Most of the free lectures added are from newer courses which are part of The Great Courses Signature Collection that you can subscribe to on their site or on YouTube now. The free lectures cover a wide variety of topics, including many lectures in history, science, religion, and much more. We’ve put together a list of the free Great Courses lectures, along with the course that they come from, below. We’ll link directly to the YouTube video for each lecture. Also, we link to over 750 of these courses and free lectures available on audio and video on our site if you want to browse their offerings:

Browse Over 750 of The Great Courses on LearnOutLoud.com

And here’s our Free Great Courses Lectures YouTube Playlist which currently has about 130 lectures you can browse:

Our Free Great Courses Lectures YouTube Playlist with Over 130 Video Lectures

Here are the new free lectures available to watch on YouTube:

The Knights Templar Are Formed! Lecture from the Course The Knights Templar: A History Strange and True

Why 1776 Matters Lecture from the Course Years That Changed History

Let a Committee Be Appointed Lecture from the Course The Declaration of Independence: America’s Birth Certificate

The American Revolution: Politics and People Lecture from the Course A History of the United States, 2nd Edition

George Hewes: Tea Party Captain Lecture from the Course Ordinary Americans in the Revolution

How Your Mind Influences Your Body Lecture from the Course The Power of Mind over Body

How to Kill a Vampire Lecture from the Course The Real History of Dracula

How to Build a Pyramid Lecture from the Course The Great Tours: A Guided Tour of Ancient Egypt

Why There’s No Such Thing as Cavemen Lecture from the Course Early Humans: Ice, Stone, and Survival

The First Punic War Lecture from the Course Hannibal: The Military Genius Who Almost Conquered Rome

Contested Classics of Chlidren’s Literature Lecture from the Course Banned Books, Burned Books: Forbidden Literary Works

What Did T. Rex Taste Like? Lecture from the Course Rediscovering the Age of Dinosaurs

The Rise of the Viet Cong Lecture from the Course The Vietnam War

Carl Sagan: The Great Space Communicator Lecture from the Course Great Heroes and Discoveries of Astronomy

Editing DNA: CRISPR and Gene Editing Technology Lecture from the Course Synthetic Biology: Life’s Extraordinary New Worlds

Do Political Parties Help or Hurt? Lecture from the Course Democracy and Its Alternatives

Sending the First Men to the Moon Lecture from the Course Reconsidering JFK

Medieval Towns and Trade Networks Lecture from the Course The Middle Ages around the World

World War I and the Birth of Free Speech Lecture from the Course The U.S. Constitution through History

The Language of Botany Lecture from the Course The Botanist’s Eye: Identifying the Plants around You

What is ADHD? Lecture from the Course Understanding Disorders of the Brain

Why Are Christians so Divided Across the World? Lecture from the Course Searching for the Historical Jesus

UFOs and the Occult Lecture from the Course Secrets of the Occult

Insects as Food for People Lecture from the Course Why Insects Matter: Earth’s Most Essential Species

King Tut’s Magic Mirror and Sarcophagus Lecture from the Course Decoding the Secrets of Egyptian Hieroglyphs

The Future of the Milky Way Lecture from the Course Experiencing Hubble: Exploring the Milky Way

Medieval Games We Still Play Lecture from the Course The Medieval Legacy

Why the Speed of Light Is the Speed Limit Lecture from the Course The Evidence for Modern Physics: How We Know What We Know

How We Know Dark Matter Exists Lecture from the Course The Evidence for Modern Physics: How We Know What We Know

Alfred the Great: Defender of England Lecture from the Course England: From the Fall of Rome to the Norman Conquest

How to Solve a Rubik’s Cube in 8 Steps Lecture from the Course The Mathematics of Games and Puzzles: From Cards to Sudoku

In Pursuit of The Zodiac Killer Lecture from the Course Crimes of the Century: A Selective History of Infamy

Can We Travel Faster Than Light? Lecture from the Course Understanding the Misconceptions of Science

The Myth of The Beginning of Time Lecture from the Course Examining the Big Questions of Time

Feast like a Viking with Meat and Beer Lecture from the Course Cooking Across the Ages

