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Today in context,
March 1, 2021
The Battle of Adwa
On March 1, 1896, Ethiopian forces routed an Italian army, checking Italian colonial ambitions in Africa.
What was the significance of Adwa?
The battle represented the first crushing defeat of a European power by an African army during the colonial era.
Menilek II
By destroying a European army, the Ethiopian emperor greatly enhanced his international standing and secured his country’s sovereignty.
But that wasn’t the end of it...
The Italians spent the next four decades stinging from the loss. They invaded Ethiopia again in 1935.
And how did that turn out?
Italy’s naked aggression exposed the fatal weakness of the League of Nations and helped lay the foundation for World War II.
The Ethiopians were down but not out
Emperor Haile Selassie I, backed by the British, drove the Italians from Ethiopia in 1941, making his country one of the first territories to be liberated from Axis occupation.
Happy Birthday, Yellowstone!
On March 1, 1872, Yellowstone was officially established as the first national park in the U.S. A nature lover’s dream, it is home to majestic mountains, abundant wildlife, and the greatest concentration of hydrothermal features in the world. While the COVID-19 pandemic has limited visits, the park typically attracts millions of people each year.
Podcasts
See All Shows And Podcasts
Postcards from the 6th Mass Extinction
So far there have been five notable mass extinctions on Earth. A growing number of scientists argue that we’re now in the midst of a sixth. Postcards from the 6th Mass Extinction is a podcast hosted by John P. Rafferty that attempts to personalize extinction, emphasizing the survival challenges that familiar forms of life currently face, while at the same time considering the pivotal roles they play in their own ecosystems.

On This Day
Hear the stories that propelled us to the present day through insights that lend perspective to our world with a nod to our own humanity. Britannica media editor Kurt Heintz, together with Emily Goldstein and Meg Matthias, is on a mission to spotlight poignant and noteworthy events for every day of the year.

Show What You Know
Informative and lively, Show What You Know is a quiz show for curious tweens and their grown-ups from Encyclopdia Britannica. Hosted by author Christopher Lloyd, each episode gives three middle-grade contestants a chance to go head to head with questions about the earth, the universe, ancient history, and more from the Britannica All New Kids’ Encyclopedia: What We Know & What We Don’t.
The Wives of Windsor

Catherine, duchess of Cambridge
Catherine is married to Prince William, the elder son of Prince Charles and Princess Diana and the second in line to the British throne.

Meghan, duchess of Sussex
The duchess formerly known as Meghan Markle put her acting career on hold when she married Prince Harry, Charles and Diana’s younger son.
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Entertainment and leisure activities have been a part of all cultures in one form or another since the ancient times, whether the activity in question involved participating in a dance performance, attending a Broadway show, going to a music festival, or watching a movie.
Featured
- Film
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Hunger Games Quiz
Think you know everything about the Hunger Games series?...
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Paul Newman Quiz
Whether you know him as Cool Hand Luke or that guy...

Planet Earth contains some extraordinarily diverse environments, some of which are easily habitable and some not so much. In different areas of Earth, one might find sweltering deserts, dense tropical rainforests, or bone-chilling tundras. Each biome and habitat comes with its own selection of flora and fauna, and it may include physical features such as canyons, volcanoes, rivers, or caves. Human beings have built homes in many different environments, settling the area and organizing it into units such as cities, states, regions, and countries, each with its own points of interest. Shifting trends in human migration have resulted in a human geography that is profoundly different from that of centuries ago.
Featured
- Austronesian languages
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A Tour of Italy Led by William Shakespeare
Italy is a not uncommon setting for William Shakespeare's...
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Capital Cities of the Northern Hemisphere
This crossword will show you no mercy. Its answers...

The study of the human mind and body, how these function, and how they interact—not only with each other but also with their environment—has been of utmost importance in ensuring human well-being. Research on potential treatments and preventive medicine has expanded greatly with the development of modern medicine, and a network of disciplines, including such fields as genetics, psychology, and nutrition, aims to facilitate the betterment of our health.
Featured
- History of medicine
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Human Bones Quiz
Without bones, the human body would have a great fall...
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Human Organs
How much of the human body’s energy does the brain...

It's easy enough to agree that human beings all around the world have certain basic requirements that must be fulfilled in order to ensure their individual and collective well-being. History has shown us, however, that it's not so easy to form societies or communities that fulfill these requirements for all members. The fight over human and civil rights has persisted for hundreds of years and remains alive today, both within the borders of nations and on an international scale. It has led to large-scale social movements and reforms concerning issues such as suffrage, slavery, women's rights, racial discrimination, environmentalism, gay rights, and more.
Featured
- Human rights
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5 Harvest Festivals Around the World
Sink your teeth into these great celebrations.
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O Canada
Do you know which Canadian cities have hosted the Olympics?...

