European powers carved up nearly all of Africa in just 4 decades

The world rapidly decolonized after World War II

After WWII, weakened European powers faced mounting resistance from colonized peoples. Between 1945 and 1980, dozens of nations across Africa, Asia, and the Middle East gained independence.

The British Empire, explained

This three-minute 1440 explainer traces the rise of the British Empire, which at its height ruled nearly one in four people—about 500 million—and spanned so many regions that admirers called it “the empire on which the sun never sets.”

A timelapse mapping more than 30,000 Transatlantic slave ship voyages

Roughly 12 million people from Africa were forcibly moved to North and South America over two centuries. This map meticulously showcases every ship's origin, destination, timeline, and more, revealing the scale of the Transatlantic slave trade.

European colonization dramatically reshaped Native American life

As European settlers expanded across North America, Native Americans faced displacement, violence, and forced negotiations. Colonial powers used trade relationships, treaties, and military force to reshape Indigenous communities and claim their territories.

Mapping the shifts in ancient Greek territories

The jagged coastlines and many islands of the eastern Mediterranean peninsulas cultivated a seafaring civilization, which helped the Greeks colonize and trade in the Middle East, North Africa, and the rest of Europe. See the evolution of their territory with this quick animated map video.

The Sykes-Picot agreement as seen through Arab eyes

After WWI, the borders of the Middle East were redrawn by two men: Mark Sykes (UK) and Francois Picot (France). Signed in 1916, their secret agreement divided one of the most volatile regions in the world into states, cutting through ethnic and...

The Concert of Europe was an earlier attempt to manage great power relations through shared rules

After the Napoleonic wars, European powers established a system of regular consultation to manage conflicts and maintain the balance of power. It offered relative stability for nearly a century before deteriorating.

See how Ebola tore through Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia in 2014-2016.

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.

The missing continent that took 375 years to find

It took scientists 375 years to discover the eighth continent of the world, which had been hiding in plain sight all along. But mysteries still remain.

A visual summary of WWI

This animated video summarizes the "Great War"—World War I—tracing its progression through Europe, detailing the rise of nationalism in the middle of the 19th century until the signing of the peace treaties after 1918. This 18-minute provides a year-to-year accounting of the war with various helpful insights along the way.

Trade and conquest carried chess into Europe by the 11th century

After spreading through Persia, chess traveled along Islamic military and trade routes into North Africa and Moorish Spain by the 10th century. By the 11th century, it had taken root across much of Europe, flourishing in courts and monasteries.

Variations of marriage existed in ancient West Africa

The enormous landmass of Africa has been home to numerous cultures and countries, and there’s been no singular way to get married. One striking aspect has been the matrilineal belt across central Africa, where wealth was passed down through the female, rather than the male, line. In some regions, it was also acceptable for a woman to take more than one husband.

A podcast detailing the drug markets of East and Southern Africa

The African continent plays a critical role in the global illicit drug market. Often forgotten when discussing drug trafficking, organized criminal networks in Africa have established relationships with other criminal organizations around the world....

What can be found underneath the Saharan sands?

Watch this 19-minute video to learn more about what can be found under the Sahara Desert, which spans almost all of northern Africa and is one of the largest deserts in the world. Deep under the Sahara desert sands lies evidence of life that once...

Hear about why Europe obeyed the Monroe Doctrine, despite American military weakness

This podcast explores the European background of the Monroe Doctrine, highlighting France's efforts to install aristocratic Bourbon monarchs in the newly independent Latin American republics—and how US opposition, British threats, and Spanish resistance ultimately disrupted those plans.

How did China go from an empire to a republic?

In the 1800s, as China's economy was in flux, foreign imperialist powers began appearing on the horizon, leading China to lose land and influence in the region. This 48-minute podcast episode explores how this destabilization set the stage for the...

Compare the true size of any country

This interactive lets you drag any country across the conventional Mercator projection to compare its true size to others. Africa, which appears similar in size to Greenland on standard maps, is actually close to 15 times larger. It's a great way to recalibrate your assumptions about world geography.