Exploring Jordan: Ancient Rome’s Eastern Frontier Lecture from the Course Traveling The Roman Empire with Darius Arya

Aelia Pulcheria: The Teenage Girl That Changed the Christian Religion Lecture from the Course Warriors, Queens, and Intellectuals: 36 Great Women Before 1400

The Strange Science of Schrodinger’s Cat and Quantum Superposition Lecture from the Course The Great Questions of Philosophy and Physics

How Politics Affect Constitutional Law Lecture from the Course Law School for Everyone: Constitutional Law

Fossil Hunting 101 Lecture from the Course Practical Geology

Using Tech to Hack our Bodies and Minds Lecture from the Course Promises and Perils of Technology

How Should the Constitution Be Interpreted? Lecture from the Course Law School for Everyone: Constitutional Law

A History of Infamy in the Tower of London Lecture from the Course Notorious London: A City Tour

Nightmare Scenarios of Modern War Lecture from the Course War in the Modern World

What COVID Taught us about the Black Death Lecture from the Course The Black Death: New Lessons from Recent Research

How to Quiet Your Busy Mind Lecture from the Course Overcome Your Overthinking

Separate and Unequal: The Rise of Jim Crow Lecture from the Course African American History: From Emancipation through Jim Crow

The First Few Minutes of the Universe Lecture from the Course The Big Bang and Beyond: Exploring the Early Universe

How Electricity Works Lecture from the Course Electrical Engineering for Everyone

How to Decorate your Living Space Lecture from the Course Decorating like a Designer

The Rise and Fall of the Romanovs Lecture from the Course Understanding Russia: A Cultural History

Exploring How England Came to Be Lecture from the Course England: From the Fall of Rome to the Norman Conquest

The Other Europe: Deep Roots of Diversity Lecture from the Course A History of Eastern Europe

The Trung Sisters of Vietnam Fight the Han Lecture from the Course Warriors, Queens, and Intellectuals: 36 Great Women Before 1400

The World of Genesis Lecture from the Course The History and Archaeology of the Bible

Europe on the Brink of the Black Death Lecture from the Course The Black Death: The World’s Most Devastating Plague

Secret Societies: The Underworld of History Lecture from the Course The Real History of Secret Societies

Life in a Medieval Palace Lecture from the Course The Middle Ages Around the World

The Road to Roe v. Wade Lecture from the Course Liberty on Trial in America: Cases That Defined Freedom

Why the Soviet Union Crumbled Lecture from the Course Understanding Russia: A Cultural History

Death Ships: The Spread of Plague in Europe Lecture from the Course After the Plague

Einstein’s Legacy is All Around Us Lecture from the Course Einstein’s Legacy: Quantum Physics All Around You

The Rise of Charlemagne Lecture from the Course Charlemagne: Father of Europe

The Norse Gods Are Characters with Flaws Lecture from the Course Norse Mythology

The First Woman to Run for President Lecture from the Course 12 Women Who Shaped America: 1619 to 1920

The Terminology of Movement Patterns Lecture from the Course How We Move: The Gross Anatomy of Motion

Don’t Use These Words!: The Dark Side of Communication Lecture from the Course How to Speak So That People Want to Listen

A Pivotal Moment in the Ukraine Russia Crisis Lecture from the Course A History of Eastern Europe

Van Gogh’s Asylum Year Lecture from the Course In the Footsteps of Van Gogh

When Rome Left England Lecture from the Course England: From the Fall of Rome to the Norman Conquest

Did Pirates REALLY Do That? Lecture from the Course The Real History of Pirates

Insect Behaviors and Communication Lecture from the Course Why Insects Matter: Earth’s Most Essential Species

The Life and Teachings of Jesus Lecture from the Course The Triumph of Christianity

The Lead-Up and Aftermath of Fukushima Lecture from the Course The Rise of Modern Japan

Facial Expressions and Nonverbal Behavior Lecture from the Course Understanding Human Emotions

Loki and His Children Lecture from the Course Norse Mythology

Big Bang and Inflation Explain Our Universe Lecture from the Course The Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain All Reality

Big Data: They Know Everything about You Lecture from the Course Thinking about Cybersecurity: From Cyber Crime to Cyber Warfare

