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How James Smithson’s Money Built the Smithsonian
In 1838, 104,960 sovereigns from the bequest of a learned Englishman were reminted in the U.S. to fund the “increase and diffusion of knowledge”
Graduating from St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland—or Santa Fe, New Mexico—guarantees a place in the Republic
Editor at Large: Going the Distance
This month we present the down under travel experiences of longtime editor Edwards Park
It’s the star-spangled banner; the anthem it inspired plays on as a musical salute to the stars and stripes
Armed with easel, palette and pencil, George Catlin went west in the 1830s to paint the real “Wild West”
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A Tale of Fatal Feuds and Futile Forensics
A Smithsonian anthropologist digs for victims of a West Virginia mob murder
A masterpiece in porcelain replays old struggles between Bolshevik and Czarist opponents
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In 1918, a hopeful France gave Mrs. Wilson a peace brooch, but peace eluded her husband and the world
The Smithsonian Secretary assembled a devoted team, a remarkable engine and a plane that wouldn’t fly
How two brothers in an old Curtiss Robin set a record that’s stood for 62 years
A long-lost daguerrotype, made by a black artist in 1847, has lately come to rest at the Smithsonian
A bejeweled box from a sorely beset emperor leads to a Yankee dentist, and how he rescued the beautiful empress Eugénie from a Paris mob
How an upside-down biplane on a 24-cent stamp, at the Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum, seemed to jinx early attempts at carrying the mail by air
The incredible world of computers was born some 150 years ago, with a clunky machine dreamed up by a calculating genius named Charles Babbage
There was a time when a cane was the exclamation point to a gentleman’s attire, but canes have also been put to a remarkable range of uses