Europe’s first universities emerged from medieval church school

Medieval Europe explained

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Europe fragmented into agrarian Christian kingdoms that fostered the development of universities, guilds, and expanding commerce. Far from a “Dark Age,” the medieval era shaped Europe as a distinct cultural and political unit.

Medieval hospitals existed centuries before modern medicine

Long before modern healthcare, medieval Europe established hospitals that served multiple roles, including religious, social, and medical purposes. This podcast explores how institutions like Siena’s Ospedale di Santa Maria della Scala supported urban and rural communities for centuries.

Until 1970, the Sorbonne was the most prestigious academic institution in France

Named after its founder, Robert de Sorbon, the former University of Paris was founded in 1253 to teach clerics and agents of royal and ecclesiastical institutions. The school was split into several autonomous universities after protests in May 1968.

Medieval monasteries preserved ancient knowledge through hand-copied books

Medieval monks and nuns lived in religious communities devoted to work and prayer. Still, their script-copying traditions had a lasting impact: through illuminated manuscripts, monasteries preserved hundreds of ancient texts that might have otherwise been lost.

How Byzantine scholars supercharged Renaissance Italy

A brief survey of how Byzantine scholars changed the course of the Renaissance by introducing Classical Greek literature to Italy. These scholars and their students were responsible for translating, interpreting, and printing many of the most fundamental texts in the Western tradition. Without their efforts, the Italian Renaissance and Western thought would have been immeasurably poorer.

The First Amendment established religious freedom as a constitutional right—a safeguard no other nation had before

Europe had limited religious tolerance for centuries, but always as a privilege granted by rulers who could revoke it. The First Amendment in the United States was unique for the time: It banned the government from interfering with religion, making religious freedom a permanent constitutional limit on state power.

The Knights Templar were the first officially recognized Christian military order

The Knights Templar sought to protect Christian pilgrims and expand their religion’s influence through might. The warrior monk organization formed after the First Crusade and were named after the fallen First Temple of King Solomon, out of which they were based—leading to the name “Templars.” This article describes the rise and fall of the monastic order.

For centuries, European aristocrats made travel a rite of passage

Starting in the 16th century, young English aristocrats mounted “Grand Tours” of Europe. Accompanying tutors provided lessons in the continent’s architecture, art, history, and literature. A Grand Tour wasn’t just for classical education, though; it was also an opportunity for young men to indulge in vices away from their parents.

The bond market dates back to the 1100s in Venice

In the early 1800s, bonds were used to fund US railroads and canals in Great Britain. “Liberty Bonds” were sold during both World Wars in the 20th century. Learning about the early and modern history of bonds can offer a glimpse into how the modern bond market came to be.

The word 'vampire' appeared in the English-speaking world in the 1730s

However, earlier mentions of creatures with similar characteristics existed throughout Medieval Europe. For example, people often spoke of revenants—restless dead creatures who tormented the living. Historians believe these stories grew in popularity in part because of influence from the Catholic Church, which was emphasizing the idea of purgatory. These older revenant stories eventually influenced modern vampire folklore.

Christmas carols evolved from medieval folk songs to modern holiday staples

Christmas carols began as communal folk songs in medieval Europe, and were later adapted into religious hymns. Revived in England in the 19th century, they have become a core holiday tradition around the world.

The roots of American law and the jury system trace back to medieval England

King Henry II established a jury of 12 local knights to settle land disputes in the 12th century, and his judges developed national laws common to everyone. American courts inherited this "common law" tradition directly from the English system.

19th-century Americans discovered tipping in Europe

Tipping waiters was a custom in medieval Europe, where masters gave their serfs money for exceptional work. Wealthy Americans vacationing in Europe in the mid-1800s discovered the behavior and brought it back to the US.

Europe’s first recorded influenza pandemic swept the continent in 1580

The 1580 influenza pandemic, traced from Asia to Africa and into Europe, became the first flu outbreak clearly documented across the continent—killing tens of thousands and highlighting influenza’s potential for rapid global spread.

Catholic education has grown smaller in the 21st Century

Declining numbers of priests and nuns, who often worked in the schools for free, led schools to increase tuition, which inadvertently turned away the schools’ primary demographic: working-class immigrant families. At the same time, the sexual abuse scandals of the early 2000s left many others feeling like Catholic schools were dangerous.

