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Science
Gimme Shelter
Best Friends Animal Society has a sprawling campus in the canyons of Utah, but its influence has grown to reach almost every shelter in the country
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Dig In to the Traditions Behind Two Holiday Dishes That Make the Season Even More Delicious
Two culinary traditions from two island nations reveal what glues communities and families together across time
Smart News
Fourteen Years After Gaddafi’s Fall, Libya Reopens Its National Museum to Much Fanfare
Fossils Suggest That Some Ancient Burrowing Bees Made Their Homes in Rodent Skulls
You Can Now See 2,000-Year-Old Thermal Baths and Military Barracks Without Ever Leaving Rome’s New Subway Stations
These Male Hummingbirds Evolved Straighter, Sharper Bills So They Could Better Joust for Mates
Pumas Are Snacking on Penguins in Argentina—and the Abundant Birds Are Changing the Prowling Cats’ Behavior
Latest Features
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History
The Lost City of the Silk Road
Researchers are uncovering what they think is the metropolis of Marsmanda, an iron-making city that could rewrite the history of the famed trade route
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History
A Grand New Design
A train wreck that caused the death of more than a dozen commuters near the turn of the 20th century was the impetus behind a monumental project that changed the urban landscape
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Most Popular
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Special Report
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America’s 250th Anniversary
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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Photo of the Day
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The Notes of the Earth
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Podcast
Smithsonian Podcast: There’s More to That
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.
Latest Episodes
The ‘Edmund Fitzgerald’ Sank Half a Century Ago. We’re Still Fascinated.
November 6, 2025 | 28 minutes
History
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Pompeii’s Graffiti Captures Every Joke, Boast and Argument of an Ancient Roman City Frozen in Time
The roughly 11,000 inscriptions preserved by Mount Vesuvius’ eruption in 79 C.E. offer a glimpse into everyday life in the Roman Empire
Science
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From a Remote Observatory, He’s Defending Our Planet. Get a Glimpse Inside the Life of a Doomsday Asteroid Hunter
David Rankin of the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona spends nights scanning the solar system for potentially catastrophic space rocks. Here’s what he has to say about that “high consequence” work, an interstellar comet and living with uncertainty
Innovation
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Two College Students Are Building a Robot to Replant Burned Forests
Marta Bernardino and Sebastião Mendonça invented Trovador, a four-legged, A.I.-powered robot that can plant trees in hard-to-reach, wildfire-damaged terrain
Travel
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Meet the Daredevils Chasing Down Speed Records at the Bonneville Salt Flats
Race officials, tinkerers and competitors converge in Utah every fall to test both metal and mettle
Arts & Culture
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A Famed Street Photographer Chronicled What Christmas Looks Like Across America Over the Course of Decades
Lee Friedlander’s new book, “Christmas,” collects his work from all over the country on the topic of our sentimental and materialistic connection to the holiday
At the Smithsonian
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Sixty Years Ago, When Instruments Were Played in Space for the First Time, It Was ‘Jingle Bells’ All the Way
Astronauts Tom Stafford and Wally Schirra delighted mission control with their rendition of the Christmas classic