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A fallow deer with its impressive but unevenly formed antler looks straight into the light of the setting sun.

Wild Things: Life as We Know It

Bats’ barotrauma, fallow deer, Tahitian vanilla, lucky dinosaurs

A fallow deer with its impressive but unevenly formed antler looks straight into the light of the setting sun.

Wild Things: Life as We Know It

Bats’ barotrauma, fallow deer, Tahitian vanilla, lucky dinosaurs

The Greensboro Woolworth's Lunch Counter, desegregated by a 1960 sit-in, anchors a wing of the renovated museum.

From the Castle: History Ahead

A renovated National Museum of American History opens up American history and culture to millions of visitors

"I never thought anything would come of them," John Rich says of the some 1,000 personal photographs that he made as a reporter during the war.

One Man’s Korean War

John Rich’s color photographs, seen for the first time after more than half a century, offer a vivid glimpse of the “forgotten” conflict

Medieval wall gate.

Munich at 850

The livable, culture-crazy, beer-loving capital of Bavaria is coming to terms with its history

We don't have a town center, Alvarez says, but we're "rich in characters and talents."

Julia Alvarez on Weybridge, VT

Other towns get more attention says novelist Julia Alvarez, but this is a place where things get done

The rebuilt museum boasts an innovative green roof, home to poppies, yellow tidytips and other native plants.

California Academy of Sciences: Greening a Higher Ground

San Francisco’s new science museum hosts its own rooftop ecosystem

Roy Lichtenstein, Modern Head, 1974/1989-1990.

Roy Lichtenstein: Making History

A well-known sculpture works its way back from 9/11 damage

A San Francisco resident has learned that wild male turkeys can gobble on cue.

Jukebox: A Choir of Turkeys

Wild turkeys gobble on cue

Michelle Delaney holding the original 1888 Kodak and Larry Bird holding a display of campaign buttons.

American History Museum: Pieces of Our Past

Smithsonian curators probe the meanings of telltale objects

Portrait of country western singer Wanda Jackson from 1971.

Q and A: Wanda Jackson

In the 1950s, Wanda Jackson was one of the first women to record rock ‘n’ roll.

Garden and Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur.

What’s Up From the Smithsonian

Photographic keepsakes, garden paintings from the maharajahs and Fritz Scholder’s Indian identity on canvas

Frank sought to compile "a spontaneous record of a man seeing this country for the first time."  Indianapolis, 1956 is typically short on particulars but laden with symbols.

Robert Frank’s Curious Perspective

In his book The Americans, Robert Frank changed photography. Fifty years on, it still unsettles

"Politicians made more sense when they relied on oracles and omens."

In Politics, Just Follow the Signs

Politicians made more sense when they relied on oracles and omens says Joe Queenan

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Letters

Readers Respond to the September Issue

Courtesy of Municipal Gallery in Lenbachhaus.  Two riders before the red, 1911, woodblock, © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.

Feeling Blue: Expressionist Art on Display in Munich

Visitors catch a glimpse of the groundbreaking, abstract art created bypreeminent 20th century expressionists

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November Anniversaries

After almost two centuries, the flag's frail state became plain.  The icon's new high-tech home will protect it from exposure to bright light, humidity and ambient pollution.

Star-Spangled Banner Back on Display

After a decade’s conservation, the flag that inspired the National Anthem returns to its place of honor on the National Mall

Now seen as early evidence of prehistoric worship, the hilltop site was previously shunned by researchers as nothing more than a medieval cemetery.

Gobekli Tepe: The World’s First Temple?

Predating Stonehenge by 6,000 years, Turkey’s stunning Gobekli Tepe upends the conventional view of the rise of civilization

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