When CBS Canceled The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour for Criticizing the American Establishment and the Vietnam War (1969)

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Rig­or­ous­ly clean-cut, com­pe­tent on the acoustic gui­tar and dou­ble bass, and sel­dom dressed in any­thing more dar­ing than cher­ry-red blaz­ers, Tom and Dick Smoth­ers looked like the antithe­sis of nine­teen-six­ties rebel­lion. When they first gained nation­al recog­ni­tion with their vari­ety show The Smoth­ers Broth­ers Com­e­dy Hour, they must have come off to many young…

Explore the Fascinating Map of Fungi: An Introduction to the Vast Mushroom Kingdom

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Here on Open Cul­ture, we’ve pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured Domain of Sci­ence’s elab­o­rate info­graph­ic maps of such vast fields of intel­lec­tu­al endeav­or as math­e­mat­ics, physics, com­put­er sci­ence, quan­tum physics, quan­tum com­put­ing, chem­istry, biol­o­gy, and med­i­cine. Over time, the series’ cre­ator Dominic Wal­li­man has branched out, as it were,…

How to Write in Cuneiform, the Oldest Writing System in the World: A Short Introduction

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Teach­ing child vis­i­tors how to write their names using an unfa­mil­iar or antique alpha­bet is a favorite activ­i­ty of muse­um edu­ca­tors, but Dr. Irv­ing Finkel, a cuneiform expert who spe­cial­izes in ancient Mesopotami­an med­i­cine and mag­ic, has grander designs.

His employ­er, the British Muse­um, has over 130,000 tablets span­ning Mesopotamia’s Ear­ly Dynas­tic…

A 107-Year-Old Irish Farmer Reflects on the Changes He’s Seen During His Life (1965)

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Talk to a clear-head­ed 107-year-old today, and you could expect to hear sto­ries of ado­les­cence in the Great Depres­sion, or — if you’re lucky — the Jazz Age seen through a child’s eyes. It’s no com­mon expe­ri­ence to have been formed by the age of radio and live deep into the age of the smart­phone,…

An Art Conservator Restores a Painting of the Doomed Party Girl Isabella de’ Medici: See the Before and After

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Some peo­ple talk to plants.

The Carnegie Muse­um of Art’s chief con­ser­va­tor Ellen Bax­ter talks to the paint­ings she’s restor­ing.

“You have to … tell her she’s going to look love­ly,” she says, above, spread­ing var­nish over a 16th-cen­tu­ry por­trait of Isabel­la de’ Medici pri­or to start­ing the labo­ri­ous process of…