Free online
Learn History online: university courses, full YouTube courses, and courses with free certificates, from the IITs, MIT, Harvard, Google, Microsoft and more.
805 courses
Harvard University
Examine how cultures of the ancient world defined themselves through literature and how their vision of literature contributes to our understanding of civilization, culture, and literature today.
Stanford Online
In this course we will seek to “understand Einstein,” especially focusing on the special theory of relativity that Albert Einstein, as a twenty-six year old patent clerk, introduced in his “miracle year” of 1905. Our goal will be to go behind the myth-making and beyond the popularized presentations…
Harvard University
Explore the archaeology, history, art, and hieroglyphs surrounding the famous Egyptian Pyramids at Giza. Learn about Old Kingdom pharaohs and elites, tombs, temples, the Sphinx, and how new technology is unlocking their secrets.
Harvard University
An in-depth look at the 1854 London cholera epidemic in Soho and its importance for the field of epidemiology.
Columbia University
Discover how the issue of slavery came to dominate American politics, and how political leaders struggled and failed to resolve the growing crisis in the nation.
Harvard University
Gain an understanding of history, museum studies, and curation by looking at, organizing, and interpreting art, artifacts, scientific curiosities, and the stuff of everyday life.
University of Michigan
The impact of technology and networks on our lives, culture, and society continues to increase. The very fact that you can take this course from anywhere in the world requires a technological infrastructure that was designed, engineered, and built over the past sixty years. To function in an inform…
Harvard University
Learn about China’s origins, its integral early thinkers, and competing states and schools of thought.
This course provides a historical study of the origins of Christianity by analyzing the literature of the earliest Christian movements in historical context, concentrating on the New Testament. Although theological themes will occupy much of our attention, the course does not attempt a theological…
Harvard University
Learn how American women created, confronted, and embraced change in the 20th century while exploring ten objects from Radcliffe’s Schlesinger Library.
Harvard University
Discover the literature and heroes of ancient Greece through the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey , the tragedies of Sophocles, the dialogues of Plato, and more.
Columbia University
Learn about the political, social, and economic changes in the Union and the Confederacy and the Civil War’s long-term economic and intellectual impact.
Yale University
Using a simple and enjoyable teaching style, this course introduces the novice listener to the wonders of classical music, from Bach fugues to Mozart symphonies to Puccini operas.
Harvard University
Use the case study method to study China from the rise of Deng Xiaoping to the present.
Harvard University
Explore Chinese history and culture from the perspective of the individual through philosophical texts, literary works, and art.
Harvard University
Learn how the Manchus conquered the Qing and established the last of the imperial dynasties.
Harvard University
Learn about the Qin and Han dynasties, and how Buddhism and ideas of self-realization influenced the medieval period.
MIT OpenCourseWare
This subject examines the role scientists have played as activists in social movements in the U.S. following World War II. Themes include scientific responsibility and social justice, the roles of gender, race, and power, the motivation of individual scientists, strategies for organizing, and scien…
MIT OpenCourseWare
This course will explore food in modern American history as a story of industrialization and globalization. Lectures, readings, and discussions will emphasize the historical dimensions of—and debates about—slave plantations and factory farm labor; industrial processing and technologies of food pres…
Yale University
Journey of the Universe weaves together the discoveries of the evolutionary sciences together with humanities such as history, philosophy, art, and religion. This course draws on the Journey of the Universe Conversations, a series of 20 interviews with scientists and environmentalists. The first 10…
