A full documentary on the origins of Islam narrated by Ben Kingsley

A 12-minute crash course on Islam, its beliefs, and history

John Green's Crash Course World History episode overs Islam's core tenets, the Five Pillars, and the religions spread across continents in a jam-packed video under 15 minutes. The video is an efficient on-ramp for newcomers and is an ideal starting point to Islam.

A podcast dramatization of the schism that split Islam into Sunni and Shia

The events following Muhammad's death were a bitter succession dispute that divided Islam into its two major branches. You can relive them in this dramatic narrative from the Conflicted History podcast, which provides an immersive entry point into the issue.

A 3-minute look at Gandhi’s life, activism, and global influence

This video traces how a single incident launched Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolent campaign against British rule, helping end the Raj. Archival images and footage show how his methods later shaped leaders like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr.

A readable narrative account of how Muhammad first received the Quran

The story behind Ramadan's origins involves a lesser-known layer of personal drama for Muhammad, who fled the Cave of Hira in fear thinking he had been possessed by the angel communicating with him. Only his wife, Khadijah, was able to reassure him. The first revelation came during Ramadan in 610 CE, but the full Quran took 23 years for the angel Jibril (or Gabriel) to deliver.

Visualizing the spread of five major religions across the world

Every major religion has a story that started in a specific place before growing to reach millions. This quick video depicts an illustrated map over the last 5,000 years, showing how Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam grew from their humble beginnings.

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

British royal history from a literal bird's-eye view

Learn the history of British monarchs going back centuries with this unusual, 50-minute documentary filmed entirely from the air, revealing key landmarks in beautiful footage alongside engaging commentary.

A podcast deep dive into the British Empire and India

Season 1 of this acclaimed UK podcast, hosted by William Dalrymple and Anita Anand, delves into the East India Company, the Raj, Gandhi, and the forces that shaped—and ultimately unraveled—British rule in India.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan on why iftar at someone else's table is the whole point

The podcast "Not Even Water" interviews Khan about how Ramadan is actually lived, examining the hospitality culture that surrounds iftar, the logistics of suhoor, and what the month feels like from the inside. The episode is a grounded, personal view of the season.

A virtual tour of the Hajj pilgrimage

Over 2 million pilgrims travel to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, every year during the Hajj pilgrimage, a central tenet of the Islamic faith. The route traces one the Prophet Mohammed is said to have once walked, and involves challenging rituals including...

Listen to the music David Attenborough recorded during his expeditions around the world

During this audio documentary feature, Attenborough plays musical performances by communities he encountered while producing natural history series, including Gamelan orchestras in Bali, palace music in Tonga, and Aboriginal didgeridoo players. With each recording, he provides anecdotes about when it was made, decades ago.

How a 2025 Netflix documentary reveals the contested view of the Vietnam War

Brian Knappenberger created a five-part, seven-hour documentary on the war released on the streamer in 2025, the latest in a tradition of hundreds of documentaries covering the event. Expert Thomas Bass, the author of the essay, was invited to be interviewed for the documentary, arguing the conflict's origins are the most crucial aspects to understand. In turn, Bass interviewed Knappenberger—whose father fought in the war—on the Netflix production. Their discussion revealed how streamers mediate historical understanding to a generation that does not have a consensus on what the Vietnam War was.

A look at Sikh actor and designer Waris Ahluwalia

Waris Ahluwalia has acted in many films, including Wes Anderson's "Darjeeling Limited" and "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou," two classics from the cult favorite filmmaker. Read this brief inspiring piece on Ahluwalia's experience that defies...

Watch the director's cut of the award-winning documentary about LIGO

Production on the film began in August 2015, shortly before the facilities detected gravitational waves for the first time on September 14. Those interviewed, including future Nobel Laureates Kip Thorne and Barry Barish, provide their accounts of the discovery as events unfold in real time.

The 2007 animated film 'Persepolis' captures the Iranian Revolution through a child's eyes

The critically acclaimed film, based on Marjane Satrapi's graphic memoir, traces Iran's transformation from the Shah's rule through the revolution and its turbulent aftermath, showing how seismic political change shapes ordinary lives.

The Gold Road: how the medieval empires of West Africa traded across the Sahara

Throughout the Middle Ages, the West African empires of Ghana, Mali, and Songhai moved valuables across the Sahara and as far north as France using the Gold Road. This route enabled the trade of gold, ceramics, manuscripts, ivory, religion, and...