With the development of language, the human imagination has found a way to create and communicate through the written word. A literary work can transport us into a fictional, fantastic new world, describe a fleeting feeling, or simply give us a picture of the past through novels, poems, tragedies, epic works, and other genres. Through literature, communication becomes an art, and it can bridge and bond people and cultures of different languages and backgrounds.
Featured
- Latin literature
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World Languages
You may be familiar with such words as "hamburger"...
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Plain English
Does orthography refer to proper pronounciation? Can...

Humans have long pondered not only how we came to be but also why we came to be. The earliest Greek philosophers focused their attention upon the origin and nature of the physical world; later philosophers have theorized about the nature of knowledge, truth, good and evil, love, friendship, and much more. Thus, philosophy involves a methodical assessment of any and all aspects of human existence and experience. The realms of philosophy and religion have sometimes intersected in conducting inquiries such as these. As with philosophy, the study of religion underscores how humankind has long speculated about its origins. The possibility of a higher being (or beings) to which livings things owe their existence has long captived human thought. Many religions also offer their own views on the nature of good and evil, and they may prescribe guidelines and judgment on different kinds of human behavior.
Featured
- Biblical literature
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Murder Most Horrid: The Grisliest Deaths of Roman Catholic Saints
Methods of martyrdom you may not have heard of.
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What’s the Difference Between Morality and Ethics?
Ethics and morality are often used...

The world today is divided territorially into more than 190 countries, each of which possesses a national government that claims to exercise sovereignty and seeks to compel obedience to its will by its citizens. Governments can be classified in any number of ways. For example, they might be classified by the number of rulers, thus distinguishing government by one (as in a monarchy or a tyranny) from government by the few (in an aristocracy or oligarchy) and from government by the many (as in a democracy). Governments can also be classified by mode of succession; for example, ascension to governmental leadership may follow the rules of hereditary succession, or it may be determined through elections or by force. Governments also vary in terms of the laws and rules of conduct that each political entity follows.
Featured
- Political philosophy
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Was Martin Luther King, Jr., a Republican or a Democrat?
Which political party can claim affiliation with the...
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Who Was the First Woman to Run for President of the United States?
Before women could vote, Victoria Woodhull ran for...

How can the sky be blue one day and stormy the next? Why do heavy objects tend to fall downwards when dropped? How are birds able to fly (and why can’t I do the same?)? Human beings have long been curious about the world in which we live, striving to identify connections among the phenomenons we witness and to understand how it all works. The field of science has developed over many centuries as a way of studying and understanding the world, beginning with the primitive stage of simply noting important regularities in nature and continuing through the rise of modern science. The modern-day sciences cover a vast range of fields, including biology, chemistry, meteorology, astronomy, physics, and much more.
Featured
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Natural experiment
observational study
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Why Do Sharks Attack?
The reasons are more complex than you might think.
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Botanical Sex: 9 Alluring Adaptations
Plants gettin’ it on.

Physical contests and recreational games have long played a part in human society. In both team and solo sports, the human body has been pushed to its limits in the name of improving athletic performance and to break record upon record. The ancient Olympic Games are an early example of the contests in which humans have engaged to showcase physical prowess. In modern times, sports and games have evolved into a lucrative and competitive industry, while other leisure activities, such as card and video games, can be competitive or can just be a way to unwind or socialize.
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Chess
game
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Greatest Baseball Players
This wordsearch challenge introduces you to some of...
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Teams from the American Football Conference
This wordsearch challenge introduces you to the teams...

Humankind has long striven to improve its living conditions through the development of tools, instruments, and transportation and communications systems, all with the goal of making our lives easier, more productive and—why not—more fun, too! Thanks to human curiosity and technological research, many significant inventions have been made throughout history that in turn made a difference in our daily lives.
Featured
- Material culture
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Computers: Fact or Fiction?
Is QWERTY a computer language? Was the first Web site...
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Technological Ingenuity
From the first tools of early humans to IBM’s Deep...

These are the arts that meet the eye and evoke an emotion through an expression of skill and imagination. They include the most ancient forms, such as painting and drawing, and the arts that were born thanks to the development of technology, like sculpture, printmaking, photography, and installation art, the latter a combination of multiple creative expressions. Though beauty is in the eye of the beholder, different eras in art history have had their own principles to define beauty, from the richly ornamented taste of the Baroque to the simple, utilitarian style of the Prairie School.
Featured
- Early Netherlandish art
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Ballet: Fact or Fiction?
What is a pirouette? Where does ballet terminology...
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Meet the Futurists
Think you know Futurism? Test your knowledge of the...

Does history really repeat itself, or can we learn from the mistakes of those who came before us? History provides a chronological, statistical, and cultural record of the events, people, and movements that have made an impact on humankind and the world at large throughout the ages. Investigating the causes and results of past events is critically important in gaining a full understanding and perspective of present-day issues.
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Russian Revolution
Russian history [1917]
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5 Modern Corporate Criminals
Corporations behaving very badly.
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Which John Adams?
Two U.S. presidents, one name: John Adams. Can you...
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