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Stories from Meilan Solly

This map shows an English flag flying over Calais, an English territory lost to France in 1558.

A Collection of Maps Owned by England’s First Queen Spent Centuries Overlooked in a Family Library. Now, the Rare Volume Is on Sale for $1.6 Million

Created for Mary I, the first woman to rule England in her own right, the book is “perhaps the most significant artifact of Tudor intellectual history still in private hands,” the seller says

Pomona, Frans Floris de Vriendt, 1565

Renaissance Art Linked Beauty With Virtue and Ugliness With Vice. See How Painters From Leonardo da Vinci to Botticelli Viewed Physical Attractiveness

An exhibition in Brussels spotlights 90-plus artworks featuring golden-haired muses, greedy old men and those deemed unattractive simply because they were different

This colonnaded open hall—unearthed in the Maya city of Ucanal in 2024—may have been a council house.

In Times of Trouble, the Maya Rejected Divine Kingship. This Newly Discovered Public Building Reveals How the Transition to Shared Power Unfolded

Archaeologists in northern Guatemala unearthed a colonnaded open hall that may have served as a council house, where local leaders and everyday people met to discuss political issues

This stone slab shows Tiberius standing next to the Egyptian gods Amun, Khonsu and Mut.

Why Does This Newly Discovered 2,000-Year-Old Stone Slab Depict a Roman Emperor as an Egyptian Pharaoh?

The sandstone monument shows Tiberius standing next to a family of local gods. Archaeologists say the scene illustrates the ruler’s role as a leader who upheld cosmic order in Egyptian society

A damaged portrait of Mary Magdalene by Artemisia Gentileschi (left) and a similar version of the same scene (right) housed at the Pitti Palace in Florence, Italy

Rolled Up in a Cellar for Decades, This Artemisia Gentileschi Painting Is Now Up for Auction. Why Is Mary Magdalene’s Face Missing From the Portrait?

Found in Berlin, the artwork was probably damaged in the chaotic aftermath of World War II. Despite the gaping hole in the canvas, it could sell for upwards of $180,000 later this month

A photograph of Sophia Duleep Singh (on the right) with her older sisters, Catherine (left) and Bamba (middle)

This Punjabi Princess Fought for Women’s Suffrage and Sheltered Refugees During World War II. A Goddaughter of Queen Victoria, She Rejected British Imperialism

A new exhibition at Kensington Palace tells the riveting story of Sophia Duleep Singh, daughter of the last maharaja of the Sikh Empire

Archaeologists in a barrow, or prehistoric burial mound, in Norfolk, England

Archaeologists Didn’t Expect to Find Anything at This Site in England. Then, They Stumbled Upon a Roman Villa and a Bronze Artifact Dubbed ‘Norfolk Nessie’

Ahead of wind farm development on Britain’s eastern coast, excavations along an underground cable route uncovered the ruins of an ancient farming estate that boasted its own bathhouse

A new study is the first to “pinpoint which fragrances were actually burned in Pompeian domestic cult practices,” archaeologist Johannes Eber says.

What Did Ancient Pompeians Burn as Offerings to Their Gods? New Research Reveals the Surprising Answer

An analysis of incense burners discovered in the doomed city identified traces of resin imported from sub-Saharan Africa or Asia, testifying to Pompeii’s extensive trade networks

Gertrude Lawrence as Anna Leonowens and Yul Brynner as Mongkut in the 1951 Broadway production of The King and I. The musical turns 75 on March 29.

‘The King and I’ Spotlights an English Governess Who Modernized Siamese Society. The Real Anna Leonowens Exaggerated Her Influence and Lied About Her Origins

The beloved musical is loosely based on a Eurasian schoolteacher’s accounts of her time at King Mongkut’s court. These memoirs masked her mixed-race status and unfairly portrayed the monarch as a tyrant

Caitríona Balfe as Claire Fraser (left) and Sam Heughan as Jamie Fraser (right) in season one of "Outlander"

The Final Season of ‘Outlander’ Is Here. See the Most Iconic Kilts, Gowns and Other Costumes From the Time Travel Drama

An exhibition at the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown showcases 26 ensembles from the Starz series’ first four seasons

“If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated,” wrote Carter G. Woodson in a 1926 essay.

