The origin of the 'barbershop quartet'

The Boswell Sisters were the precursors to the American girl group

The jazz trio, popular in the ‘20s and ‘30s, doesn’t share much in common with the sounds of the well-known pop-oriented girl groups, but the sisters’ prominence in a male-dominated industry provided an early example for later groups. Check out their appearance in the 1932 film “The Big Broadcast,” performing the song “Crazy People.”

Bardcore: the modern exploration of medieval music

The medieval instrumentation and lyric interpretation of modern pop, rock, metal, and hip-hop took off in April 2020, launching a new and growing genre. Bardcore is defined by its use of musical nostalgia and internet culture’s “memeification,” according to the historians in this nearly two-hour-long podcast. Listen to this episode to hear a medievalist and music historian break down the rise, relevance, and reasons behind Bardcore.

British beard history, 101

The beard has gone in and out of fashion for centuries in Britain. It was hated in the 18th century but became a must in the 19th. This quick list rehashes 15 fascinating tidbits about the beard, including possible useful functions for them (a beard is equivalent to an SPF 21 sunscreen) and how barbers were often also surgeons.

Professional vocalists explain the mechanics of singing

Ever wonder how your favorite singer hits those high notes? Have you been amazed at someone bringing down the house at karaoke? The secret behind singing is that it's more technical than most realize. In this video, a handful of professional vocalists break down the basics to demonstrate how you can develop a more musical voice.

Bluegrass, a subgenre of country music, allows every participant to take a solo

The music grew popular after World War II and, like country, was based on a combination of blues, spirituals and Celtic folk songs. Bluegrass has a "high, lonesome sound," as pioneered by Bill Monroe, and features breaks for every melody instrumentalist to take a solo.

The history of music explained in 8 minutes

Traditional music history focuses on composers and sees music as an object. Historian Michael Spitzer focuses on music's role in everyday activity and sees it not as an object, but an activity. This brief history illuminates the fundamental role music plays in human culture, and sounds a hopeful not for music in the internet age.

Sondheim was the king of the patter song

Patter songs are up-tempo numbers that match beats and syllables, requiring singers to flex serious verbal dexterity. Stephen Sondheim's patter songs are some of the most famous in Broadway history, featuring rapid-fire speech and clever turns of phrase. This video breaks down some of the finest examples.

Comedic roasts, an ironic inversion of toasting, took off in the 20th century

Ribbing amongst friends likely goes back to the dawn of man, but formalizing the act caught on with fundraisers held by the Friar’s Club, a New York organization for theater agents. Rather than raising their glasses to good fortune and health, comics eviscerate an “honoree”—along with everyone else on stage—though they usually conclude with an earnest toast.

Virtually tour 10 of America's oldest bars

If you’re the type of person who hunts for authenticity in everything you do, then you probably spend a fair amount of time looking for the first and original. Why settle for any less in your bar choices? We dug through records, spoke with local historians and fact-checked promotional material to bring you the ultimate original bar list: The oldest bar in every state.

The US national anthem borrowed its melody from a British tavern song

Key’s original poem, “The Defence of Fort M’Henry,” was written to the meter of a well-known drinking song: “The Anacreon Song,” also known as “To Anacreon in Heaven.” The original song has more than a few sexual innuendos and was written by a Brit, two details that seem at odds with the serious and patriotic lyrics of Key’s poem.

What is a harpsichord?

The harpsichord is the precursor to today's piano, an accompanying instrument first developed in the Early Middle Ages. Rather than struck with hammers (like a piano), the strings of a harpsichord are plucked, producing a bright, consistent tone. The instrument provided harmony in ensemble music during the Renaissance and Baroque periods and featured prominently in opera.

Jazz built the template for hip-hop

Hip-hop was born out of obscure samples, including many that were taken from the annals of jazz. That style was especially popular in rap's early eras, with the subgenre "jazz rap" becoming an accurate descriptor for New York groups like A Tribe Called Quest and Gangstarr.

Exploring Oskar Schlemmer's 'Triadic Ballet,' a Bauhaus-inspired performance piece

The "symphonic dance of threeness" brought together Bauhaus' varied artistic interests and offered a fable in which collectivism wins. This history and timeline of the work details its origins as well as its near-destruction at the hands of the Nazis, who considered it profane.

Every ‘SNL’ host who's doubled as musical guest

This chronological list details every entertainer who’s both hosted and performed as musical guest through the show’s five decades. You’ll find some interesting tidbits, like Paul Simon breaking ground as the first to do it in 1975, and some serious headscratchers, like Garth Brooks performing as his alter ego Chris Gaines.

