Forbes Pigment Collection

Forbes Pigment Collection

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Tell Us: What Rules Have You Broken?

We wanna hear your stories about the times you’ve accidentally broken the rules somewhere foreign to you. Maybe you went into a temple with your shoes on, when you weren’t supposed to. Maybe you had a drink at a sacred place and were forbidden to enter again. Or maybe you even wo ...  Show more

Old City Hall Station (Classic)

A producer takes a detour for a glimpse of what some call New York’s worst kept secret – a train station that’s been shut down and sealed away for nearly a century. MORE: Visit the New York Transit Museum’s website to learn how to become a member and book a tour of the station. H ...  Show more

Recommended Episodes

An Accidental Case of the Blues
Overheard at National Geographic

Pigments color the world all around us, but where do those colors come from? Historically, they’ve come from crushed sea snails, beetles, and even ground-up mummies. But new pigments are still being discovered in unexpected places, and for researcher Mas Subramanian, a new color ...  Show more

The Crayola Crayon Story
Stuff You Missed in History Class

It's now a childhood classic, but the modern Crayola crayon has roots in the same company where carbon black was made for car tires at the turn of the 20th century. But people were creating art with colored implements before Binney and Smith made theirs.

Learn more ...  Show more

Classic Tides: The Black Death Revisited
Tides of History

In light of current events, we are re-posting one of my favorite episodes (from June, 2018) on the Black Death.

Between 1346 and 1351, the Black Death killed tens of millions of people - at least half the population - in Europe and the Middle East. This great mortality, ...

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The First Book of Fashion: 16th Century Fashion Blogging with Ulinka Rublack and Maria Hayward
Dressed: The History of Fashion

From 1520 to 1560, the style-conscious accountant Matthäus Schwarz and his son Veit Konrad immortalized their adventures in dressing in a series of stunning, hand-painted portraits that provide a window into the period within which they lived. Historians Ulinka Rublack and Maria ...  Show more