Reed & Wright

09/19/2014

Another astonishingly rich collection of works, all available for download.

http://www.getty.edu/publications/virtuallibrary/index.html

Books in the fields of art, photography, archaeology, architecture, conservation, and the humanities for both general and specialized audiences.

08/29/2014

Yup.

And, as usual, be sure to read the rollover.

http://xkcd.com/1414/

Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors).

08/20/2014

Good to know.

http://www.openculture.com/2014/03/the-harvard-classics-download-all-51-volumes-as-free-ebooks.html

Every revolutionary age produces its own kind of nostalgia.

06/24/2014

Our flagship chart. We've been expanding and revising this since 2001. Started working on it in 1997, actually.

Two feet by three feet. Comprehensive.

06/23/2014

Now HERE are some educational essays that just about any kid could get into.

http://imgur.com/a/YDGv7

…The Mughals were badasses. Their founder, Babar, had quite the lineage to begin with: descendant of Tamerlane (an Uzbeki warlord known for constructing pyramids out of his enemies’ skulls) on his father’s side and grandson of Genghis Khan on his mother’s. The Mughals continued and refined this legacy. On the one hand they did so militaristically, riding elephants into battle, redefining warfare, and expanding the empire until it encompassed all of present-day India and beyond.

06/22/2014

Scientists consider ALL aspects of the origins of their daily bread.

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=13118 -13118

This site contains several years of research in the classification of occlupanids. These small objects are everywhere, dotting supermarket aisles and sidewalks with an impressive array of form and color. The Holotypic Occlupanid Research Group has taken on the mantle of classifying this most common,…

06/21/2014

You might as well ask.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I64CQp6z0Pk

Web cartoonist Randall Munroe answers simple what-if questions ("what if you hit a baseball moving at the speed of light?") using math, physics, logic and de...

05/26/2014

It is Memorial Day. And the day's election results show us that far more war lies ahead of us. I would love to devote this day to sweet, gentle reverences to those who have fought and sacrificed before. In past years I've done just that. The years of my life that I used up on our chronology of U.S. military combat should make it amply clear that I take that seriously.

But I think that today the best silent contemplation that we can do, the best way to respect all who have fought for the right things, is to think seriously, in entirely concrete and real terms, about what we, personally, are doing now and preparing to do in the years ahead to fight for all those big things that so many now feel self-conscious even saying by name in their own minds.

How are you fighting for the freedom of all people? How will you in the years ahead?

How are you fighting for rule of law? For equal justice for all people? Against prejudice? What are you doing to see to it that the wealth of our world, now reaching almost incomprehensible new heights, doesn't almost all end up in the hands of the very few, leaving almost everybody broken, brainwashed, enslaved, or chained.

What hard sacrifices have you made and are you planning to make for these things?

From Santa Barbara to Ukraine it is being made entirely clear that these are matters of life and death.

It is Memorial Day.

What are YOU doing to preserve the things at the center of our lives?

05/22/2014

We have fiercely mixed feelings about the waves of big budget teevee and movies in recent years about historical periods. Especially when we see people cite things from them as "evidence" that now they understand that time and place.

This article lays out some of those concerns very nicely, complete with clear, solid, specific examples.

Especially if you are homeschooling, we ask that you take the time to read this. Even more so if anybody you know has *ever* cited The Tudors as evidence of anything about the period at all.

http://www.exurbe.com/?p=2176

“The Borgias” vs. “Borgia: Faith and Fear” (accuracy in historical fiction) Posted by exurbe on July 26, 2013 FandomJul262013 A French “Spot the Saint” themed poster for “Borgia: Faith and Fear” assigning Cesare the attributes: archbishop’s robes, scythe, dagger, bloody hands, blood. The French cap…

04/27/2014

Some of these show important principles quite well, actually.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/gifs-that-will-teach-you-a-damn-thing-for-once-in-your-li

NO SCHOOL. ONLY GIFS.

04/18/2014

This is what history looks like. And, as usual, the "spontaneous uprising" that reshaped our world because somebody "just got tired one day" and did some act out of pure momentary emotional purity was nothing of the kind. It took over fifteen years of strategizing and sacrifice by many people before Rosa Parks, pretrained, vetted, and backed by a team of lawyers and writers, was sent off that day to refuse to yield her seat.

http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/leaflet_dont_ride_the_bus_come_to_a_mass_meeting_on_5_december/

The day after the arrest of Rosa Parks on 1 December 1955, Jo Ann Robinson and the members of the Women's Political Council (WPC) wrote and distributed a leaflet calling for a one-day boycott of buses on Monday, 5 December. That evening, African-American religious and civic leaders met at Dexter Ave…

04/08/2014

Because names matter.

http://www.geekosystem.com/winter-soldier-history/

Marvel's Captain America Winter Soldier is in theaters April 4th, and we were curious where the name Winter Soldier came from, so we did some research.