Wealthy patricians and poorer plebeians struggled for power for centuries

Colosseum spectators needed tickets and social rank to get a good seat

Entry to the Colosseum was free but tightly controlled: spectators presented tesserae, sat strictly by class, and risked losing their seats if they left for lunch, while senators watched in comfort and women and slaves were pushed to the top tiers.

Ancient Romans were registered in lists of citizens to confirm their identity

Falsely claiming to be a Roman citizen was a capital offense, but taking up another identity was one way people could change their lot. Several accounts report how escaped enslaved people sought freedom by pretending to be citizens, and multiple "Neros" appeared after the real emperor died in 68 CE.

Trade and tariffs in the Roman world

Trade between nations and empires date back thousands of years, including the use of tariffs to raise government revenue.

The 12 tables: Rome's attempt to fairly enforce the law

It's unclear exactly why ancient Romans drafted the Laws of the Twelve Tables in the mid-400s BCE, but the result was a collection of precisely worded, written laws that could be made known to everyone. This article explores the history and importance of these 12 bronze tables, which were an attempt to make the law equally applicable to all and were destroyed when Rome was attacked in 390 BCE.

Spartacus led a 70,000-strong slave army that defeated Roman forces

After escaping a gladiator school in Capua, Spartacus led the largest slave revolt in Roman history, routing Roman armies before being crushed by forces under the command of Crassus and Pompey. Later generations recast him as a symbol of resistance.

Roman terror was key to its centuries-long dominance

Historians like Polybius recorded Rome's violent tactics in detail, including the enslavement of entire populations and the mass killing of whole cities. Even as terror and violence proved effective in war, many Romans came to view the tactics with skepticism.

A day in the life of a Roman soldier

In 15 CE, Roman legionary Servius Felix was eight years into a 25-year career as a warrior for the Empire. Born to a poor farmer who hoped to retire and receive several acres of land, Servius served amid fights with Germanic tribes from the north. He hopes to marry a woman back home and mourns the loss of his fallen friends.

For most of human history, property rights were in the elite’s hands

Humans learned to domesticate dogs long before they formed the concept of private property. But by the era of the ancient Greeks and Romans, property law and ownership became more sophisticated.

Spartans could be both brave and cowardly, contrary to popular belief

Though the militant city-state of ancient Sparta had its fair share of heroic warriors, it wasn't all glorious battle. Contrary to depictions in films like "300," the city-state consisted of land-owning aristocrats not so willing to die for their peninsular polis.

Congressional turnover was far more common in the early republic

Many early lawmakers served just one or two terms before stepping aside, reflecting the ideal of the citizen legislator and the discomforts of living in Washington, DC. Longer careers in Congress became typical only later in the 19th century.

What did democracy really mean in Athens?

Ancient Athens chose the vast majority of its public servants by lottery, a process of random selection known as sortition. Roughly 30,000 people were eligible for the lottery to serve as jurors, magistrates, and more. Monthly assemblies called the "ekklesia" occurred where anyone could attend and speak, but 500 governing council members called the "Boule" set the agenda.

Cleopatra was a rare female pharaoh who sided with Rome to preserve power

The figure is famous for her love affair with Roman leader Mark Antony and her suicide in 30 BCE to escape capture. Parse through the many versions of Cleopatra with more recent archaeological evidence, including a 2007 coin depicting the queen as less glamorous than historically believed.

Researchers think most of its residents escaped with their lives—but how?

With only a few hundred bodies recovered, evidence suggests most Pompeiians fled. This TED-Ed animation follows the stories of three hypothetical residents—one who stayed inside, one who ran, and one who fled by sea—to illustrate how their survival ultimately depended on the choices they made.

The conflict between Hamilton and Jefferson was primarily over federalism

Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson clashed over how power should be divided in the new republic—Hamilton favoring a strong national government with broad implied powers, and Jefferson warning that such authority would erode state power and threaten republican liberty.

The art of classical rhetoric

Ancient orators snapped human communication in two: the open palm of persuasive rhetoric versus the closed fist of evidence-heavy dialectic. The former seeks to convince the many via one's speech, while the latter seeks the truth in an argument. In ancient Rome, rhetoric had five "canons": invention, arrangement, style, memorization, and delivery. Loading the rhetorical canons in order was meant to help orators craft an effective and impactful speech.

The rivalry between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson centered on federalism—the question of how much power the federal government should hold relative to the states.

