Wars
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![As many as 150,000 slaves may have gained freedom (as depicted in 1863). "We will probably never know [the total]," says historian James O. Horton. "Part of the reason is that the underground was so successful: it kept its secrets well."](http://media.smithsonianmag.com/images/200*345/free_main.jpg)
Free at Last
A new museum celebrates the Underground Railroad, the secret network of people who bravely led slaves to liberty before the Civil War
December 2004 |
By Fergus M. Bordewich
Vilnius Remembers
In Vilnius, Lithuania, preservationists are creating a living memorial to the nation's 225,000 Holocaust victims
December 2004 |
By Vijai Maheshawri
TET: Who Won?
A North Vietnamese battlefield defeat that led to victory, the Tet Offensive still triggers debate nearly four decades later
November 2004 |
By Don Oberdorfer
Ultimate Sacrifice
At age 33 in 1917, the Harvard-trained lawyer and Major League baseball player Eddie Grant volunteered to serve in World War I. He fought as he'd played: selflessly
October 2004 |
By Kevin Coyne
Kilroy Was Here
En route to Vietnam in the 1960s, American G.I.'s recorded their hopes and fears on the canvas undersides of troopship sleeping berths
October 2004 |
By Owen Edwards
Francis Scott Key, the Reluctant Patriot
The Washington lawyer was an unlikely candidate to write the national anthem; he was against America’s entry into the War of 1812 from the outset
September 2004 |
By Norman Gelb
The Rocky Road to Revolution
While most members of Congress sought a negotiated settlement with England, independence advocates bided their time
July 2004 |
By John Ferling
The Law that Ripped America in Two
One hundred fifty years ago, the Kansas-Nebraska Act set the stage for America's civil war
May 2004 |
By Ross Drake
On Clipped Wings
As America's first black military pilots, Tuskegee airmen faced a battle against racism
May 2004 |
By Keith Weldon Medley
Flower Child
A Vietnam War protester recalls a seminal '60s image, part of a new book celebrating French photographer Marc Riboud's 50-year career
April 2004 |
By Andrew Curry
In Their Footsteps
Retracing the route of captured American and Filipino soldiers on the Bataan Peninsula in World War II, the author grapples with their sacrifice
March 2004 |
By Donovan Webster
Divided Loyalties
Descended from American Colonists who fled north rather than join the revolution, Canada's Tories still raise their tankards to King George
January 2004 |
By David DeVoss
September 11 From a Brooklyn Rooftop
Photographer Alex Webb captured a moment that showed, he says, the "continuity of life in the face of disaster"
September 2003 |
By Paul Maliszewski
Uncle Sam's Dolphins
In the Iraq war, highly trained cetaceans helped U.S. forces clear mines in Umm Qasr's harbor
September 2003 |
By William Gasperini
Benjamin Franklin Joins the Revolution
Returning to Philadelphia from England in 1775, the "wisest American" kept his political leanings to himself. But not for long
August 01, 2003 |
By Walter Isaacson
Making Sense of Robert E. Lee
"It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it."
— Robert E. Lee, at Fredericksburg.
July 2003 |
By Roy Blount, Jr.
Into the Breach
David Douglas Duncan's Life photographs captured the courage and anguish of marines in Korea, bringing home the gravity of war
May 2003 |
By Terence Monmaney
Henry Kissinger on Vietnam
Henry Kissinger's new book revisits America's troubled extrication from Indochina
March 2003 |
By Smithsonian magazine
Marching on History
When a "Bonus Army" of World War I veterans converged on Washington in 1932 to demand a promised payment, MacArthur, Eisenhower and Patton were there to meet them
February 2003 |
By Paul Dickson and Thomas B. Allen
