The History of Cartography, the “Most Ambitious Overview of Map Making Ever,” Is Free Online

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FYI: The Uni­ver­si­ty of Chica­go Press has made avail­able online — at no cost –five vol­umes of The His­to­ry of Car­tog­ra­phy. Or what Edward Roth­stein, of The New York Times, called “the most ambi­tious overview of map mak­ing ever under­tak­en.” He con­tin­ues:

Peo­ple come to know the world the way they…

The History of the Earth (All 4.5 Billion Years) in 1 Hour: A Million Years Covered Every Second

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From Kurzge­sagt comes the his­to­ry of our plan­et in one hour. They write: “Earth is 4.5 bil­lion years old — which is approx­i­mate­ly the same amount of time it took us to cre­ate this video. We’ve scaled the com­plete time­line of our Earth’s life into our first ani­mat­ed movie! Every sec­ond shows about a mil­lion…

Two Tiny Rembrandt Paintings Have Been Rediscovered & Put On Display in Amsterdam

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Many first-time vis­i­tors to the Lou­vre expe­ri­ence a let­down to dis­cov­er how small the Mona Lisa is -just 21” x 30”.

Mean­while, over in Ams­ter­dam, vis­i­tors have been flock­ing to the Rijksmu­se­um, eager to lay eyes on the two small­est for­mal works in the museum’s col­lec­tion.

Mea­sur­ing slight­ly less than 8” tall,…

An Introduction to Vince Guaraldi, the Jazz Composer Who Created the Best Christmas Album Ever, A Charlie Brown Christmas

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When A Char­lie Brown Christ­mas first aired 58 years ago, few had any con­fi­dence that it would be a hit. Its sto­ry and ani­ma­tion, bare-bones even by the stan­dards of mid-nine­teen-six­ties tele­vi­sion, made a pos­i­tive impres­sion on nei­ther CBS’ exec­u­tives nor on many of the spe­cial’s own cre­ators. They did­n’t expect that this very sim­plic­i­ty…

Threads Now Available in Europe & UK (Plus the US): Get Our Daily Culture Posts There at @OpenCulture

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Threads is on the rise. After get­ting released in over 100 coun­tries (includ­ing the US and UK) ear­li­er this year, Meta has just made Threads avail­able in the EU. And that’s where we’re now shar­ing our dai­ly posts, along with oth­er objects of cul­tur­al inter­est. If you sign up, please search…