Three Ebola species are responsible for most large outbreaks of the disease

The Ebola Zaire, Sudan, and Bundibugyo species are the three ebolaviruses responsible for most large outbreaks in Africa. Among these, Ebola Zaire is the deadliest, with as many as 90% of cases resulting in death. Ebola Sudan has about a 50% fatality rate and has caused several outbreaks in Uganda. More recently discovered in 2007, Bundibugyo causes death in about 30% of people and has caused two large outbreaks in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) before the spring 2026 DRC outbreak. Taï Forest virus is the rarest and is known to have infected a single person in the Côte d'Ivoire in 1994.

The formation and breakup of Pangaea altered Earth’s geology and biodiversity

Coming from the Greek words for “all” (pan) and “Earth” (gaia), the supercontinent existed from about 320 million to 195 million years ago. The tectonic activity that split Pangaea into today’s continents may one day bring the continents back together, forming Pangaea Proxima.

The money behind Eurovision

Countries pay to take part in Eurovision, with the biggest economies—Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Spain, also known as the Big Five—paying the most. That unequal entry fee is not entirely for charity's sake: The Big Five countries are guaranteed spots in Eurovision's finals.

The bizarre 1920 proposal to form a pizza-shaped central European state

In light of the challenges of the Treaty of Versailles, which concluded the Great War, a mostly unknown author, and son of the map's printer, PA Maas suggested central Europe be integrated into a single state. With a central capital in Vienna, 24 Kantons, or regions, would radiate outward in pie-slice shapes.

Rock expanded to Africa, where it was used as a political artform

The Nigerian rock scene began after Bill Haley’s "Rock Around the Clock" film premiered in the country, inspiring young people to take up electric guitars. The music was also an integral part of the country’s civil war, with conscripted bands entertaining soldiers on both sides of the conflict.

The US finished what the French had started with Panama's canal

For about two decades, Suez Canal-builder and Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps led the project, but financial troubles forced it into the hands of the US, who completed it in 1914. This timeline, made to accompany the definitive PBS American Experience documentary about the canal, highlights major moments in its construction.

The colonial origins of Haiti/Dominican Republic divide

This 16-minute video explores the colonial origins of the modern-day split between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Haiti previously was the French-Caribbean colony of Saint-Domingue, which was torn off the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo in 1697....

The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act abolished national-origin quotas and transformed the demographics of America

Following decades of citizens pressing for reform, President Johnson signed legislation abolishing national-origin quotas, enabling increased immigration from Asia and Africa. The LBJ Presidential Library features photos, videos, audio clips, and text from the 1965 signing ceremony.

The American cockroach is actually from Africa, an apparent hitchhiker aboard ships carrying enslaved people, with evidence suggesting the bug may have arrived in the New World as early as the 1600s.

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

The United States is one of only around two dozen countries with a fully federal system of government, in which power is divided between national and state governments.

Explore an interactive map of battles from the American Revolution, along with detailed summaries of each engagement

Against his wishes, Albert Einstein's brain was removed before his cremation, and the pathologist responsible stored it for decades in mason jars within a beer cooler.

The US first hosted the World Cup in 1994, a tournament that lives in soccer infamy for its poor planning and the murder of Colombian player Andres Escobar, who'd accidentally scored on his own net.

Watch a 1934 short film starring jazz legend Cab Calloway, a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance's music scene

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.

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

Explore the history, structure, and species of Australia's Great Barrier Reef with this interactive journey narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

After NASA's Voyager 1 captured Earth as a single pixel as it left the solar system in 1990, astronomer Carl Sagan used the image to reflect on humanity's fragility and the responsibility to protect 'the only world we've ever known.'

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

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

Visualize the path of every solar eclipse from 1900 to 2099 and see what each looks like when observed from different locations on Earth.

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

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

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

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.

Watch this video that uses Lego bricks to explain how venture capital works.

Search a massive database of over 4 decades of clues from the TV quiz show 'Jeopardy!'

Watch how deep-sea mining equipment collects and processes polymetallic nodules—metal-rich, potato-shaped rocks—from the ocean floor and creates environmentally damaging plumes of sediments.

Watch contemporary footage covering the US-backed Shah of Iran fleeing the country in the face of the 1979 Iranian Revolution

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

The Nasdaq's 'Magnificent 7' companies are responsible for roughly 40% of the Nasdaq 100 index's gains, while the remaining 93 companies account for the other 60%.