Library
Moments
One moment a day, a real scene from history explained and placed in context. Each belongs to a daily connection alongside one word and one idea.
When a chancellor knelt in Warsaw
West German Chancellor Willy Brandt traveled to Warsaw to sign a treaty accepting Poland's western border and normalizing relations after Nazi Germany's...
The paper that measured surprise
In 1948, Bell Labs researcher Claude Shannon published “A Mathematical Theory of Communication.” He treated a message not by what it meant, but by which...
The coup that destroyed the center
On August 19, eight senior officials declared that Gorbachev was ill, isolated him at his Crimean residence, and imposed emergency rule. Tanks entered Moscow....
Medea rises beyond Jason's reach
After Medea kills her children to punish Jason, he comes to confront her. She appears above him in a chariot sent by Helios, the sun god, with the bodies...
Why Webb circles an invisible point
Webb does not orbit Earth like Hubble. It orbits the Sun near L2, a moving balance point that travels with Earth. From there, the Sun, Earth, and Moon stay on...
Elektro promises a brighter future
At the 1939 New York World's Fair, Westinghouse presented Elektro as a friendly preview of tomorrow. The seven-foot humanoid walked, moved its arms, counted...
Quantitative easing begins
On November 25, 2008, as credit markets seized after Lehman's failure, the Federal Reserve announced purchases of up to $100 billion in agency debt and $500...
When free speech met the tanks
In 1968, Czechoslovak Communist leader Alexander Dubček led the Prague Spring, ending censorship and opening the press to public debate while promising reform...
Fourteen banks in one room
Long-Term Capital Management had lost most of its capital after Russia's default broke trades built on small price differences and vast leverage. The Federal...
Notes from the Danube frontier
Marcus Aurelius spent his last decade fighting the Marcomannic Wars on the Danube frontier, the empire's northern border, which followed the river through...
Trouble on the launchpad
On December 6, 1957, two months after Sputnik stunned the world, the United States attempted its first satellite launch, broadcast live. Vanguard Test Vehicle...
Say “shibboleth”
The Gileadites won the battle, then took the fords: the shallow stretches where the Jordan River could be waded across. It was the only way home for the...
The curve in the tax rolls
In the mid-1890s Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian engineer turned economist holding the chair at Lausanne, compiled income and tax records from England, Italy,...
Winners, victims, and a control group
In a 1978 study, psychologists Philip Brickman, Dan Coates, and Ronnie Janoff-Bulman interviewed three groups in Illinois: people who had recently won large...
The post that got deleted
In July 2010, the user Roko posted the basilisk argument to LessWrong, a forum devoted to rationality and AI. The site's founder, Eliezer Yudkowsky, reacted...