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

In the 1910s, sailors on a US Navy ship started using the term 'happy hour' in reference to their leisure hours

The leisure activities sailors were treated to during the ship's long voyages included boxing tournaments and dancing—but unlike the happy hours we know today, they likely didn’t involve alcohol. This article includes more information about happy hour’s origin story.

The word 'barbecue' is thought to come from 'barbicu'

Modern barbecue originated in the precolonial Caribbean and Americas. The word is thought to come from the Indigenous term for wooden frames used to cook meat high above the fire.

Listen to the earliest known recording of a whale song

A recording of a humpback whale was taken by scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution near Bermuda in 1949, but forgotten for decades. When first captured, researchers didn't know what animal they were hearing, and therefore didn't catalogue the recording. The well-preserved audio was found by the team's archivist in 2025.

Quincy Jones' 'Big Band Bossa Nova' helped introduce bossa nova—a jazz-influenced Brazilian genre—to the US

The card game Uno was invented by an Ohio barber

Merle Robbins created the game in 1971 after an argument with his son about the rules of the card game Crazy Eights. The discussion led to the creation of his own game, which he then went on to sell from his barbershop.

Richard Hamilton's iconic pop art collage inspired the set of 'Barbie' (2023)

Ken's Mojo Dojo Casa House in Greta Gerwig's "Barbie" was inspired by Hamilton's jumbled vision of a home in "Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?" Set designers cited the work as inspiring the mishmash of Americana imagery in the man cave.

How Monty Python shaped modern comedy

This video essay analyzes the way Monthy Python embodies postmodernism and Comedy of the Absurd through its off-the-wall humor, skewering social conventions and powerful institutions through its satirical sketches and movies. The video also traces the impact the comedy troupe Monthy Python had (and continues to have) on modern comedy, illustrating how popular shows like "South Park" and "Family Guy" and movies like "Deadpool" are indebted to the famous troupe.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

The origins and evolution of the Triple Crown

For nearly 100 years we’ve referred to the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes as the “Triple Crown.” But where did that term come from? It was popularized by a sports writer in the early 1930s. But this Old Smoke Clothing article, authored by the woman who wrote the book on Sir Barton, explores the British origins and how it gained popularity with Gallant Fox’s win in 1930.

The story of Sweeney Todd was first told in 1800s penny dreadfuls

The demon barber of Fleet Street made his first print appearance between the pages of penny dreadfuls, cheaply made serials filled with grisly tales and sold for a single penny. The tale of Sweeney Todd was published in 18 parts over the course of 18 weeks between November 1846 and March 1847. The series was expanded into 92 parts and later gathered into a single volume published in 1850.

Big Ocean is breaking barriers as the world's first deaf K-pop boy band

The three-person boy band—whose members have different levels of hearing loss—use light systems, vibrations, and a mix of Korean and American Sign Languages, as well as International Sign (which isn't a whole language), to communicate and keep their dance routines in sync. In this interview, a band member with partial hearing describes their challenges.

'Harry Potter’ inspired a real-life version of Quidditch

Created by college students in 2005, the broomstick-based sport became an international phenomenon with organized leagues and World Cup tournaments. Now called Quadball, it’s played in more than 40 countries worldwide.

Q-tips, invented in the 1920s, were first called 'Baby Gays'

After an immigrant from Poland observed his wife's method of wrapping a wad of cotton around a toothpick to clean their newborn daughter Betty's eyes, ears, and elsewhere during bathing he marketed the product in the mid-1920s as "Baby Gays." The later "Q-tip" name has competing origin stories—with the "q" standing for "quality" or, alternatively, it's a play on "Cutie-Tips" reportedly because Betty was a cute baby.

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

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

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

70 years ago today, city officials in Santa Cruz, California, banned rock 'n' roll to protect its youth from corruption after witnessing a 'provocative' concert the night before.

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.'

The idea for the Federal Reserve was conceived in secret in 1910—with bankers donning duck hunt gear for disguise while traveling to a remote country club on Georgia's Jekyll Island

The Ramones' 'Pet Sematary,' the theme song for the Stephen King novel of the same name, was written while the band was admiring the writer's collection of horror memorabilia.

According to the physics of black holes, our 4D reality may be a hologram—a projection of information coded on a 2D surface on the edge of the universe.

Crows are believed to have intelligence on par with a seven-year-old child and demonstrate complex behaviors, from problem-solving with tools to recognizing human faces.

Meet the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence—most of whom didn't put pen to paper until August 2, 1776—and see their original signatures.

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

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

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

Fish populations in the Great Barrier Reef have increased after installing waterproof speakers on the ocean floor that played recordings of sounds from healthy coral reefs.

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

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.

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%.

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.

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

Comedy legend Catherine O'Hara, star of 'Schitt's Creek' and 'Home Alone,' quit 'Saturday Night Live' after just one week to return to her old job.