A young Spielberg was changed by DeMille’s ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’

The first movie Steven Spielberg saw was Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Greatest Show on Earth.” The movie’s on-screen train wreck frightened yet fascinated the young Spielberg—illustrating the visceral impact movies have on their audiences.

'Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.'

- Muhammad Ali (1942-2016)

Watch Mike Wallace's fascinating interview with Salvador Dalí

In 1958, Salvador Dalí spoke in a TV interview with legendary journalist Mike Wallace about genius, the subconscious, weakness, old age, luxury, religion, and dreams, among a range of other topics. During this candid conversation, Dalí challenged American audiences to consider death and mortality. Watch the discussion here.

Wafaa Bilal had a camera surgically implanted in the back of his head

The artist programmed the camera to capture one image per minute of his daily life. He explained that the project was meant to document his past—in a rather literal way—as it slipped away from him, in a mode that gestured at both surveillance and the radically objective nature of photos. Viewers can expect an immersive installation featuring thousands of mundane images transmitted to a website, challenging traditional photography and exploring the intersection of public and private information.

Hear the story of Milton Washington, a stateless biracial Korean American

In a BBC "Lives Less Ordinary" podcast, Milton Washington recounts his early life as a stateless child in South Korea—born to a Korean mother and a Black US soldier—and his path to US citizenship.

The history of 'Black Mirror,' according to its stars

"Black Mirror" began as a modest anthology show on Britain's Channel 4, offering bleak satire about contemporary technology. It quickly became a hit and attracted stars like Daniel Kaluuya, Jon Hamm, Rashida Jones, and Jesse Armstrong (who'd go on to show run HBO's "Succession"). This oral history of the show details its evolution to an international Netflix hit, providing insights into creator Charlie Brooker's approach to storytelling.

Elon Musk's will to launch: the early days of SpaceX

Radically reducing the cost of rockets and innovating totally new space vehicles originated in the singular force of Elon Musk's vision. In this podcast, Founders creator David Senra shares what he learned reading a book about SpaceX's beginnings, highlighting Musk's audacious refusal to follow industry conventions and promotion of a culture of action and speed. Learn more insights from the founder here.

A deep dive into Christopher Nolan's 'Odyssey' adaptation

The "Oppenheimer" director's take on Homer's epic might be the most anticipated movie of the summer. Dockterman's profile of Nolan explores how he's become a Hollywood rarity: a director who balances box-office numbers and critical acclaim.

Kamel Daoud's 'The Meursault Investigation' earned him a fatwa

Although the novel was read by many as a criticism of Camus' "The Stranger" and French colonialism in Algeria, it was also read by some as blasphemous. In December 2014, a member of the Islamic Awakening Front, a militant Islamist group, said the book "placed the Koran in doubt, along with the sanctity of Islam" and called for Daoud's execution.

Females are diagnosed with MS roughly 3 to 4 times more often than males

This PBS documentary traces a filmmaker's personal journey with MS after being diagnosed at age 26. It encompasses both his efforts to stymie the disease's progression and his search for answers about the disease, when, statistically, he seemed at low risk due to his gender, lack of known family risk, and other factors.

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

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

In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

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

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

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

One of the most famous portraits ever taken is 'Afghan Girl' (1984) by Steve McCurry, yet the subject Sharbat Gula went much of her life without being identified or benefitting from the image's success.

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.

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

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

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.'

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.

Hear about the 250-year history of the United States Postal Service, complete with some of its strangest deliveries, important innovations, and the figures that made it an American institution.

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

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

In 1963, a basement renovation in Turkey revealed a passageway to a hidden, multilevel underground city that once housed as many as 20,000 people

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

See how fireworks are made and learn how metals like magnesium and copper are responsible for different colors.

Many legends about George Washington, including his supposed wooden teeth and the story of cutting down the cherry tree, lack evidence.

Ebola is a filovirus, meaning it resembles a thread under a microscope, though it sometimes twists and can resemble a bowl of spaghetti.

The hormonal disorder PCOS was renamed PMOS in 2026, a move designed to improve care and research by shifting the focus to the hormonal causes of this condition that affects 1 in 8 women.