The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund
On Christmas Eve 1989, Norway received a massive Christmas present. After years of failed drilling attempts, Norway announced they had discovered one of the largest oil reserves on Earth. This remark...
25 Aug 14min
All About Flags
Flags are among the oldest and most successful systems of visual communication ever devised. Long before they became symbols of countries, flags and flag-like objects identified armies, rulers, reli...
24 Aug 16min
The Doctor's Riot of 1788
In the years after the American Revolution, New York City was growing rapidly, and so was the demand for trained physicians. But medical education required something that was difficult to obtain leg...
23 Aug 13min
German Americans
According to the US Census, the single largest ethnic group in the United States are Germans. More than 40 million Americans identified German as their ancestry, nearly 12 percent of the total populat...
22 Aug 16min
The History of Banks and Banking (Encore)
One of the biggest and most important industries in the world is banking. Banks control an enormous amount of money and are often the most influential economic institutions in most countries. Yet,...
21 Aug 16min
The Florence. Cathedral
For more than a century, one of Europe's richest cities worked on a building it did not yet know how to finish. Its designers created an enormous space that seemed impossible to cover, leaving future...
20 Aug 15min
The Surprising History of the Plow
For most of human history, growing food depended on one deceptively simple piece of technology. Over thousands of years, it evolved from little more than a sharpened stick into a machine that could t...
19 Aug 15min
The Liberal Arts
For thousands of years, educators have wrestled with the question: what knowledge does a person truly need? The answer once included seven formal subjects that established the foundation of education...
18 Aug 15min
