

Lenin’s “dictatorship of the proletariat” meant power held by workers, not elites

Lenin argued that capitalism concentrated power in a small ruling class, and only transferring authority to industrial workers could eliminate exploitation and class hierarchy. This five-minute explainer outlines how he envisioned that revolutionary shift.

Read Orwell's original preface to 'Animal Farm,' criticizing the publishers who had rejected the book

Orwell's opening remarks for the 1945 publication chastised the publishers who'd rejected the manuscript, even quoting one of them directly who said they weren't interested in offending the Soviet Union, a British ally. The essay was not included with the book, though it appeared several decades later, after Orwell's death, in the Times Literary Supplement.

Explore the collection of vivid frescoes Pompeii left behind

This gallery showcases remarkably preserved frescoes depicting food, daily life, landscapes, and myth. Tools abandoned during the eruption reveal how ancient artists worked, offering insight into Pompeii’s visual culture before Vesuvius buried the city in ash.

See these 16 pieces of art evoking phobias of snakes, flying, spiders, and more. 

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

Explore fun facts from the USPS, including unique post office buildings, a stamp that traveled past Pluto, and more.

Before humans, the Soviet Union and the United States sent animals—including apes, dogs, and cats—to space during the Space Race.

Explore our favorite visualization of the immense scale of space, from an astronaut to the size of the observable universe

US intelligence allegedly pursued more than 600 schemes to assassinate Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Sunflowers have long been a symbol of nuclear disarmament because they can extract large amounts of radioactive cesium from soil.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

See how Budweiser's famous Clydesdales spend their days at Warm Springs Ranch, where roughly 70 to 80 of the beer brand's giant horses can be found at any given time.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is the largest ground war in Europe since World War II in casualties, forces mobilized, and displacement of civilians.

Explore a list of the 100 best novels of all time, compiled by some of the world's best living writers, including Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, and Jennifer Egan.

This site reaches millions of visitors who are tired of AI chatbots and seeking human connection. Pretend to be an AI chatbot and ask questions, provide answers, and draw for people in real time.

The identity of the Tank Man in the iconic photo from the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests remains unknown and was possibly killed.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

Dorothy's famous entrance into Oz in 'The Wizard of Oz' relied on analog tricks, including a body double and sepia-toned paint, as much as it did on technology

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

See photos of Meteora, a mountainous site in central Greece, home to 14th-century monasteries perched atop soaring outcroppings.

SpaceX's S-1 or 'prospectus' revealed many previously unknown details about the company, including its unprofitability despite doing $18.7B in revenue in 2025, exactly how many voting shares Elon Musk will have in the company (roughly 85%), and more.

In 2026, Finland was named the world's happiest country for the ninth consecutive year based on its wealth, social safety network, and high life expectancy, among other factors.

Take a 3D tour of the Hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken by more than 1.5 million Muslims each year.