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The League of Women Voters led registration efforts across the country.

100 Years of Women at the Ballot Box

What the First Women Voters Experienced When Registering for the 1920 Election

The process varied by state, with some making accommodations for the new voting bloc and others creating additional obstacles

The B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay was one of a few dozen World War II-era aircraft specially modified for the express purpose of delivering atomic weapons.

Why the Enola Gay, the Plane That Dropped the First Atomic Bomb, Will Always Inspire Debate

The Enola Gay, fully restored and on view at the Smithsonian, left an indelible mark

The 60,000-square-foot museum opens today.

A Champion in Accessible Design, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Museum Opens in Colorado Springs

The Games may be canceled this year, but you can still get a virtual taste of glory

A scene of the wreckage left behind by a hurricane that swept through the Florida Keys in 1935.

How Hurricanes Have Shaped the Course of U.S. History

A new book examines the 500-year record of devastating storms affecting the nation’s trajectory

Perseverance, which has six wheels and is about the same size as a small car, looks very much like the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity.

Smithsonian Voices

Why NASA Is Headed Back to Mars With the Rover Perseverance

Find out why the next mission to Mars is so exciting on the National Air and Space Museum’s podcast AirSpace

An artist's rendering of the Perseverance rover on Mars

To Make Oxygen on Mars, NASA’s Perseverance Rover Needs MOXIE

A new tool from the space agency may produce the gas, completing the next step for planning a round trip voyage

Artifacts and artworks from around the Smithsonian model the Institution's mandatory mask requirement (see below for key to their identities and locations).

What Does the Smithsonian Look Like in the Post-COVID Era?

Key personnel from across the Institution weigh in on the long road back to normal(ish) operations

Ted Siebert set a world record when he built this sandcastle for Turkish Airlines in Key Biscayne, Florida, in 2015.

How to Build a Sandcastle

World-record-holding sand sculptor Ted Siebert gives some tips for amateur builders looking to hone their skills this summer

Dressed in ceremonial regalia, Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (Northern Cheyenne), a veteran of the Korean War, stands with World War II veteran Senator Daniel K. Inouye and Native American veterans of the Vietnam War during the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian on the National Mall. October 21, 2004, Washington, D.C.

Smithsonian Voices

A Native Remembrance on Korean Armistice Day

Some 10,000 Native Americans veterans served during the Korean conflict

Jewish doctors give medical examinations in the Warsaw Ghetto

Covid-19

How a Public Health Campaign in the Warsaw Ghetto Stemmed the Spread of Typhus

A new study shows how life-saving efforts by Jewish doctors helped curb an epidemic during World War II

Even though social insects tend to live in super-tight quarters, colonies of such species are somehow able to limit the spread of contagions.

Covid-19

In Social Insects, Researchers Find Clues for Battling Pandemics

Studying the ability of some ants, termites, bees and wasps to contain pathogens may help human societies control diseases of their own

A group of activists, including Judy Heumann (center, with yellow stockings) protest for the enforcement of Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, in April of 1977. Later that month, the protesters would occupy a federal building in San Fransisco in protest in a sit-in that lasted more than 25 days.

The ADA Was a Monumental Achievement 30 Years Ago, but the Fight for Equal Rights Continues

A look back at the fight for disability rights comes with the reckoning of the challenges left unsolved

The patio at the Laurent House.

This Frank Lloyd Wright Home Was a Trailblazing Example of Accessible Design

The Laurent House in Rockford, Illinois, was built 40 years before the Americans with Disabilities Act became law

Joshua Bell is the curator of globalization at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. He is working on a new exhibit about the global history of cellphones.

Smithsonian Voices

Meet the Scientist Studying How Cell Phones Change Societies

“Smartphones embody globalization,” says the Smithsonian cultural anthropologist Josh Bell

Bisa Butler, I Am Not Your Negro, 2019. Cotton, wool and chiffon, quilted and appliquéd. 79 x 60 in.

Artist Bisa Butler Stitches Together the African American Experience

Her dynamic quilts that reimagine old portraits will be on display in New York in her first solo exhibition

In the recent "Portraits" podcast, LL recounts why he turned to a 100-year-old masterpiece of the richest person in modern history—John D. Rockefeller Sr.—for his power pose.

How a Maverick Hip-Hop Legend Found Inspiration in a Titan of American Industry

When LL COOL J sat for his portrait, he found common ground with the life-long philanthropical endeavors of John D. Rockefeller

Baby sauropod on a nest, taken at the American Museum of Natural History's World's Largest Dinosaurs exhibit.

How Dinosaurs Raised Their Young

New research into eggshells and nesting sites help paleontologists unravel the family lives of the Mesozoic

A boy has his temperature checked as he receives a free COVID-19 test in Los Angeles.

Covid-19

What Scientists Know About How Children Spread COVID-19

As communities struggle with the decision over whether to open up schools, the research so far offers unsatisfying answers

he Hope spacecraft of the United Arab Emirates' Emirates Mars Mission during testing.

Smithsonian Voices

Launching Hope to Mars

National Air and Space Museum director Ellen Stofan reflects on the significance of the United Arab Emirates upcoming mission to Mars

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