Operas first began at the end of the Italian Renaissance

Opera is a storytelling art form that has seen various eras including the Renaissance, Baroque period, Classical period, Romantic period, 20th Century, and Modern period. Each era has its own distinct style, reflecting the tastes of its people and prominent composers.

A 15th-century university student documented a surprisingly detailed fitness plan

Modern fitness stems from the revolution in the knowledge we have of the human body, its cardiovascular systems, how muscles work, and more. Nonetheless, people through the centuries have had fitness regimes—including one university student whose fitness plan was preserved in an obscure document found between a manuscript.

Massachusetts passed the first compulsory education law as early as 1642

The legislation required families to instruct children in religious and colonial law. By 1852, Massachusetts mandated that all children ages 8 to 14 attend school. By 1918, every state had a similar law.

Why endowments took off at the turn of the century

After the Civil War, economic growth boosted philanthropy, much of it ending up in universities and colleges. Charles Eliot, the longtime president of Harvard, realized a university’s success was determined by how much money it could hold in the endowment. His approach to endowments radically changed their role in the modern university.

The first Eurovision took place in 1956

The contest was organized by the European Broadcasting Union, a collective of public broadcasters, to help unify postwar Europe. The first Eurovision took place in the spring of 1956 in Lugano, Switzerland, and was broadcast in black and white.

Pizza is believed to have been invented in Naples

Flatbreads were eaten by ancient Egyptians, Romans, and Greeks, but historians trace pizza—flatbread with toppings, including present-day staples like tomatoes, cheese, garlic, oregano, and oil—back to 18th-century Naples, where the food was loved by its working poor, who appreciated a cheap, tasty meal. Naples formally became a part of Italy in 1861.

King's books are now taught by college professors

Stephen King’s horror, fantasy, and science fiction were once considered lowbrow and unworthy of serious academic study. That's changed over the last 50 years, with King courses and symposiums taking place at universities around the world.

Modern physics suggests that many universes with different physical laws could exist

Physicists suggest that quantum fluctuations in the early universe could have given rise to these universes. Ancient Greek philosophers like Chrysippus proposed a version of the multiverse over 2,000 years ago—millennia before its adoption into various theoretical frameworks today.

Chess traces its roots to chaturanga in sixth-century India

The earliest form of chess, known as chaturanga, emerged in India around the sixth century. The game simulated four divisions of the military—infantry, cavalry, elephants, and chariots—and laid the foundation for modern chess’ structure and strategy.

Who was the world's first author?

This article details the effort to define the world's first author, as supported by current archaeological evidence. Clay disks found in an ancient Sumerian city point to Enheduanna, a high priestess and daughter of Akkadian King Sargon, as the...

Volcanic activity may have triggered the Black Death by spewing gases that led to crop failures in Europe, thus forcing the import of grain ships with plague-infested fleas.

The term 'algorithm' originated from the Latinized name of al-Khwārizmī, a 9th-century mathematician whose works introduced Arabic numerals and the decimal-based numeral system to Europe and whose treatise 'Al-Jabr' gave algebra its name.

Poison ivy was sent to Europe in the 1600s as an exotic, ornamental oddity, where it was purposefully grown in the English royal gardens at Kew, the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, and a few other locations.

Trace how the Bill of Rights, inspired by centuries of political theory, took shape between 1774 and 1789.

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

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

The first horror movie is believed to be George Méliès' 1986 short 'The Haunted Castle,' which pioneered the use of special effects

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, and became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

The concept of phantom limbs, the perception that amputated limbs are still present, dates back to a French military surgeon in the 16th century.

Elk Cloner, the first computer virus to spread in public, was written as a practical joke by Richard Skrenta, a Pittsburgh high school student.

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.

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO

Play the role of a student in a game where you try to navigate college and remain debt-free, selecting different income levels, high school experience, race, ethnicity, and more.

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama spent the 2025 summer training with monks in central China to enhance his body and mind.

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

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

Most of the observable universe's volume consists of voids and supervoids—enormous regions of space with little to no galaxies, stars, or light.

44% of Americans say they pray at least once a day—discover how your state's religiosity stacks up against the rest of the country.

Electrical grids worldwide must double their power delivery capacity by 2050 to meet surging demand from AI and electric vehicles.

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

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.

Planarian flatworms are small, aquatic worms with exceptional regenerative capabilities. When cut, the worms can regenerate multiple bodies in a matter of weeks.