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From the three-headed man-eater of Dante’s Inferno to the Mephistopheles of German folklore, clad and caped in red in a Goethe-penned stage production, depictions of Satan have mutated into a fearsome multitude of pitchfork-wielding, fire-summoning and otherwise malevolent creatures. But how did a somewhat minor character from the Old Testament evolve into a versatile shorthand for all manner of human evil? Featuring a parade of the many meme-ified devils that have come to permeate the public imagination, this crafty animation from TED-Ed provides a brief history of how some of Satan’s most infamous forms came to be.
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Animals and humans
Are zoos and natural history museums born of a desire to understand, or to control?
57 minutes
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Archaeology
What’s an ancient Greek brick doing in a Sumerian city? An archeological investigation
16 minutes
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Family life
The migrants missing in Mexico, and the mothers who won’t stop searching for them
21 minutes
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Virtues and vices
Why Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith were divided on the virtues of vanity
5 minutes
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Ecology and environmental sciences
The tree frog die-off that sparked a global mystery – and revealed a dark truth
15 minutes
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Beauty and aesthetics
In art, the sublime is a feedback loop, evolving with whatever’s next to threaten us
9 minutes
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History
From Afghanistan to Virginia – the Muslims who fought in the American Civil War
22 minutes
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Family life
One family’s harrowing escape from postwar Vietnam, told in a poignant metaphor
10 minutes
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Fairness and equality
Visit the small Texas community that lives in the shadow of SpaceX launches
14 minutes