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Samuels Library has been lending books to the residents of rural Warren County, Virginia, for more than 200 years. But today, it’s continued existence is threatened by a small band of locals upset over the fact that it carries some titles with LGBTQ themes — or as the group calls them, books featuring “lesbian junk,” “homoerotic passages,” “sodomidical [sic] couples,” “witchcraft” as well as one volume considered objectionable because its protagonist “has an identity based on obesity.” Those complaints are drawn from the more than 800 removal requests filed by Clean Up Samuels,...

The smashing success of Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical Hamilton has shown that education need not take place within the confines of a classroom. Another group that understands that idea is the community of educational YouTube creators, who have used their channels to teach math, science, history, and other school subjects in a variety of entertaining ways.

One of the most talented practitioners of YouTube edutainment is Tim Blais, who puts both his master’s degree in physics and his keen musical ear to work on his A Capella Science channel, where he offers up songs like "Bohemian Gravity." In his latest video, Blais joined forces with several of his colleagues in the online video community for a tribute to Irish physicist William Rowan Hamilton set to the tune of Hamilton’s opening track.

In the video, creators like Hank Green, Derek Muller, Tom McFadden, and Blais portray historical figures who...