Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

History

None

Risky Businesses

On track to take off

A new Folkways album is one of many offerings for the war sesquicentennial.

Civil Discourse

The winner of the 1911 Indianapolis 500 averaged about 75 mph, less than half the winning speed in today's race.

One Hundred Years of the Indy 500

A century ago, the first Indianapolis 500 race started in high excitement and ended in a muddle

Rose O'Neal Greenhow, Confederate spy

The Civil War

Women Spies of the Civil War

Hundreds of women served as spies during the Civil War. Here’s a look at six who risked their lives in daring and unexpected ways

On April 27, 1865—12 days after he shot Lincoln at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C.—Booth was shot in a Virginia barn. He died from his wound that day.

The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

Documenting the Death of an Assassin

In 1865, a single photograph was taken during the autopsy of John Wilkes Booth. Where is it now?

One of the most effective Union spies was Elizabeth Van Lew. Over a course of four years she quietly sent valuable intelligence to Union officers and even ran her own network of spies.

The Civil War

Elizabeth Van Lew: An Unlikely Union Spy

A member of the Richmond elite, one woman defied convention and the Confederacy and fed secrets to the Union during the Civil War

A circa 1925 woodcut by Unpo Takashima depicts Tokyo's Ueno district ablaze. "Each new gust of wind," reported Joseph Dahlmann, a Jesuit priest who witnessed the calamity from a hilltop, "gave new impulse to the fury of the conflagration."

The Great Japan Earthquake of 1923

The powerful quake and ensuing tsunami that struck Yokohama and Tokyo traumatized a nation and unleashed historic consequences

The peak of La Danta—one of the world's largest pyramids—pokes through the forest canopy. "All this was abandoned nearly 2,000 years ago," says archaeologist Richard Hansen. "It's like finding Pompeii."

El Mirador, the Lost City of the Maya

Now overgrown by jungle, the ancient site was once the thriving capital of the Maya civilization

None

May 2011 Anniversaries

May 2011 Anniversaries

In 1966, Henry Carfagna, the Suffolk Downs track photographer, prepared to take his standard picture of the horses driving toward the wire when he saw a man run onto the track.

At Suffolk Downs, an Unintended Spectator

Photographer Henry Carfagna was in the perfect position to catch the moment when a horse race took a bizarre turn

Pyramid at El Mirador

Extraordinary Discoveries

In archaeology and medicine

None

Ask Smithsonian 2017

Who Had the Best Civil War Facial Hair?

Browse these portraits of officers with great facial hair courtesy of the Library of Congress and then vote for your favorite

O. O. McIntyre's daily column about the city, "New York Day by Day," ran in more than 500 newspapers throughout the United States.

Odd McIntyre: The Man Who Taught America About New York

For millions of people, their only knowledge about New York City was O.O. McIntyre’s daily column about life in the Big Apple

A group of officers in Culpeper, Virginia reading letters from home.

The Civil War

The Essentials: Six Books on the Civil War

These six histories of the Civil War that are must-reads if you want to better understand the conflict

None

Fred Birchmore’s Amazing Bicycle Trip Around the World

The American cyclist crossed paths with Sonja Henje and Adolf Hitler as he transversed the globe on Bucephalus, his trusty bike

To mark the 50th anniversary of the Civil War a group of men reenacted "Pickett's Charge" at Gettysburg.

The Civil War

How We’ve Commemorated the Civil War

Take a look back at how Americans have remembered the civil war during significant anniversaries of the past

One of the best-documented female soldiers is Sarah Edmonds. She was a Union soldier and worked during the Civil War as a nurse.

Women Who Shaped History

The Women Who Fought in the Civil War

Hundreds of women concealed their identities so they could battle alongside their Union and Confederate counterparts

After Union troops refused to evacuate Fort Sumter, today a National Monument, Confederates opened fire.

The Civil War

Fort Sumter: The Civil War Begins

Nearly a century of discord between North and South finally exploded in April 1861 with the bombardment of Fort Sumter

Non-Muslims use a wood ramp to enter the complex, home to the gilded Dome of the Rock, an Islamic shrine, and the Western Wall, holy to Jews.

Ask Smithsonian 2017

What Is Beneath the Temple Mount?

As Israeli archaeologists recover artifacts from the religious site, ancient history inflames modern-day political tensions

When President Abraham Lincoln learned that Union Army Col. Elmer E. Ellsworth had been killed, the president exclaimed, "My boy! My boy! Was it necessary this sacrifice should be made?"

The Death of Colonel Ellsworth

The first Union officer killed in the Civil War was a friend of President Lincoln’s

Page 249 of 300