A White Historian Claimed That Black People ‘Had No History.’ This Trailblazing Scholar Dedicated His Life to Proving Otherwise

Carter G. Woodson, the “father of Black history,” founded the celebration now known as Black History Month in 1926. A prolific writer and activist, he viewed his efforts to educate the public as a “life-and-death struggle”

Infrared scans suggest that the artist reworked their composition to prominently feature Anne's hands clasping a rose. “By clearly displaying five digits on each hand, the portrait acts as a visual rebuttal to hostile rumors and as a defense of Anne Boleyn—and, by extension, of her daughter Elizabeth’s legitimacy,” says curator Owen Emmerson.

Rumors Suggested That Anne Boleyn Was a Witch With Six Fingers. Did This Elizabethan Artist Rework a Portrait of the Tudor Queen to Debunk the Gossip?

A new analysis of the Hever Rose portrait suggests that the painter deliberately modified an existing template to showcase Anne’s hands—with no extra digits—holding a delicate rose

This late 16th-century portrait of Anne Boleyn (left) closely resembles a circa 1590 portrait of Elizabeth I (right), as well as two separate likenesses of Mary I and Edward IV. The paintings appear to share the same established “face pattern” of the then-queen, Elizabeth.

Why Do These Tudor-Era Portraits of Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth I Look So Strikingly Similar?

The artist behind the works may have used Elizabeth’s likeness as a template in other royal portraits to visually emphasize her resemblance to previous monarchs and reinforce her status as the legitimate Tudor heir

Fascinating finds unveiled in 2025 ranged from an Auguste Rodin sculpture to a ring bearing the likeness of the goddess Venus Victrix.

Seventy-Two Fascinating Finds Revealed in 2025, From a Luxury Spa in Pompeii to a Pair of World War I Messages in a Bottle

The year’s most exciting discoveries included the site where a young George Washington stopped a friendly fire incident, the missing torso of a Buddha statue and a hidden Picasso painting

Our most-read stories of the year spotlighted a Eugène Delacroix painting, horseshoe crabs, the Dionne quintuplets and more.

Ten Top Smithsonian Stories of 2025, From Eerie Clay Puppets With Detachable Heads to a New Look at the American Revolution

The magazine’s most-read articles of the year included a deep dive on the Scopes “monkey trial,” an interview with award-winning documentarians and a profile of quintuplets who found fame during the Great Depression

Bao Li (pictured on January 4, 2025) and Qing Bao, who are both 4 years old, are still considered teenagers in panda years.

See 14 of the National Zoo’s Most Adorable Giant Panda Photos From 2025

These snapshots of Bao Li and Qing Bao capture the pair’s cutest moments, from playing in the snow to celebrating their 4th birthdays

Smithsonian magazine's picks for the best history books of 2025 include We the People, The Stolen Crown and Medicine River.

The Ten Best History Books of 2025

Our favorite titles of the year resurrect overlooked histories and examine how the United States ended up where it is today

Photographs of an elderly Holocaust survivor from an album documenting the Jewish Relief Unit's activities in Germany after World War II

Elderly Jews Were Among the Most Likely to Die in the Holocaust. Why Has History Forgotten About the Genocide’s Oldest Victims?

A new exhibition at London’s Wiener Holocaust Library spotlights the unique challenges faced by European Jews who were over the age of 55 during World War II

Russell Crowe as Hermann Göring in Nuremberg, a new film written and directed by James Vanderbilt

The True Story Behind ‘Nuremberg,’ a WWII Drama About Hermann Göring’s Cat-and-Mouse Game With an American Psychiatrist

Starring Russell Crowe as the high-ranking Nazi and Rami Malek as Army officer Douglas M. Kelley, the film dramatizes the intense dynamic between its central characters during the Nuremberg trials

Surviving members of the Sobibor Uprising in 1944. Leon Feldhendler, a leader of the revolt, is standing in the back row at far right.

These Jewish Prisoners Revolted Against the Nazis, Killing Their Guards and Escaping From a World War II Death Camp

During the lesser-known 1943 Sobibor Uprising, several hundred Jews fled into the forests of Poland, where many were tracked down and shot. Fifty-eight Sobibor inmates survived the war

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