The Large Hadron Collider Lecture from the Course The Higgs Boson and Beyond

Why Is It So Hard to Control Your Impulses? Lecture from the Course Scientific Secrets for Self-Control

Who Was Jack the Ripper? Lecture from the Course Forensic History: Crimes, Frauds, and Scandals

Planetary Ecology in Dune Lecture from the Course How Science Shapes Science Fiction

The True Story of the Tylenol Murders Lecture from the Course Forensic History: Crimes, Frauds, and Scandals

What the World Gets Wrong about Science Lecture from the Course Understanding the Misconceptions of Science

This Is Why You Can’t Focus, and Why it Is Dangerous Lecture from the Course The Psychology of Performance: How to Be Your Best in Life

How Your Data Tells Secrets Lecture from the Course Taking Control of Your Personal Data

Secrecy, Democracy, and the Birth of the CIA Lecture from the Course The Agency: A History of the CIA

The Freemasons Explained Lecture from the Course The Real History of Secret Societies

What Is the Higgs Boson? Lecture from the Course The Higgs Boson and Beyond

Does God Play Dice with the Universe? Lecture from the Course What Einstein Got Wrong

Solving Impossible Puzzles Lecture from the Course The Mathematics of Games and Puzzles: From Cards to Sudoku

The History of the Illuminati Lecture from the Course The Real History of Secret Societies

Who Were the Mongols? Lecture from the Course The Mongol Empire

Can You Solve the Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever? Lecture from the Course Mathematical Brain Teasers and Logic Puzzles

How We Perceive Time Lecture from the Course Mysteries of Modern Physics: Time

Athena, Demeter and Dionysus Lecture from the Course The Pagan World: Ancient Religions before Christianity

General Relativity and Gravity Lecture from the Course What Einstein Got Wrong

The Original Intent of the Constitution Lecture from the Course The Skeptic’s Guide to American History

Mao Zedong and the History of China Lecture from the Course The Fall and Rise of China

Debunking the Top Myths about American Wars Lecture from the Course The Skeptic’s Guide to American History

Lots to learn from The Great Courses!

The post The Great Courses Releases Over 100 New Free Lectures first appeared on LearnOutLoud.com.

One of the best courses we’ve added into our Free Courses Collection just got better! Fifteen years after Stanford University Professor Robert Sapolsky added his course on “Human Behavioral Biology” to YouTube, he has recently added a new edition of this popular course to YouTube with updated findings in his field. The new recordings of the course also feature better audio and video, and detailed slides edited within each lecture to help you learn. You can check out the new course here:

Human Behavioral Biology: 2024 Edition by Robert Sapolsky

Sapolsky is an award-winning professor, superstar lecturer, and author of numerous books including Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers: A Guide To Stress, Stress Related Diseases, and Coping. He also hosted the popular documentary featured on our site called Stress: Portrait of a Killer.

His course on “Human Behavioral Biology” is so good that The Great Courses invited him to teach the course for their customers in an audio & video course entitled Biology and Human Behavior: The Neurological Origins of Individuality. We’ve purchased and listened to that course in its entirety and it’s incredible! Now the course is being offered for free on video from Stanford University and it seems like basically the same course except way more! The Great Courses course runs 12 Hrs. and the new free video edition at Stanford runs 38 Hrs.

The course comprehensively covers human behavior from the perspective of biology from an in-depth look at the nervous system, limbic system, and hormones to the latest discoveries in neuroscience, genetics, and human evolution. Sapolsky attempts to give you a well-rounded picture of the biology of human behavior today. And after that, he then takes a look at certain human behaviors which can be examined from this perspective including lectures on human sexual behavior, aggression, depression, schizophrenia, and what makes up for the individual differences in humans. This 32-lecture course is available on video on YouTube. Here are the individual lecture titles:

