After Victoria became Queen, English children’s names became really weird. A girl called Never… a boy called Toilet… For one poor teacher, taking the class register is almost impossible!

The English language has changed in many ways over the centuries, but the internet has changed it in just a few decades. Why use a whole sentence when an abbreviation will do?

Not long ago, in Welsh schools, the pupils weren’t allowed to speak their native language, Welsh! There was no choice but to learn English. In the Victorian classroom, learning is dull and repetitive, but today’s lesson is not going exactly as the teacher has planned.

Continuing to pirate audaciously, Blackbeard sails up the eastern coast of the United States, where, incredibly, he secures a pardon from the Governor of North Carolina. Setting up base on an island, he is soon plundering ships again, but by now has made some determined enemies and faces capture, dead or alive.

Even if you're not the biggest fan of school, you've got to admit it's better than the historical schools depicted in this series! They certainly had some questionable moral codes and weird punishments...

How can one brother travel into space and return younger than his twin? In just sixty seconds, a startling side effect of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is explained to us.

Maggie has just landed in Mexico, and heads straight for Tulum, a once crucial trading post for the Mayan civilization, with spectacular clifftop ruins.

This ancient mathematical trickery posits that a mighty hero cannot overtake a tortoise. Zeno of Elea (born c. 490 BCE) is the author of this and other paradoxes.

The Irish Rovers is a Irish-Canadian folk band. Their song "Titanic" is a tribute to the famous RMS Titanic, written on its 100th Anniversary. It tells of the ship’s beginnings and Irish pride, as well as its devastating sinking.

Stevie Salas and Christina Fon discuss what is next for the film Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World as it premieres around the world.

Filmmakers Christina Fon and Stevie Salas are interviewed about Rumble, their documentary exploring how Native American musicians have influenced rock n' roll.

Ellis Island, the U.S. gateway to immigration from distant lands, has been reopened to visitors, following significant damage from Hurricane Sandy. A visit there, and to the nearby Statue of Liberty, can be emotional, even for those born in the U.S.

Over the course of human history, thousands of languages have developed from what was once a much smaller number. How did we end up with so many? And how do we keep track of them all? Alex Gendler explains how linguists group languages into language families, demonstrating how these linguistic trees give us crucial insights into the past.

What does the Holocaust have to do with us, anyway? In part three, Roderick Miller, the chair of the nonprofit organization Tracing the Past, gives a talk at TEDxVienna about the Holocaust and contemporary Europeans' perception of the space they live in.

What does the Holocaust have to do with us, anyway? In part two, Roderick Miller, the chair of the nonprofit organization Tracing the Past, gives a talk at TEDxVienna about the Holocaust and contemporary Europeans' perception of the space they live in.

Did you know that the T-Rex dinosaur is closer to us in time than to its distant ancestor, the Stegosaurus? Watch this amazing video for the fastest history of the universe ever told!
This video has been a collaboration of KURZGESAGT & WAITBUTWHY!

Time makes sense in small pieces. But when you look at huge stretches of time, it’s almost impossible to wrap your head around things. So KURZGESAGT teamed up with the awesome blog WAITBUTWHY and made this video to help you put things in perspective!

Nursery rhymes are for children. The rhyme about Humpty Dumpty, however, is so famous that it's been used in literary and cinematic contexts as well.

Annette visits the Erickson Aircraft Collection in Madras, Oregon. A highlight of the collection is a plane that appeared in a very famous movie.

Annette talks about the Wild West, and takes us to a famous gold mining town in South Dakota that was an important part of United States history.

A humorous look at American English from a British point of view.

Many secrets remain surrounding the creation of Stonehenge. Archaeologists try to unravel the mystery.

Though most might be unaware, the US state of California was named after a place that doesn't exist outside of literature, similar to Narnia. "California" comes from a novel written in the Spanish Golden Age.