Presidents from both parties have resisted the authority of the War Powers Act

Presidents from both parties have treated the War Powers Resolution as voluntary, framing compliance as seeking "support" rather than "permission." Courts have declined to rule on the law's constitutionality each time a related case was brought before them.

When Marcus Aurelius created endowed philosophy chairs in Athens

The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius is known as one of the most famous Stoic writers or thinkers, penning his classic opus ‘Meditations.’ In 176 CE, he endowed four philosophy chairs in Athens: one for Stoicism, and one for three of Stoicism’s rival schools: Aristotelianism, Platonism, and Epicureanism.

The Partitions of Poland led to the erasure of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

Political instability and foreign interference weakened the Commonwealth, which was eventually divided between Prussia, Austria, and Russia. Poland would not be re-established until after World War I and decades of imperial oppression.

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.

The debate over estate taxes centers on wealth inequality

Since the modern federal estate tax was implemented, people have felt strongly about whether or not to keep it. Much of the debate boils down to equality: Proponents say the tax creates better income equality between the rich and poor, while opponents say it's an inequitable tax only placed on the wealthy.

The Occupy Wall Street protests lasted 59 days

After the 2008 recession, one of the main slogans of Occupy Wall Street was, “We are the 99%,” alluding to the wealth disparity between America’s wealthiest 1% of all households and the rest of the country.

Plato's allegory of the cave is a metaphor for the value of learning

In the story, which comes from the Socratic dialogue, "The Republic," a group of prisoners are confined in a cave since birth—chained and facing a wall with a fire behind them, so any glimpses of life were rendered by shadows. One prisoner escapes and lands in a strange and unfamiliar world, an analogy for the role of the philosopher.

Austen grew up as a member of the 'pseudo-gentry'

Her family grew up near the upper crust of society, but was never fully of it; at times, the family struggled to make ends meet. Austen scholar Dr. Lizzie Rogers said this made her part of the "pseudo-gentry," a contemporary term naming a respected group that still fell short of the aristocratic "landed-gentry." Rogers believes that perspective informed the writer's novels, which often dealt with social conventions.

Before Social Security, elderly Americans relied on family support, limited state pensions, or company-sponsored pensions

Before Social Security benefits were available to American retirees, they had to find other ways to get by. Pensions were only available to roughly 15% of workers, and most elderly Americans went without meaningful economic security.

The modern Olympic truce originated in a real pause in ancient conflict

Back in Ancient Greece, neighboring city-states were constantly at war. So when the Olympics started in 776 BCE, they needed a way to keep the peace. This video from the International Olympic Committee discusses the origins of the Olympic Truce and its reinstatement at the 1994 Games in Lillehammer.

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

Explore the archaeological treasures of Pompeii, the city buried under volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE.

Despite being favored by 87% of Americans, Congress does not have term limits.

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

Dozens of S&P 500 stocks, including Coca-Cola and Walmart—known as the dividend aristocrats—have increased dividends every year for 25 years

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is independent of Iran's regular army and is one of the most powerful and influential military-political organizations in the Middle East.

In 2025, four executives from large tech companies were given positions in the US Army Reserves—including Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar, which reinforced Palantir's ties with the US military and its role as a leading defense partner.

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

The syncytiotrophoblast is the outer layer of the placenta and the largest human cell, spanning an area about twice that of a king-sized bedsheet.

The original copy of the Declaration of Independence is not a pristine document, and even features a smudged anonymous handprint in the bottom left corner.

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

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

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.

The United States has had a tumultuous relationship with Cuba since its 1959 revolution, highlighted by a nuclear crisis and a decades-long trade embargo.

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

An initial public offering or 'IPO' is the process of a private company becoming public by putting shares of the company on the stock market for purchase.

Some coin denominations have ridges etched on their sides, partly to prevent counterfeiting, in a practice called 'reeding.'

Lesser-known phobias include turophobia, or the fear of cheese, and nomophobia, the fear of being without your cell phone.

Listen to an in-depth conversation on the links between Parkinson's disease and herbicide exposure and the challenging pace of scientific investigation.

While the sun's gravity keeps the planets in orbit, their gravity also pulls on the sun, causing it and everything else in the solar system to orbit around a mutual balance point called the barycenter—the true center of the solar system.

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.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

The Beatles' US label rejected the band's first two singles, 'Please Please Me' and 'From Me to You,' with one executive calling the band 'dead in the water.'