Curated playlist
Western culture
- Scramble for AfricaBy 1914, only Ethiopia and Liberia in Africa remained outside European control.
- Age of EnlightenmentIn 1784, Immanuel Kant answered the question of what enlightenment is with two words: dare to know.
- Western SchismIn 1378, French cardinals elected a second pope while one already sat in Rome. This began the Western Schism.
- CapitalismThe word capitalism began as an insult from people who wanted to tear the system down.
- Western imperialism in AsiaWestern rule in Asia formally ended in 1999, when Portuguese Macau became independent. Portugal arrived first.
- Great DivergenceWhy did Western Europe pull ahead of China and India by the 19th century?
- Media franchiseThe Matrix Reloaded and a video game were made together and released the same day. That is media franchising at work.
- RenaissanceFlorence lost nearly half its people to plague in 1348. Yet the Renaissance began there soon after.
- Colonisation of AfricaAfter the Third Punic War, Rome razed the North African city of Carthage entirely.
- Western worldAustralia lies in the Eastern Hemisphere, yet almost no one disputes it belongs to the Western world.
- ChristianityChristianity's first followers did not think they were founding a new faith. They were waiting for Jesus to return.
- Human rightsThe Cold War split the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into two separate treaties.
- Western cultureWestern culture has no fixed borders on any map. The idea still shapes alliances, constitutions and wars.
- Abrahamic religionsThe term "Abrahamic religions" is only a 20th-century invention. It partly replaced "Judeo-Christian" to include Islam.
- Neo-Latin studiesMany Neo-Latin texts have never been translated or even transcribed from manuscript.
- Modern eraThe word "modern" was coined shortly before 1585. It first described only Europe and the Western world.
- Greek East and Latin WestMarcus Aurelius wrote his Meditations in Greek, not Latin. Latin speakers often learned Greek, not the reverse.
- Western literatureItaly's first vernacular poetry was not in Italian. It was Occitan, brought by troubadours from southern France.
- Western philosophyWestern philosophy begins with a man who said, "all is water." Thales of Miletus argued his case with reason, not fable.
- East–West SchismThe East-West Schism, also called the Great Schism, is the break of communion between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. Its traditional date is the 16th of July 1054. On that day, a delegation from Rome walked into Hagia…
- Country musicThe steel guitar in country music traces back to Hawaii, not Appalachia. Country's sound was a braid of many traditions.
- Greco-Roman worldRome's most cultivated readers collected books in a language that was not their own.
- Judeo-ChristianJudeo-Christian first meant Jewish converts to Christianity. Alexander McCaul used it that way in an 1821 letter.
- Pop musicFor years, nobody could tell pop music from rock and roll. The two words meant nearly the same until the late 1960s.
- Roman EmpireThe Roman Empire began as a republic run by elected officials. It still lasted, in one form or another, until 1453.
- Information AgeIn the late 1980s, less than 1% of stored information was digital. By 2014, more than 99% was.