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History

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Going Places

Travel pushes us. Home pulls

On May 6, 1937, the hydrogen-filled zeppelin burst into flames, shown here in a colorized photo, above a New Jersey field, killing 35 of 97 riders.

Found: Letters from the Hindenburg

A new addition to the Smithsonian collections tells a new story about the legendary disaster

Caro’s hunt for the soul of LBJ has become a thrilling race against time.

Should LBJ Be Ranked Alongside Lincoln?

Robert Caro, the esteemed biographer of Lyndon Baines Johnson, talks on the Shakespearean life of the 36th president

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A By-The-Numbers Look at American Real Estate

An index to houses great and small over the centuries

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The Civil War

Document Deep Dive: How the Homestead Act Transformed America

Compare documents filed by the first and last homesteaders in the United States

Marilyn Monroe getting ready for her close-up in a movie of the future

Resurrecting the Dead With Computer Graphics

Rufus Choate

The Case of the Sleepwalking Killer

The evidence against Albert Tirrell was lurid and damning—until Rufus Choate, a protegé of the great Daniel Webster, agreed to come to the defense

Digital billboard in 2019 Los Angeles from the film Blade Runner (1982)

Billboard Advertising in the City of Blade Runner

Are Angelenos destined to be perpetually surrounded by super-sized advertisements?

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What Are America’s Most Iconic Homes?

According to the National Building Museum, these houses, more than most, have impacted the way we live

Cover to the April 1938 issue of Popular Science magazine

Rocket to the Stars at the 1939 New York World’s Fair

A trip into space without leaving Earth—or even going outdoors

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Theodore Roosevelt’s Life-Saving Speech

When a would-be assassin shot, the 50-page manuscript and metal eyeglasses case tucked against Roosevelt’s chest absorbed the blow

Editor John Henson of The New Aladdin floppy disk magazine

The Magazine of the Future (on floppy disk!)

More than 20 years before the iPad, an entrepreneur saw the potential of interactive, digital magazines

In 1882, years after an Apache encampment was massacred by Mexican troops, the tribe's legendary leader Geronimo and his men came to avenge the killings on a grassy hill just north of the town of Galeana in Mexico.

Geronimo’s Decades-Long Hunt for Vengeance

Close by the Mormon colony of Colonia Dublan is an unlikely tourist attraction: the small hilltop where the legendary Apache leader exacted his revenge

Robot server at the Two Panda Deli in Pasadena, California

The Disco-Blasting Robot Waiters of 1980s Pasadena

In 1983, a Chinese fast-food restaurant hired a curious-looking pair of servers: Tanbo R-1 and Tanbo R-2

Frank Costello testifying before the Kefauver Committee in March 1951

The Senator and the Gangsters

The radio-delivered newspaper machine of 1938

Print the News, Right In Your Home!

Decades before the Internet, radio-delivered newspaper machines pioneered the business of electronic publishing.

The British pigeon known as Crisp VC brought back news of the sinking of an armed trawler by a German U boat and the heroic death of her captain, Thomas Crisp, who was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

World War I: 100 Years Later

Closing the Pigeon Gap

During the First World War, Allied birds outperformed their rivals and saved thousands of lives–all thanks to the efforts of one London pigeon fancier

Polly Adler and a friend

The House that Polly Adler Built

She entered the brothel business without apology and set out to become the best madam in America

The Potala Palace, Lhasa: home to nine successive Dalai Lamas, a number of them suspiciously short-lived.

Murder in Tibet’s High Places

The Dalai Lama is one of the world’s most revered religious leaders, but that didn’t prevent four holders of the office from mysteriously dying

Flying ambulance of the future (1927)

The Flying Ambulance of Tomorrow

In the 1920s, a French inventor devised an ingenious way to provide emergency medical assistance

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