Articles

President Roosevelt shaking hands with Vice President Truman during his fourth inauguration.

Jukebox: Hail to the Chief

Franklin Roosevelt's fourth inaugural, which was less than 600 words long, focused on the perils of isolationism

Pulitzer Prize-winning author N. Scott Momaday operates the Buffalo Trust, a nonprofit organization working to preserve Native cultures.

N. Scott Momaday and the Buffalo Trust

Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Kiowa Indian N. Scott Momaday runs a nonprofit organization working to preserve Native cultures

Dorothy's Ruby Red Slippers from The Wizard of Oz are back on display at the National Museum of American History.

For Those Ruby Red Slippers, There's No Place Like Home

The newly reopened Smithsonian National Museum of American History boasts a rare pair of Judy Garland's legendary ruby slippers

Fluid Dynamics by Tina York.

What's Up

"Very seldom do a bunch of Santas get together," says Jerry Clarke, the right-most Santa, who manages apartments by day.

The More the Merrier

Photographer Neal Slavin captures the night some Santas bent the rules

"Some halls of fame are admittedly just a nice way for industries to give loyal timeservers a pat on the back."

Your Name Here

If you're not yet a Hall of Famer, maybe you're just not trying

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Letters

Readers Respond to the November Issue

Van Gogh painted his iconic The Starry Night in 1889, while in an asylum in Saint-Rémy.  "One of the most beautiful things by the painters of this century," he had written to Theo in April 1885, "has been the painting of Darkness that is still COLOR."

Van Gogh's Night Visions

For Vincent Van Gogh, fantasy and reality merged after dark in some of his most enduring paintings, as a new exhibition reminds us

David Frost (Michael Sheen) interviews Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) in "Frost/Nixon."

Frost, Nixon and Me

Author James Reston Jr. discovers firsthand what is gained and lost when history is turned into entertainment

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January Anniversaries

Momentous or Merely Memorable

President Abraham Lincoln, with officers in 1862, rarely dictated battlefield tactics.

Lincoln as Commander in Chief

A self-taught strategist with no combat experience, Abraham Lincoln saw the path to victory more clearly than his generals

Scaffolding covers the reconstructed golden dome. With help from the U.N. and the Iraqi prime minister's office, workers are rebuilding the sacred Shiite site.

Samarra Rises

In Iraq, the restoration of the shattered Mosque of the Golden Dome brings together Sunnis and Shiites in an unlikely alliance

Mountain operations, like the Hobet 21 mine near Danville, West Virginia, yield one ton of coal for every 16 tons of terrain displaced.

Mining the Mountains

Explosives and machines are destroying Appalachian peaks to obtain coal. In a West Virginia town, residents and the industry fight over a mountain's fate

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Elevations

Disparate views from on high

Born with a disease that has robbed her eyesight, Alisha Bacoccini (being examined by surgeon Albert Maguire) is undergoing experimental gene therapy at the University of Pennsylvania.  If she weren't legally blind, says the 20-year-old massage therapist, she would want to be a forensic scientist.

Gene Therapy in a New Light

A husband-and-wife team's experimental genetic treatment for blindness is renewing hopes for a controversial field of medicine

Biologist Eric Forsman was delighted that a breeding pair of wild spotted owls he has studied for years did it again (their 3-week-old hatchlings on a hemlock in Oregon this past May).

The Spotted Owl's New Nemesis

An battle between environmentalists and loggers left much of the owl's habitat protected. Now the spotted owl faces a new threat

A study shows that cabbage white butterflies with their hindwings removed could fly as far and as high as before.

Wild Things: Life as We Know It

Butterflies, clicking antelopes, creatures of the deep and more

Przewalski's horse thrives at Smithsonian's Conservation and Research Center

Teaming Up

University partnerships are key to the success of the Smithsonian Institution's education initiatives

Seen from the aircraft that Steinmetz calls his "flying lawn chair," a salt-making site at the village of Teguidda-n-Tessoumt in arid northern Niger appears to be a vast work of abstract art. The clay-lined pools hold briny water that slowly evaporates, yielding salt solids that workers truck to southern Niger and Nigeria, where the minerals are given to livestock. The bluish pools bear a salty crust that reflects the sky.

Africa on the Fly

Dangling from a paraglider with a propeller on his back, photographer George Steinmetz gets a new perspective on Africa

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Weekend Events: Story Time and Art a la Cart

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