Editors' Picks
How to Save the Taj Mahal?
A debate rages over preserving the awe-inspiring, 350-year-old monument that now shows signs of distress from pollution and shoddy repairs
The Beer Archaeologist
By analyzing ancient pottery, Patrick McGovern is resurrecting the libations that fueled civilization
Samuel Morse's Reversal of Fortune
It wasn't until after he failed as an artist that Morse revolutionized communications by inventing the telegraph
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The Man Who Wouldn’t Die
The plot to kill Michael Malloy for life-insurance money seemed foolproof—until the conspirators actually tried it
February 07, 2012
| By Karen Abbott
How did the terrible Attila the Hun command so much loyalty—and why, in death, was he so mourned?
February 03, 2012
| By Mike Dash
Thankfully, this Super Bowl spectacle never had a wardrobe malfunction
February 03, 2012
| By Matt Novak
Why bother with cloning and time travel, when your dream safari awaits on a nearby planet?
February 01, 2012
| By Matt Novak
In 1930, many football fans believed the college game was better than the professional one
January 31, 2012
| By Gilbert King
A century ago, Douglas Mawson saw his two companions die and found himself stranded in the midst of Antarctic blizzards. His epic three-week march to safety is one of the greatest survival stories in the history of polar exploration
January 27, 2012
| By Mike Dash
When Dr. Athelstan Spilhaus met President Kennedy in 1962, JFK told him, "The only science I ever learned was from your comic strip."
January 27, 2012
| By Matt Novak
The champion golfer was critically injured in 1949—and went on to the most dominant phase of his career.
January 25, 2012
| By Gilbert King
Meet the 1920 radio enthusiast who had the foresight to invent the annoying habit of talking on the phone while in the car.
January 25, 2012
| By Matt Novak
A 1950 news report predicted that women in the year 2000 would be "more than six feet tall, wear a size 11 shoe, have shoulders like a wrestler and muscles like a truck driver."
January 20, 2012
| By Matt Novak
A rundown of historians, authors and bloggers to follow in the coming year
January 19, 2012
| By Brian Wolly
Off the coast of North Carolina lie dozens of shipwrecks, remainders of a forgotten theater of World War II
January 18, 2012
| By Jim Morrison
History often plays linguistic tricks on us, especially when it comes to rapidly changing technologies
January 17, 2012
| By Matt Novak
Charles J. Guiteau said he wanted to kill President James A. Garfield "in an American manner." He passed up several opportunities before he thought the time was right.
January 17, 2012
| By Gilbert King
Recently reissued, William L. Shirer's seminal 1960 history of Nazi Germany is still important reading
February 2012
| By Ron Rosenbaum
Two thousand years before Picasso, artists in Egypt painted some of the most arresting portraits in the history of art
February 2012
| By Smithsonian Magazine
Sightseeing across the country in an atomic-powered "pleasure ball"
January 13, 2012
| By Matt Novak
Chronicling passions that change the world, for good and ill
February 2012
| By Terence Monmaney
The public's fascination with the concept of "movable pavement" extends back more than 130 years
January 11, 2012
| By Matt Novak
A collection of historic front pages shows how civilians experienced and read about the war
January 10, 2012
| By Jeanne Maglaty
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