During its first year of service, Freedom House Amublance Service transported more than 4,600 patients across 5,800 calls, saving 200 lives.

These Trailblazing Black Paramedics Are the Reason You Don’t Have to Ride a Hearse or a Police Van to the Hospital

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Freedom House Ambulance Service set the standard for emergency medical care, laying the groundwork for the services available today

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A tsunami might have occured some 115 million years ago, near where deposits of Cretaceous amber were found in Japan.

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This Deposit of ‘Weird’ Cretaceous Amber Could Reveal Hints to Long-Forgotten Tsunamis in Japan

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He Went Out to Catch Fish in Lake Michigan—and Discovered a 102-Year-Old Shipwreck Instead

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South Korea’s Female Free Divers May Have Evolved to Thrive Underwater, Study Finds

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A Young Cooper’s Hawk Learned to Use a Crosswalk Signal to Launch Surprise Attacks on Other Birds

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Scientists Use DNA to Trace Early Humans’ Footsteps From Asia to South America

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A grizzly bear walks along a road in Lake Louise, Alberta.

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To Reduce Human and Grizzly Bear Conflicts, Both Species Must Change Their Behavior

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Sarah Grandmother’s Knife, Apsáalooke (Crow), age 10, wearing an elk-tooth dress and sticking out her tongue playfully in Montana, 1910

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See the Stunning Archival Photographs That Tell the Stories of Everyday Native Life and Communities

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The Ake archaeological site on the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico.

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Loaded with colorful containers, a cargo ship floats right into the Port of Miami.

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Scoresby Sund in Eastern Greenland is the largest fjord system in the world.

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June 2025

OPENER - A shaft of golden light from the cave’s mouth provides warmth as the expedition’s scientists enjoy lunch 80 feet below the opening of Natural Trap Cave.

Science Passage to the Pleistocene

At a site known as Natural Trap Cave, a team of scientists are rappelling down to uncover the secrets of what the Earth was like during the Pleistocene

Science Balancing the Scales

The mammals’ return to the region represented a conservation success story, but their appetite for endangered fish is upsetting the balance of a delicate ecosystem

OPENER - Vanilla producer Bertrand Côme displays bound and dried vanilla beans for sale at his Réunion farm. The beans generally grow as long as 6 to 11 inches.

Travel The Bittersweet Beginnings of Vanilla

A journey to the remote Indian Ocean island reveals the story behind the fragrant, delicious, ubiquitous spice—and the enslaved youth who made it a commercial success

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A Young Cooper’s Hawk Learned to Use a Crosswalk Signal to Launch Surprise Attacks on Other Birds

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A Century Ago, a High School Teacher From a Small Tennessee Town Ignited a National Debate Over Human Evolution

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A New, Shape-Shifting ‘Flapjack’ Octopus Has Been Discovered in the Deep Sea Off the Coast of Australia

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Special Report

Washington Crossing the Delaware, Emanuel Leutze, 1851

To mark the 250th anniversary of America’s founding on July 4, 1776, Smithsonian magazine is highlighting the people, places and events that shaped the United States’ fight for independence from Great Britain

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Discover Patrick Henry’s Legacy, Beyond His Revolutionary ‘Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death’ Speech

A 19th-century lithograph of Patrick Henry's "give me liberty or give me death" speech

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How an American Merchant, a French Official and a Pioneering Chemist Smuggled Much-Needed Gunpowder to the Continental Army

Silas Deane, left, worked with Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, center, to secure gunpowder from Antoine Lavoisier, right.

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What Spurred the South to Join the American Revolution?

Patrick Henry rallies armed Virginian farmers before marching toward Williamsburg, Virginia, May 1775.

Photo of the Day

Recreating in vast wilderness areas is an immense privilege of American culture, and the Pacific Northwest is an ideal location for the experience. Here, a small blue tent is dwarfed by the sheer size of the surrounding landscape. When alone in the backcountry, the noise of every day life is lost. Sitting against the backdrop of 50 shades of blue, one has the unique opportunity to be lulled to sleep by trickling streams, tucked into sleep by gentle alpine breezes, and awoken by pink alpenglow reflecting off glaciated peaks.

Containing more than 50-miles of hiking trails, Mount Baker Wilderness in Washington state is a pristine example of America's preserved natural landscapes.

50 Shades of Blue

By Brooke Juhala

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Smithsonian magazine covers history, science and culture in the way only it can — through a lens on the world that is insightful and grounded in richly reported stories. In There’s More to That, meet the magazine’s journalists and hear how they discover the forces behind the biggest issues of our time.

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