PickVidsBest World history Videos
The 147 World history videos here were recommended by different people across different months. Choose by who it is for: 7 introductory, 4 intermediate, 136 for a general viewer, and 0 for someone who wants the harder derivation. Most of them are an explainer. What they share is that one picture or analogy is used to supply a missing concept. Channels you will keep seeing include CGP Grey, Tom Scott, Denis Shiryaev.
Prof. Timur Kuran on "The Portal", Episode #004: "The Economics of Revolution and Mass Deception."
Eric Weinstein interviews economist Timur Kuran on The Portal about preference falsification and how societies where people hide their real views can tip into revolutions.
HyperNormalisation by Adam Curtis HD Full [2016] [Subs]
Adam Curtis's 2016 BBC documentary argues that since the 1970s governments, financiers and technologists have retreated into a simplified fake world.
How the pyramids were built in Egypt
The Geopolymer Institute presents Joseph Davidovits's theory that the Egyptian pyramids were built from cast artificial limestone, a geopolymer concrete, rather than carved blocks.
Last Witness to President Abraham Lincoln Assassination I've Got A Secret
A 1956 episode clip of the game show I've Got a Secret in which 95-year-old Samuel J.
Eisenhower warns us of the military industrial complex.
A three-minute clip of Dwight D.
Afghanistan War Exposed: An Imperial Conspiracy (Full Documentary)
An Empire Files documentary by Abby Martin presenting a critical account of the Afghanistan War, from the CIA's role in the 1980s to the stalemate of the 2010s and 2020.
Gulf of Tonkin: McNamara admits It didn't happen.
A four-minute extract from the documentary The Fog of War in which Robert McNamara discusses the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
Interview With An 87 Year Old Farmer (1929)
Short archival film footage of an 87-year-old farmer interviewed in 1929, born in 1842, talking about life and change.
Schaliegas: USSR Gas Well Blow Out = Nuclear Bomb Puts Out Fire
A short clip showing how the Soviet Union used a nuclear explosion to extinguish a blown-out, burning gas well.
Is America Actually Metric?
Veritasium explains that the US signed the Metre Convention in 1875 and that all US customary units are officially defined in terms of metric standards.
The History of Europe: Every Year
An animated map showing the borders and populations of European countries for every year since 400 BC.
The Exploding Whale: An infamous moment in Oregon history creates a strangely beloved icon
A KATU News re-edit from remastered 4K footage of the 1970 Oregon incident in which officials blew up a beached whale and showered the beach with blubber.
Legal Drunk Drivers from the 1960s
A 1967 current-affairs segment interviews habitual drunk drivers just before the UK introduced the breathalyser.
I was wrong (and so was everyone)
Tom Scott's correction video on his earlier claim that 18th-century insurance firefighters let uninsured buildings burn.
Scientists Make Easter Island Statue Walk | National Geographic
A one-minute National Geographic clip of researchers Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo testing a theory that Easter Islanders used ropes to rock the moai statues upright to walk them to their platforms.
Russia releases secret footage of 1961 Tsar Bomba hydrogen blast | REUTERS
A short Reuters news clip showing declassified Russian footage of the 1961 Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated.
Former KGB Agent, Yuri Bezmenov, Warns America About Socialist Subversion
A 1984 interview with former KGB agent Yuri Bezmenov on ideological subversion and psychological warfare, reposted in 2020 with a modern political framing.
This library has every book ever published.
Tom Scott visits the British Library, a UK legal deposit library that receives a copy of everything published, and discusses storing so much material, including the web archive.
Gamal Abdel Nasser laughing at Muslim Brotherhood hijab requirement in 1958 (subtitled)
A subtitled 1958 clip of Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser recounting, with laughter, a Muslim Brotherhood suggestion that women be required to wear a head covering.
The Netherlands Is Not 'Holland.' It Never Was.
A short CGP Grey explainer on why 'Holland' is wrong as a name for the whole country of the Netherlands.
The Dark History of "Left-Wing" Zionism
A long-form video essay on the history of labor or 'left-wing' Zionism, drawing on historians of Palestine and Zionism to argue it played a role in dispossessing Palestinians.
Rick Suddeth: USSR: Moscow 1989 Grocery Store
A short amateur clip of a Moscow grocery store from 1989, filmed by a visiting production worker.
Napoleon's greatest foe
Lindybeige's long video on Napoleon's most effective opponent, Sir Sidney Smith, with plenty of detail on Napoleon's misdeeds along the way.
First Strike (Part 1)
A dramatization of a hypothetical Soviet first strike that destroys US bombers and Minuteman missiles, filmed with US Air Force cooperation.