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Maasai Mara National Reserve, Kenya

See Ten Gorgeous Photographs of Lions and Discover What Makes the Majestic Felines Special

A new book of essays and images reveals the history of the big cats and how they’ve become a vulnerable species today, and uncovers little-known facts about them

Many different types of animals, from birds to orcas, are affected by human noise.

Five Dramatic Ways Animals Respond to Human Noise, From Mimicking Car Alarms While Wooing Mates to Calling Higher Over the Din of Traffic

As human-caused sound gets louder around the world, some animals change their behavior and many creatures suffer health issues

Visitors participate in a Forest Temple service in the spiritualist community of Lily Dale, about an hour southwest of Buffalo.

The Tiny New York Town Where Mediums Give Voice to the Dead

Lily Dale is home to about 40 mediums who connect thousands of spiritual seekers with their deceased loved ones

An aardvark emerges from its burrow.

Could Aardvark Burrows Be Ground Zero for the Next Pandemic?

Animals of all kinds mix and mingle in the underground refuges, offering troubling opportunities for diseases to jump species

Real tennis was played indoors, usually in a court with high windows, a sloping roof and a spectators’ gallery.

Why European Royals, From Henry VIII to Louis X, Loved Playing ‘Real Tennis,’ the So-Called Sport of Kings

Modern tennis’ predecessor was a different—and potentially more dangerous—test of athletic prowess

Young football players locked in a huddle in the 1960s, jealously guarding their strategy for the next play.

How a Deaf Quarterback Changed Sports Forever By Inventing the Huddle

Paul Hubbard called for the football team at Gallaudet University to circle around him back in 1894

A listener selects “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley & His Comets on a classic Wurlitzer “bubbler.”  

The Colorful, Scandalous, True History of the Machine That Created American Pop

The jukebox got its start earlier than you might think, but it truly became iconic when rock ‘n’ roll took over in the 1950s

Two of Frank Kameny’s notebooks. In one, Kameny notes that the owners of the Tides Hotel are “non-members” but “sympathetic.”

Frank Kameny Helped Chart a Path to Liberation for Millions of Gay Americans

Personal notebooks reveal what life was like for the Washington activist who spent decades advocating for equal rights in the federal government and elsewhere

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When Historians Rediscovered These Frederick Douglass Letters, They Were Surprised by His Candid Opinions About Abraham Lincoln

In correspondence with a passionate abolitionist in London, the great American orator didn’t hold back when talking about the 16th president, or his successor, the much-maligned Andrew Johnson

Clockwise from top left: Abigail Adams, Harriet Jacobs, Zora Neale Hurston and Eleanor Roosevelt.

Four Famous American Women Who Were Also Prolific Letter Writers

In a long and storied tradition, these bold women recorded history—and shaped it—through their correspondence

Jesse Mockrin. The Descent, oil on linen, 7.5 by 25.8 feet, 2024.

A New Exhibit in Toronto Reexamines the Works of the Baroque Masters

In her monumental work inspired by the Rape of the Sabine Women, an artist reimagines a much-depicted story from antiquity

Predatory dinosaurs like Acrocanthosaurus perform a mating dance. Fossils indicating such a dance took place, possibly by this species, were described in 2016.

From Dinosaur Scratches to Insects in Amber, How Paleontologists Uncover Prehistoric Courtship

Researchers have found fossil evidence of varied creatures wooing and mating, as they continue to search for the telltale signs of dinosaurs copulating

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America's 250th Anniversary

The Underappreciated True Story of the Brash Prussian Military Officer Who Whipped the Patriots Into Shape at Valley Forge

Most Americans think of George Washington’s winter encampment as brutal and deadly. But Friedrich von Steuben, an out-of-work military veteran from Europe, turned it into a fruitful training ground

A worker lowers a pump system into the water. The tube sucks in the berries and pulls them into a machine that separates the fruit from water, stems and debris. 

These Photos of Harvesting Cranberries Transform the Annual Ritual Into a Shimmering Spectacle

In eastern Massachusetts, flooded wetlands cover the landscape as farmers collect the crop that features on Thanksgiving tables nationwide

Dustin Partridge of the New York City Bird Alliance looks for migrating birds during the 2024 Tribute in Light in New York City.

The New Science of Aeroecology Reveals So Much About the Amazing Creatures That Populate the Skies and How Humans Can Ensure Their Survival

The sky above us is a complex ecosystem, just like the land and sea. A new field of research is bringing a fresh understanding of the birds, bugs and other species that live there

Left to right, American models Joanna McCormick, Janet Randy, Betsy Pickering and Gretchen Harris pose for Charm amid traffic on Park Avenue. 

The First Magazines Written for Career Women Reveal a Portrait of Immense Creativity and Hope

Publications including “Mademoiselle,” “Glamour” and the long-forgotten “Charm” first emerged in the 1930s to satisfy an emergent force in the workplace

People line up for rations of beans and water in Japan following the country's defeat in World War II, in September 1945.

A Batch of Undelivered WWII Letters Intended for Japanese Soldiers Ended Up in an Oregon Museum Decades Later. Now, Experts Are Returning the Lost Correspondence to Their Families

An organization devoted to returning artifacts as a way to heal the emotional wounds left by the war is helping the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum send these deeply personal items to the writers’ descendants

Piles of marigold garlands at the 170-year-old Mullick Ghat flower market in Kolkata. The flowers are ubiquitous at Hindu religious rituals and festivals.

From Flower Markets and Colonial Forts to Shrines and Battlefields, Take a Journey Into the Heart of India

Traveling down a river in West Bengal reveals the enduring imprint of empire—and the soul of a region shaped by centuries of change

Gouverneur Morris condensed and revised a draft of the United States Constitution, but he came to doubt his own words by the end of his life.

America's 250th Anniversary

The Founding Father Who Lost a Leg, Romanced Married and Single Women Alike, and Escaped the Bloodshed of the French Revolution

Gouverneur Morris wrote the preamble to the Constitution and shaped the future of the nascent United States. Later in life, he rejected the foundational document as a failure

Lord Krishna—an incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu—begs the antagonist, Duryodhana, not to launch a war. 

A Veteran Pixar Animator’s Newest Book Is an Epic Undertaking That Began 5,000 Years Ago

Sanjay Patel enjoyed success on YouTube with his colorful shorts and is about to release a richly illustrated book that tells the story of the longest poem in the world

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