1. Human Behavioral Biology: Introduction
2. Evolution of Behavior 1
3. Evolution of Behavior 2
4. Evolution of Behavior 3
5. Molecular Behavior Genetics 1
6. Molecular Behavior Genetics 2
7. Behavioral Genetics 1
8. Behavioral Genetics 2
9. Ethology 1
10. Ethology 2
11. Limbic System 1
12. Limbic System 2
13. Limbic System 3
14. Limbic System 4
15. Advanced Topics in Neuroendocrinology 1
16. Advanced Topics in Neuroendocrinology 2
17. Emergence 1
18. Emergence 2
19. Sexuality 1
20. Sexuality 2
21. Sexuality 3
22. Sexuality 4
23. Violence and its Antidotes 1
24. Violence and its Antidotes 2
25. Violence and its Antidotes 3
26. Violence and its Antidotes 4
27. Violence and its Antidotes 5
28. Violence and its Antidotes 6
29. Depression
30. Schizophrenia
31. Religious Belief
32. Individual Differences

Enjoy this free course from Professor Robert Sapolsky and Stanford University!

The post New Free Edition of Robert Sapolsky’s Human Behavioral Biology Stanford Course Available on YouTube first appeared on LearnOutLoud.com.

At LearnOutLoud.com, we’ve been fans of The Great Courses since the early 2000s, back when they were called The Teaching Company. They’ve grown a lot since then, and now have over 1,000 courses that they offer on audio and video with over 20,000 lectures recorded! They no longer distribute courses on audio cassette (yes, we used to listen to them on cassette), audio CD, or DVD. Now they distribute their courses on downloadable or streaming audio & video through their Great Courses App, which is available on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Android phone, Roku streaming device, Amazon Fire TV, and more. You can also stream courses through a web browser. They also offer audio-only versions of most of their courses through Audible.com. We link to over 750 of these courses available on audio and video on our site:

Browse Over 700 of The Great Courses on LearnOutLoud.com

In terms of the current model of getting access to their courses, you can access them by purchasing courses individually through The Great Courses Shop, or you can subscribe to one of their subscription plans that gives you access to hundreds of their courses as long as you are a subscriber. They currently have four subscription plans, so let’s take a deeper dive into what they are.

1. The Great Courses Plus – This is their main subscription plan that gives you access to over 1,000 of their courses with 20,000 lectures to choose from. For a while, The Great Courses rebranded under the name Wondrium, which included licensing content from other educational distributors, but they’ve since pivoted back to The Great Courses Plus as their brand with almost all their courses offered through The Great Courses Plus subscription.

We’ve been subscribers to The Great Courses Plus subscription plan for years now. In their Great Courses App, it’s easy to browse and search courses and lectures. You can also add both courses and lectures to a Watchlist. Once you’ve figured out what you want to watch or listen to, then you can either stream the course on audio or video over an Internet connection, or you can download the course or lecture for offline listening or viewing. Sometimes they offer a free trial of The Great Courses Plus, and sometimes they offer it at a discounted price for a trial period. After the trial period The Great Courses Plus costs $15.98/month (which is cheaper than the $20/month it used to cost). For the voracious lifelong learner, definitely choose The Great Courses Plus.

2. The Great Courses Signature Collection – The Great Courses Signature Collection is a second streaming subscription service that they offer that features about 300 of their courses to choose from, or about 7,500 lectures. This collection was initially offered through Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, and some other third parties, but is now offered through The Great Courses website and App as well. You can read more about The Great Courses Signature Collection in our blog from 2020: What Is The Great Courses Signature Collection? After a trial period, the price of subscribing to the Signature Collection is $7.99/month. Categories covered in courses include history, science, philosophy, religion, literature, travel, mathematics, and more. The courses are mostly newer Great Courses selections with high video quality up to 720p HD. They feature high quality visuals accompanying the lecture.

3. The Great Courses Classics – Now the difference between The Great Courses Signature Collection and The Great Courses Classics is a little nuanced. The Great Courses Classics features over 200 classic courses from The Great Courses, or about 5,500 lectures. The subjects are the same as the Signature Collection, including history, science, philosophy, religion, literature, travel, mathematics, and more. The difference is that The Great Courses Classics are generally older courses, often recorded many years ago. Many of them aren’t in HD video, and they don’t contain as much of the eye-popping visuals or music of the newer courses. Some longtime fans of The Great Courses might prefer the classics collection for the simpler presentation or just the great professors that classic courses brought on. After a trial period, the price of subscribing to the Classics Collection is $7.99/month.

