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Articles

Lewis and Clark

Dangerous Liaisons

Severe cold and fraternizing with the Mandan keep Meriwether Lewis’ doctoring in demand

After the Bristish occupying army left Boston, Washington issued general orders (above) to his troops to "live in the strictest Peace and Amity with the [city's] inhabitants." He also urged the town fathers to turn over remaining British supplies and identify spies.

Washington Takes Charge

Confronting the British in Boston in 1775, Gen. George Washington honed the qualities that would carry the day in war and sustain the new nation in peace

Greer's efforts have led to the arrest of 20 poachers (rangers apprehend a suspect in Dzanga-Ndoki National Park). Still, hunters continue to slaughter western lowland gorillas in the Congo basin.

Stop the Carnage

A pistol-packing American scientist puts his life on the line to reduce “the most serious threat to African wildlife”—

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Tiny Treasures

From mosquitoes to mementos, the smallest items in the Smithsonian’s collections can be the most useful

Channel Islands Foxes; Eddie Grant…

Readers respond to the October issue

Alan Grant photographed Jayne Mansfield in 1957 in her Hollywood swimming pool, among hot-water bottles in her image, which now fetch hundreds of dollars each on Internet auction sites. "I could have been a multimillionare [if I'd saved some]," jokes Grant.

Slices of Life

From Hollywood to Buchenwald, and Manhattan to the Kalahari, the magazine pioneered photojournalism as we know it. A new book shows how

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Peter Pan Turns 100

But the boy who never grew up shows no signs of getting old

The traditional Thanksgiving turkey is delicious, but is it paleo?

How 260 Tons of Thanksgiving Leftovers Gave Birth to an Industry

The birth of the TV dinner started with a mistake

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Treasure Quest

For more than a decade, American Robert Graf has combed the waters of a Seychelles island for a multimillion-dollar booty stashed by pirates 300 years ago

Artifact of bondage: This 19th-century tobacco barn (on its original site, a Kentucky alfalfa pasture, in 1998) contains an interior hut fitted with manacles. The entire structure—a slave jail—was dismantled and moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where it forms the centerpiece of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, which opened in August.

Free at Last

A new museum celebrates the Underground Railroad, the secret network of people who bravely led slaves to liberty before the Civil War

Vikings sailing to Iceland

The Vikings: A Memorable Visit to America

The Icelandic house of what is likely the first European-American baby has scholars rethinking the Norse sagas

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Vilnius Remembers

In Vilnius, Lithuania, preservationists are creating a living memorial to the nation’s 225,000 Holocaust victims

In his greenhouse, Ragan Callaway pits spotted knapweed plantings (left) against native Montana grasses (right), trying to outwit the weed's chemical weaponry.

Wicked Weed of the West

Spotted knapweed is driving out native plants and destroying rangeland, costing ranchers millions. Can anybody stop this outlaw?

Artist depiction of the MESSENGER spacecraft in orbit around Mercury

Being There

Robotic spacecraft allow geologists to explore other planets as if they were on-site

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Herd on the Street

In Anchorage, Alaska, you never know when a moose will show up on your doorstep

Trumpeter Swan, John James Audubon, 1838.

John James Audubon: America’s Rare Bird

The foreign-born frontiersman became one of the 19th century’s greatest wildlife artists and a hero of the ecology movement

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Subway Spy

Walker Evans’ underground-breaking photographs resurface for the centennial of New York City’s rapid transit system

For the 2005 Festival of China, artist Cai Guo-Qiang created a fireworks display over the Potomac River in Washington, D.C.

Art That Goes Boom

The works of Cai Guo-Qiang, director of visual effects for the opening ceremonies at the Beijing Olympic Games, truly sizzle

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TET: Who Won?

A North Vietnamese battlefield defeat that led to victory, the Tet Offensive still triggers debate nearly four decades later

The Price of Freedom: Americans at War

Americans at War

A new exhibition explores the personal dimensions of war: valor and resolve—but also sacrifice and loss

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