Emma Willard, the First Female Mapmaker in America, Creates Pioneering Maps of Time to Teach Students about Democracy (Circa 1851)
https://www.openculture.com/2025/08/emma-willard-the-first-female-mapmaker-in-america.html
Emma Willard, the First Female Mapmaker in America, Creates Pioneering Maps of Time to Teach Students about Democracy (Circa 1851)
We all know Marshall McLuhan’s pithy, endlessly quotable line “the medium is the message,” but rarely do we stop to ask which one comes first. The development of communication technologies may genuinely present us with a chicken or egg scenario.
When Soviet Youth Bootlegged Western Rock Music on Discarded X‑Rays: Hear Original Audio Samples
A catchy tribute to mid-century Soviet hipsters popped up a few years back in a song called “Stilyagi” by lo-fi L.A. hipsters Puro Instinct. The lyrics tell of a charismatic dude who impresses “all the girls in the neighborhood” with his “magnitizdat” and guitar. Wait, his what?
“When The Levee Breaks” Performed by John Paul Jones & Musicians Around the World
From Playing for Change comes this: 'When The Levee Breaks is a powerful, thought-provoking and emotionally-charged classic by Led Zeppelin, from their Led Zeppelin IV album.
How Errol Morris Became Obsessed with — and Figured Out — the Truth of a Famous War Photograph
Errol Morris didn't go all the way to the Crimean Peninsula just because of a sentence written by Susan Sontag.
Meet the “Telharmonium,” the First Synthesizer (and Predecessor to Muzak), Invented in 1897
Before the New Year, we brought you footage of Russian polymathic inventor Léon Theremin demonstrating the strange instrument that bears his surname, and we noted that the Theremin was the first electronic instrument.
An Introduction to Brutalism: The Iconic Postwar Architectural Style That Combined Utopianism and Concrete
https://www.openculture.com/2026/03/an-introduction-to-brutalism.html
An Introduction to Brutalism: The Iconic Postwar Architectural Style That Combined Utopianism and Concrete
The artificial language of Esperanto was conceived with high ideals in mind. In the eighteen-eighties, its creator L. L.
When Frank Lloyd Wright Designed a Doghouse, His Smallest Architectural Creation (1956)
On your first day in architecture school, you have to design a doghouse. Having never set foot inside an architecture school, I concede that the previous sentence may well be false, but you have to admit that it sounds plausible.
What Makes the Mona Lisa a Great Painting: A Deep Dive
This past summer we featured a short video introduction to the Mona Lisa here on Open Culture. You'd think that if any painting didn't need an introduction, that would be the one.
How Medieval Islamic Engineering Brought Water to the Alhambra
Between 711 and 1492, much of the Iberian Peninsula, including modern-day Spain, was under Muslim rule.