4. The Great Courses Living – After many years of recording courses on traditional university subjects like history, science, and philosophy, The Great Courses started branching out into personal and professional development courses, along with instructional courses in many areas. If you enjoy these courses, then The Great Courses Living subscription plan might be for you. The subjects offered include art, business & finance, food & drink, health & mindfulness, hobbies, music, professional growth, and travel. This subscription offers over 200 courses with over 4,500 lectures available. After a trial period, the price of subscribing to the Classics Collection is $7.99/month.

So now there are four plans to choose from with The Great Courses. You can compare all the plans by visiting TheGreatCourses.com. All the plans work great with the Great Courses App for learning at your home or on-the-go! Pick a plan and start learning today!

The post Comparing The Great Courses Subscription Plans first appeared on LearnOutLoud.com.

Ken Burns’ latest six-part, twelve-hour documentary, The American Revolution, is streaming for free on PBS.org and the PBS App through July 4, 2026. This documentary premiered back in November of 2025 on PBS to much acclaim. To celebrate the 250th anniversary of our founding, PBS is making this available to stream for free through the 4th of July. The series is directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein, and David Schmidt, and written by historian Geoffrey C. Ward. The documentary features a host of historians and is narrated by Peter Coyote (who has narrated many Ken Burns’ documentaries). It also features celebrity voiceovers for many of the historical figures in the story, including Kenneth Branagh, Josh Brolin, Claire Danes, Jeff Daniels, Morgan Freeman, Paul Giamatti, Tom Hanks, Hope Davis, and many, many other recognizable voices. You can start watching on the PBS website right here:

Watch Ken Burns’ The American Revolution Streaming for Free

Along with offering these for free, PBS has also uploaded some of the first episodes of Ken Burns’ war documentaries to YouTube. You can check these first episodes out on YouTube here:

The American Revolution – Full Episode 1 – In Order to Be Free (May 1754 – May 1775)

The Civil War – Full Episode 1 – 1861: “The Cause”

The War – Full Episode 1 – “A Necessary War” (December 1941 – December 1942)

The Vietnam War – Full Episode 1 – Deja Vu (1858-1961)

We’ve added these to our growing list of over 100 PBS Documentaries that are free on YouTube. You can browse that YouTube playlist right here:

Over 100 PBS Documentaries Free on YouTube

The post Ken Burns’ The American Revolution Streaming for Free Through July 4th first appeared on LearnOutLoud.com.

On July 1, 2026, Annenberg Learner and their site Learner.org will be shutting down. The site has been a great resource of multimedia for students and lifelong learners. They provided classroom resources and professional development workshops for learners of all ages. At LearnOutLoud.com, we’ve been linking to their video courses for at least a decade. These professionally produced courses came from public television stations, along with universities and other educational institutions. Most of these courses dated from the mid-80s to the early 2000s and were funded in part by the Annenberg Foundation in coordination with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Over the years the rights to many of the courses expired, and with the shutting down of their website, all of the courses seemed doomed to oblivion.

Thankfully, some of the people at Archive.org have uploaded most of these video courses to the Internet Archive. We’ve changed our links now to point to the courses on Archive.org, along with embedding their videos on our site. You can browse the courses that have been saved here:

Browse 40 Video Courses from Annenberg Learner on LearnOutLoud.com

These include popular language learning courses such as:

French in Action by Pierre Capretz

Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish – The popular PBS Spanish course from the 1990s, which I remember watching in my high school Spanish class.

Nuevos Destinos – The sequel to Destinos that came on CD-ROM.

Connect With English – English as a Second Language (ESL) course from PBS in 1998.

Other popular video courses on our site from Annenberg Learner include:

Discovering Psychology – Narrated by Stanford University professor and author Philip Zimbardo.

The World of Abnormal Psychology

Against All Odds: Inside Statistics

Art Through Time: A Global View

Invitation to World Literature

A Biography of America

American Cinema

Physics for the 21st Century

And many more high quality courses to explore. Browse what’s left of them right here with links to Archive.org:

Browse 40 Video Courses from Annenberg Learner on LearnOutLoud.com

The post Annenberg Learner is Shutting Down But 40 Video Courses Still Remain Through Archive.org first appeared on LearnOutLoud.com.