Archive
June 21, 2026
Lee Krasner
This theme follows Lee Krasner as more than an appendix to Jackson Pollock: a painter, collage-maker, and restless experimenter who kept changing her approach across decades. Players will learn the visual language around Abstract Expressionism, the institutions and people around her, and how Krasner helped shape the movement from within while continually remaking her own art.
June 20, 2026
The Maxim Gun
This theme traces how Hiram Maxim's recoil-powered machine gun turned sustained automatic fire into a portable imperial tool. Players will learn both the weapon's basic mechanics and its outsized role in late-19th-century conquest, from battlefields in Africa to changes in European military planning.
June 19, 2026
The Deep Ocean
Below 200 metres, sunlight vanishes and pressure builds to crushing extremes — yet life thrives in extraordinary forms. The deep ocean covers more than half the planet's surface and remains humanity's greatest unexplored frontier.
June 18, 2026
Artificial Intelligence Winters
AI did not rise in a straight line from bold 1950s promises to today’s systems. This theme explores the cycles of hype, funding cuts, expert-system collapse, and statistical revival that produced the modern field — and shows how repeated failure forced AI to change its methods.
June 17, 2026
The Theremin
This theme traces how the theremin transformed invisible electromagnetic fields into music, making a touchless instrument feel both futuristic and uncanny. Players will learn its core parts and terminology, its inventor and cultural journey, and how its wavering sound became a lasting signal for mystery, science fiction, and the supernatural.
June 16, 2026
Maurice Hilleman
This theme explores the life and legacy of Maurice Hilleman, the microbiologist who helped develop more than 40 vaccines and transformed modern public health. Players will learn how his work connects to familiar diseases like measles, mumps, rubella, and hepatitis, and why one of the most consequential scientists of the 20th century remains relatively unknown.
June 15, 2026
The Internet
From ARPANET and TCP/IP to the Web, browsers, and social media, the Internet grew from a research network into the infrastructure of everyday life. This set traces how its technical foundations, shared standards, and platforms reshaped how people communicate, work, and argue about power online.
June 14, 2026
Sparta's 'Equality'
Sparta is often remembered as a society of equal, austere warriors, but that image depended on a vast population of unfree laborers. This theme shows how helots, landholding, and military culture fit together, revealing that Spartan "equality" applied narrowly within the citizen elite rather than across society.
June 13, 2026
Greenwich Mean Time
This theme explains how Greenwich became the world’s reference point for timekeeping, linking astronomy at the Royal Observatory to navigation at sea, the expansion of the British Empire, and the practical demands of railway timetables. Players will learn how a specific London location turned into a global standard, and why time had to become coordinated before the modern world could run smoothly.
June 12, 2026
The Meiji Restoration
Japan's Meiji Restoration is often described as an imperial revival in 1868, but the real story is a far more disruptive political overhaul. Players will trace how the Tokugawa shogunate fell, how new institutions and slogans reframed change as "restoration," and why this event marked the birth of a modern state rather than a simple return to the past.
June 11, 2026
The Stradivarius Violin
This theme traces how Stradivarius violins became the most famous instruments in the world, blending craftsmanship, scarcity, elite collecting, and centuries of legend. Players will learn the basic vocabulary of violin making, the Cremona context behind Antonio Stradivari’s workshop, and why the instruments’ aura depends as much on history and market mythology as on sound.
June 10, 2026
Fever
Fever feels like the problem, but it is often part of the body's defense: raising temperature can slow pathogens and coordinate immune activity. This theme explores why reducing a fever can relieve symptoms without necessarily speeding recovery, and how doctors think about when a fever is useful, when it is dangerous, and what it is actually signaling.
June 9, 2026
Roman Concrete
Why do some Roman harbor piers still stand after two thousand years in seawater while much modern concrete cracks and corrodes far sooner? This theme explains the surprising chemistry behind Roman concrete: volcanic ash, lime, seawater reactions, and crystal growth that can make the material tougher over time.
June 8, 2026
The QWERTY Keyboard
Everyone knows QWERTY, but far fewer know why it became dominant. This theme explores how a layout born in the typewriter era survived not because it was unquestionably best, but because manufacturing, training, standards, and network effects made it hard to dislodge.
June 7, 2026
Hedy Lamarr
How a Hollywood actress co-invented frequency-hopping radio to help Allied torpedoes avoid jamming during World War II — and why the U.S. Navy ignored her patent until the technology became the basis for WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS. Players explore Lamarr's dual legacy as both a glamorous film star and a pioneering inventor whose wartime innovation was decades ahead of its time.
June 6, 2026
The Black Death
In the mid-14th century, plague moved along trade routes from Asia into the Mediterranean and across Europe, killing on a catastrophic scale. Its impact reached far beyond disease, reshaping labor, religion, literature, and everyday life in the medieval world.
June 5, 2026
The Women of Harvard Computers
Before computers were machines, they were women doing painstaking calculations at Harvard College Observatory. This theme traces how Annie Jump Cannon, Henrietta Swan Leavitt, Williamina Fleming, Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, and their colleagues turned glass photographic plates into star catalogues, classification systems, and the tools that made modern astrophysics possible.
June 4, 2026
Stanislav Petrov
In September 1983, Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov faced an alarming missile-warning alert and chose not to trust the screen in front of him. This theme explores the Cold War context, the early-warning technology, and why one act of human judgment is often credited with helping avert a possible nuclear exchange.
June 3, 2026
The Wilhelm Scream
A single stock scream recorded in 1951 for the film Distant Drums became Hollywood's most famous inside joke. Sound designer Ben Burtt rediscovered it in the 1970s and inserted it into Star Wars, sparking a tradition that has since appeared in over 400 films from Toy Story to Lord of the Rings. Players explore the vocabulary of sound design, the films that made the scream famous, and the culture of audio easter eggs.
June 2, 2026
The Renaissance
Between the Black Death and the birth of modern science, Europe reimagined what it meant to be human. Explore the art, ideas, and individuals who transformed a continent — and invented the world we still inhabit.
June 1, 2026
The Space Race
Between 1957 and 1969, the United States and Soviet Union transformed Cold War rivalry into a breathtaking contest to conquer space. From Sputnik's first beep to Armstrong's bootprint, humanity leapt from Earth in little more than a decade.