Berlin Wall

Banksy’s take on Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” Bristol, April 27. Graffiti has never been so powerful—or urgent. And, in the case of the famed and elusive Banksy, noble. In the past months of the global coronavirus outbreak, local artists have used the walls and sidewalks of their cities…

anchor After years of delay, the "Citizens in Motion" Monument to Freedom and Unity finally broke ground in Berlin. Image courtesy of Milla & Partner. A groundbreaking ceremony has just taken place for the Monument to Freedom and Unity, in central Berlin. The 50m-long (164ft) bowl will move gently up…

Editor’s Note: Guest columnist Edward Alden is filling in for Kimberly Ann Elliott this week.During the Cold War, the United States created and led two quite different international trading systems. The first, and by far the better known, was the open, multilateral trading system. Its aim was to expand free…

America, and increasingly much of the rest of the world, is heading into a cold war with the People's Republic of China (PRC).Since the original Cold War ended in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union, we've largely lost our understanding of the nature of that kind of conflict.We…

Journalist Patrick Radden Keefe has done plenty of extensive and gripping longform journalism, including his most recent book, Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland (which I could not recommend more highly). His newest project is a slight departure from covering topics of crime and…

in Music | May 20th, 2020 1 Comment Advertisement In 2016, King Crimson performed "Heroes" at the Admiralspalast in Berlin, just after David Bowie’s death, and nearly forty years after the song was written and recorded next to the Berlin Wall. It was "a celebration, a remembrancing and an homage,"…

The coronavirus pandemic has remade the global economy, and Bank of America strategist Haim Israel says its effects will last for decades.He writes that new technologies — especially in healthcare — and a greater focus on health by governments and investors will play major roles.  Israel also writes that some of…

If you’re out for a walk in Georgia and happen to see a 4-foot-long black lizard with a white speckled pattern across its back, you shouldn’t panic. What you should do is try to take a photo—it might be an Argentine tegu, a non-native lizard species that could soon wreak…

Wikibuy compensates us when you get the Wikibuy extension using the links provided. The financial advice included in the article reflects the opinions and assessments of Mental Floss. The digital world makes it easier to spend money on things you don’t actually need, but you can cut down on costs…

June 28 marks the 51st anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, when members of the LGBTQ community fought back when police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York's Greenwich Village. Each June, Pride Month is celebrated to commemorate the watershed moment that kicked off the modern LGBTQ rights…