Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

History

A U.S. official noted the "amaraderie and trust among these guys—the Peace Brothers"(Rabin, Mubarak, Hussein, Clinton and Arafat).

Ties That Bind

At last, all parties were ready to make peace in the Middle East. Whoops … Not So Fast

In the Nigerian village of Tajaé, a woman named Rakany (with her great-grandson) says she was given as a slave to her owner when she was an infant. She is now 80 years old.

Born into Bondage

Despite denials by government officials, slavery remains a way of life in the African nation of Niger

None

Cold and Hungry

When snow blankets the mountains, the expedition is once again imperiled

None

A Bittersweet Homecoming

As the corps finally makes contact with the Shoshone Indians, interpreter Sacagawea reunites with her family

None

The Price of Ambition

From the beginning, the cost of increasing and diffusing knowledge exceeded even Smithson’s generosity

None

War Stories

Remembering the sound and fury—and the joy—of the end of World War II

None

It’s Over

We asked readers to tell us where they were and how they reacted to the news that World War II had ended. And what a response we got!

After months at sea, Selkirk's ship put in at the island (named Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966) with a leaky hull and restive crew. But an extended stay didn't quell Selkirk's misgivings.

The Real Robinson Crusoe

He was a pirate, a hothead and a lout, but castaway Alexander Selkirk—the author’s ancestor inspired one of the greatest yarns in literature

The fate of the Civil War hinged on the battle at South Carolina's Morris Island. If Union forces captured Fort Wagner they could control access to the harbor.

Preservation or Development at Morris Island?

On this site where the nation’s legendary African-American fighting force proved its valor in the Civil War, a housing development ignited a debate

None

The Elusive Shoshone

Needing horses and a route across the Rockies, the corps must find Sacagawea’s people —or risk the fate of the expedition

July 1970

A look back at the world in Smithsonian Magazine’s first year

Cathlapotle Plankhouse

Board Rooms

Near Portland, Oregon, archaeologists and Indians have built an authentic Chinookan plankhouse like those Lewis and Clark saw

Near the confluence of the three forks of the Missouri River, the site where the Jefferson, Gallatin, and Madison rivers meet, in Three Forks, Montana.

A Fork in the River

After deliberating for nine days, the captains choose the tortuous southwest branch of the Missouri toward the Great Falls

None

Reversing the Clock

Taking care of the nation’s treasures requires art, history and even molecular science

None

Glyph Dweller

Archaeologist Alanah Woody’s infectious enthusiasm for Nevada’s rock art knows no bounds

The great Lakota chief Red Cloud at 51, in an 1872 portrait by Alexander Gardner

Chief Lobbyist

He made little headway with President Grant, but Red Cloud won over the 19th century’s greatest photographers

Tut's head, scanned in .62-millimeter slices to register its intricate structures, takes on eerie detail in the resulting image. With Tut's entire body similarly recorded, a team of specialists in radiology, forensics, and anatomy began to probe the secrets that the winged goddess of a gilded burial shrine protected for so long.

King Tut: The Pharaoh Returns!

An exhibition featuring the first CT scans of the boy king’s mummy tells us more about Tutankhamun than ever before

Mexicans entering the United States

Cross Purposes

Mexican immigrants are defying expectations in this country-and changing the landscape back home

The artifacts of the Pig War speak of peace: even these British Minié balls were discarded without having been fired.

Boar War

A marauding hog bites the dust in a border dispute between the United States and Britain that fails to turn ugly

The members of the Supreme Court including Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes (center, front row) ruled against President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal programs.

History of Now

When Franklin Roosevelt Clashed With the Supreme Court—and Lost

Buoyed by his reelection but dismayed by rulings of the justices who stopped his New Deal programs, a president overreaches

Page 275 of 300