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History

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The Last Schoolhouse

When a handful of senior citizens revisit the school they attended years ago, they become children again

Capturing America’s Fight for Freedom

Smithsonian experts help the makers of Mel Gibson’s new movie, The Patriot, create scenes and bring the conflict’s many factions into sharper focus

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Our Flag Was Still There

It’s the star-spangled banner; the anthem it inspired plays on as a musical salute to the stars and stripes

George Mason

George Mason: Forgotten Founder, He Conceived the Bill of Rights

This wise Virginian was a friend to four future presidents, yet he refused to sign the Constitution

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Reading the Messages in Everyday Things

As an inspired observer of landscapes urban and rural, historian John Stilgoe teaches us all to see with new eyes

Catacombs of Paris

Empire of the Dead

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When War Called, Davis Answered

The first modern war correspondent, Richard Harding Davis covered the first modern wars

The Hatfield clan in 1897

A Tale of Fatal Feuds and Futile Forensics

A Smithsonian anthropologist digs for victims of a West Virginia mob murder

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Myles and Me

The author, who according to family legend is a direct descendant of Myles Standish, surveys the checkered career of his pugnacious Pilgrim ancestor

A Noble and Absurd Undertaking

The Federal Writers’ Project gave Depression-era writers a second chance…and America its first comprehensive self-portrait

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In Praise of Pianos…

Capture of the Pirate, Blackbeard, 1718, Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, painted in 1920

A Fury from Hell—or Was He?

As underwater archaeologists pull artifacts from what may be the wreck of Blackbeard’s flagship, historians raise new questions about the legendary pirate

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Day by Day, In Pursuit of Justice

In Washington County, Vermont, prosecutors face mounting caseloads, looming deadlines —and ongoing drama

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Splendors of Topkapi

Secretary Lawrence M. Small

A Renaissance Man

From finance to feathers, Secretary Lawrence M. Small brings diverse talents to the Smithsonian

Toussaint Louverture

A Mystery in Miniature

An enigmatic button once decorated the uniform of Haitian liberator Toussaint Louverture

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Ready…Aim…Fire!

A risky experiment reveals how medieval engines of war brought down castle walls

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