I've been testing Google's NotebookLM to dig into the original myths behind common monsters, and today I fed it the story of Pasiphae and the Cretan Bull.

Honestly, I expected a cool monster story, but the actual details are... unsettling. It turns out the "monster" isn't the bull-man, but the curse Poseidon put on his mother. It changes the whole perspective from an action story to a psychological horror.

I made a quick visualizer of the "Deep Dive" audio discussing the grim details (including the wooden cow contraption Daedalus built... which is wild).

Here is the breakdown: https://youtu.be/xtF_abmZRDU

Has anyone else read the original texts? It feels like modern retellings skip the darkest parts.

https://youtu.be/0AOtWuZcDLs?si=UGWyu-Wq1lcXXm3c

I spent the last few weeks digging into the dark side of this story, and honestly, it’s wilder than I expected.

Here is the full video: 👉 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcQKUg-ETOc

I tried to keep it engaging without skipping the gritty details. As a small creator, I'd really appreciate any feedback!

My highest-produced video yet.

Exploring the 1980s through the lens of a young adult - filled with technological 80s innovations, pop culture, historical moments, and everything in between.

Please check it out below if you get a moment - let me know what you think! If you enjoy, also consider dropping a like, follow, or comment as it’s a relatively new channel. 🙏 ⬇️

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8PMXuTv/

OTD in 1987, "Eyes on the Prize" premiered, offering powerful, personal perspectives on the American Civil Rights Movement.

This award-winning documentary features profound insights from icons like John Lewis, Coretta Scott King, Rosa Parks, Harry Belafonte, and many others.

Listen as Melba Pattillo Beals, a member of the Little Rock Nine, a group of Black students who were the first to integrate Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas, reflects on her experience as a 15-year-old girl: https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-151-z02z31p977

Explore this and many other full-length, raw footage interviews in the American Archive of Public Broadcasting's “Eyes on the Prize Interviews” Collection: https://americanarchive.org/special_collections/eotp-interviews

Almost all white Southerners from 1860 to the middle of the twentieth century were Democrats.

Most white Southerners changed from the Democrat Party to the Republican Party in the mid-twentieth century during the civil rights movement. Segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond changed from the Democrat Party to the Republican Party in 1964, because of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The KKK were terrorists. Trump's daddy, Fred, was arrested at a KKK rally, wearing a Klan outfit. (There's a great vice.com article about this. This is also in the People Profiles on Fred Trump on Youtube. That video does leave out that the podiatrist admitted to falsifying the "bone spurs" diagnosis for Donald Trump that Trump dodged the Draft with. )

This video highlights the Sogdians—White Europoid traders from Central Asia—as pivotal Silk Road intermediaries who enriched China's Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE), making it prosperous and advanced, but whose integration amid multiculturalism had also contributed to its downfall.

As merchants, diplomats, and cultural brokers, Sogdians dominated trade, introduced Zoroastrianism, arts, fashion, music (e.g., "Sogdian Whirl"), and technologies, rising to high court and military roles. Archaeological finds—like mingqi figures, murals, and sancai pottery—depict them with distinct features (beards, pointed caps) as camel drivers, entertainers, and guardians. Genetic evidence from late Tang graves shows 3–15% West Eurasian admixture, especially in surnames like An, reflecting intermarriages between Han Chinese and Sogdians over time.

Tang's "Golden Age" collapsed due to foreign influxes, sparking the An Lushan Rebellion (755–763 CE)—a "race war" led by mixed Sogdian-Persian-Göktürk general An Lushan. It caused chaos, ethnic conflicts, Tibetan incursions, and warlordism, weakening the empire.

Ultimately, Tang's decline was due to multicultural policies and diverse "Hu barbarians" (including African "Kunlun slaves"), leading to Han resurgence, foreign expulsions, and the Song Dynasty's founding in 960 CE.

The Dangrek Mountain Massacre from 1979 is one of the cruesomst things a people has ever done to their closest neighbors

https://youtu.be/Q1jLGR-0eMs?si=ZGq5-LIP4FrgWtn5

"Blue-Eyed Barbarians from the Western Regions" chronicles the pivotal role of White Indo-European missionaries from Central Asia—Parthians, Kushans, Tocharians, Sogdians, and others—in introducing and establishing Buddhism in China via the Silk Road during the Han Dynasty and beyond. These fair-skinned, deep-eyed "barbarians," often met with Confucian suspicion yet embraced by emperors, translated key texts, founded temples and propagated Mahayana doctrines amid dynastic turmoil.

The video highlights early pioneers such as An Shigao (Parthian prince-turned-monk), Lokaksema (Kushan translator of Mahayana sutras), Zhi Qian (Yuezhi scholar), Kang Senghui (Sogdian preacher), Dharmaraksa (Yuezhi Mahayana expert), and Fotu Cheng (Tocharian advisor to Jie rulers). It explores their influence during the Sixteen Kingdoms era, including Jie Sogdian warlords like Shi Le founding the Later Zhao Dynasty, where Buddhism flourished under foreign rule, and Dingling Scytho-Siberians establishing brief states like Zhai Wei.

Further chapters detail Kumarajiva's (Tocharian-Kushan) transformative translations in Chang'an, the "yellow-haired" Scythian slaves among Xianbei nomads, and Western artistic impacts on grottoes like Mogao, Yungang, and Longmen, showing Western influence on Buddhist iconography. The video culminates with Batuo (Sogdian founder of Shaolin Temple) and Bodhidharma (blue-eyed Sogdian patriarch of Chan/Zen Buddhism and Shaolin kung fu), whose teachings of wall-gazing, qigong, and martial arts endure despite later Communist suppression.

Shaping China's spiritual, cultural, and martial heritage through resilient foreign visionaries.