How John Lennon Wrote the Beatles’ Best Song, “A Day in the Life”

‌

If you’re under 60, you prob­a­bly heard the line “I read the news today, oh boy” before encoun­ter­ing the song it opens. Even after you dis­cov­ered the work of the Bea­t­les, it may have tak­en you some time to under­stand what, exact­ly, it was that John Lennon read in the news. The “lucky…

Albert Einstein’s Grades: A Fascinating Look at His Report Cards

‌

Albert Ein­stein was a pre­co­cious child.

At the age of twelve, he fol­lowed his own line of rea­son­ing to find a proof of the Pythagore­an The­o­rem. At thir­teen he read Kant, just for the fun of it. And before he was fif­teen he had taught him­self dif­fer­en­tial and inte­gral cal­cu­lus.

But while the…

Wim Wenders’ New Short Film Reminds Europe of the Lessons of World War II

‌

World War II offi­cial­ly end­ed on Sep­tem­ber 2, 1945. It fol­lowed, by less than three weeks, an equal­ly momen­tous event, at least in the eyes of cinephiles: the birth of Wim Wen­ders. Though soon to turn 80 years old, Wen­ders has remained both pro­duc­tive and capa­ble of draw­ing great crit­i­cal acclaim. Wit­ness, for exam­ple,…

Pablo Picasso’s Childhood Paintings: Precocious Works Painted Between the Ages of 8 and 15

‌

It’s hard to imag­ine from this his­tor­i­cal dis­tance how upset­ting Pablo Picasso’s 1907 mod­ernist paint­ing Les Demoi­selles d’Avignon was to Parisian soci­ety at its debut. On its 100th anniver­sary, Guardian crit­ic Jonathan Jones described it as “the rift, the break that divides past and future.” The paint­ing caused an uproar, even among the…

Harvard Lets You Take 133 Free Online Courses: Explore Courses on Justice, American Government, Literature, Religion, CompSci & More

‌

Image by Riz­ka, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

In South Korea, where I live, there may be no brand as respect­ed as Habodeu. Chil­dren dream of it; adults seem­ing­ly do any­thing to play up their own con­nec­tions to it, how­ev­er ten­u­ous those con­nec­tions may be. But what is Habodeu? An elec­tron­ics com­pa­ny? A line…