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Dolley Madison rescue of George Washington portrait

History & Archaeology

How Dolley Madison Saved the Day

As invading British troops approached in August 1814, the first lady coolly took command of the White House
By Thomas Fleming

Construction around old mosque Kashgar

History & Archaeology

Demolishing Kashgar's History

A vital stop on China's ancient Silk Road, the Uighur city of Kashgar may lose its old quarter to plans for "progress"
By Joshua Hammer

Whale bones in Barrow Alaska

Science & Nature

Barrow, Alaska: Ground Zero for Climate Change

Scientists converge on the northernmost city in the United States to study global warming's dramatic consequences
By Bob Reiss

Pho Spice Garden buffet

Travel

Searching for Hanoi's Ultimate Pho

With more Americans sampling Vietnam's savory soup, a noted food critic and an esteemed maestro track down the city's best
By Mimi Sheraton

Lockport New York

People & Places

Joyce Carol Oates Goes Home Again

The celebrated writer returns to the town of her birth to revisit the places that haunt her memory and her extraordinary fiction
By Joyce Carol Oates

The Utter Inn Sweden

Travel

Lodging in the Trees, Underwater and in the Ground

From Tunisian caves to Swedish mines, unusual hotels can be found around the world to make your vacation a special one
By Robin T. Reid

Neanderthal burial scene

Arts & Culture

The Skeletons of Shanidar Cave

A rare cache of hominid fossils from the Kurdistan area of northern Iraq offers a window on Neanderthal culture
By Owen Edwards

Home Funeral

People & Places

Capturing Appalachia's "Mountain People"

Shelby Lee Adams' 1990 photograph of life in the eastern Kentucky mountains captured a poignant tradition
By Abigail Tucker

evolution faces

Science & Nature

A Closer Look at Evolutionary Faces

John Gurche, a “paleo-artist,” has recreated strikingly realistic heads of our earliest human ancestors for a new exhibit
By Abigail Tucker

Capitol Records building

History & Archaeology

Hollywood's Historic Buildings

Theaters and other architectural gems lined Hollywood's famous boulevards during its Golden Age and now hold restored star appeal
By Laura Kiniry

Rick Potts

Arts & Culture

Q and A: Rick Potts

The Smithsonian anthropologist turned heads in scientific circles when he proposed that climate change was the driving force in human evolution
By Beth Py-Lieberman

Ardipithecus ramidus life appearance and bones

Science & Nature

The Human Family's Earliest Ancestors

Studies of hominid fossils, like 4.4-million-year-old "Ardi," are changing ideas about human origins
By Ann Gibbons

Cane toad

Science & Nature

Wild Things:
Life as We Know It

Pollinating crickets, the longest migration, puffed up toads and more...
By T.A. Frail, Megan Gambino, Abigail Tucker and Sarah Zielinski

Paul Jennings descendants

History & Archaeology

Witness to History

The first memoir by a White House slave recreates the events of August 23, 1814
By Kathleen Burke

Comanche Family

History & Archaeology

An Ancestry of African-Native Americans

Using government documents, author Angela Walton-Raji traced her ancestors to the slaves owned by American Indians
By Katy June-Friesen

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