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December Anniversaries

The Great White Hope, Beethoven, and more…

This 1852 lithograph depicts extensions to Thornton's House and Senate Wings; the additions, authorized in 1851, were not yet constructed.

A Capitol Vision From a Self-Taught Architect

In 1792, William Thornton designed America’s defining monument, where a new visitor center opens in December

As James Chaney's family awaited the drive to his burial, 12-year-old Ben gazed outward. "There were a dozen questions in that look," says photographer Bill Eppridge.

The Lasting Impact of a Civil Rights Icon’s Murder

One of three civil rights workers murdered in Mississippi in 1964 was James Chaney. His younger brother would never be the same

Mary's marriage to Cord Meyer would reflect Washington's gender dramas.

44 Years Later, a Washington, D.C. Death Unresolved

Mary Pinchot Meyer’s death remains a mystery. But it’s her life that holds more interest now

One of the highlights of Emancipation Hall is a skylight view of the Capitol Dome, from below the East steps of the building.

Inside the Capitol Visitors Center

After years of delays and millions of dollars spent, the brand-new Capitol Visitors Center opens in December

The basillica and its storied mosaics constitute a matchless and threatened treasure. Architectural historian Dan Cruickshank calls it a "sacred mountain of a building, vast and elemental."

A Monumental Struggle to Preserve Hagia Sophia

In Istanbul, secularists and fundamentalists clash over restoring the nearly 1,500 year-old structure

John White likely did this study of a male Atlantic loggerhead on a stop in the West Indies en route to "Virginia" in 1585. "Their heads, feet, and tails look very ugly, like those of a venomous serpent," wrote Thomas Harriot, the expedition's scientist, of New World tortoises. "Nevertheless they are very good to eat, as are their eggs."

Sketching the Earliest Views of the New World

The watercolors that John White produced in 1585 gave England its first startling glimpse of America

"Horses define Lexington in many ways," says Edwards (with Thoroughbred Park's statues).

Lexington Is Kim Edwards’ Old Kentucky Home

Far from her Northern roots, the best-selling novelist discovers a new sense of home amid rolling hills and Thoroughbred farms

Equatorial Africa's rain forests have sustained Pygmies for millennia. Now other peoples are competing for the forests' resources, displacing the Pygmies.

The Pygmies’ Plight

A correspondent who chronicled their lives in central African rain forests returns a decade later and is shocked by what he finds

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Sneak Peek at the film Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

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Sneak Peek at the film Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

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Picture of the Week – Is that Lettuce?

This is a sea slug, Elysia chlorotica, and it looks like a leaf because it has acquired chloroplasts from its algal prey and stored them in its gut lining

Dogfish Head Brewery, featured in the New Yorker.

In the News: ‘Green Thanksgiving,’ Futuristic Food, Extreme Beer, and Farmer in Chief

A roundup of recent food-related features worth checking out

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Your Black Friday Buy: KOTA the Triceratops

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Cook Your Bird with Thermite!

Thanksgiving Turkey.

Gobble, Gobble

Here’s a little theme music for your turkey dinner

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Annual Dinosaur Dissection Day

Seven Questions for Turkey Day

In preparation for tomorrow’s big day, I offer you a selection of articles on the theme of turkey science:How did the turkey in my oven get so big?

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The Eat-ymology of the Turkey

A proud turkey.

The Eat-ymology of the Turkey

What do you really know about where the turkey came from?

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