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Articles

From the National Air and Space Museum / Udvar-Hazy Center.

The Story of NASA’s Jet-Propulsion Backpack

Thirty years ago, astronauts set out on the first untethered space odyssey

Is the Giant Squid Near Extinction and More Questions From Our Readers

You asked, we answered

Smithsonian Best Small Towns 2014

The 20 Best Small Towns to Visit in 2014

From country music to herbal cocktails to horseshoe crabs to Rodin, our third annual list takes you to cultural gems worth mining

This 1943 large letter postcard is now a collector's item.

Smithsonian Secretary Clough on His Hometown

Post retirement, he will be spending more time in Douglas, Georgia

Fold the momo and pinch it closed.

How Manchester’s Burgeoning Bhutanese Population Is Pursuing the American Dream

An unlikely place for immigrants from central Asia, New Hampshire is an ideal adopted homeland

Kamakura Shirts owner Yoshio Sadasue opened a New York store on Madison Avenue.

How Japan Copied American Culture and Made it Better

If you’re looking for some of America’s best bourbon, denim and burgers, go to Japan, where designers are re-engineering our culture in loving detail

The Forum was among the many sights in Rome that amazed Copley, who said he was “feasting my eyes.”

When Colonial America’s Greatest Painter Took His Brush to Europe

John Singleton Copley left for Europe on the eve of the American Revolution. A historian and her teenage son made the trip to see why

For Twain, the “magnificent Mississippi, rolling its mile-wide tide” was the stuff of dreams (the St. Louis waterfront today).

American South

How the Mississippi River Made Mark Twain—and Vice Versa

No novelist captured the muddy waterway and its people like the creator of Huckleberry Finn, as a journey along the river makes clear

The Beautiful, Streamlined Cars That Set the World’s First Land Speed Records

One hundred years ago, the Bonneville Salt Flats became a racing paradise

Art Meets Science

This Is What Photography Looks Like on Drugs

Sarah Schoenfield’s experience as a bartender put her on the path to giving a “face” to illegal drugs

Building a War of 1812 Warship

This summer, a ship named after naval hero Oliver Hazard Perry will set sail

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Mark Twain’s Dream

A new poem by Carol Muske-Dukes

The Amazon Women: Is There Any Truth Behind the Myth?

Strong and brave, the Amazons were a force to be reckoned with in Greek mythology—but did the fierce female warriors really exist?

The aftermath of Ian Ball's attempt to kidnap Princess Anne. Ball's white Ford Escort is parked blocking the path of the princess' limousine.

The Bloody Attempt to Kidnap a British Princess

Remembering the failed plot undertaken by a lone gunman

Even the President of the United States takes time away from work to fill out his bracket.

When Did Filling Out A March Madness Bracket Become Popular?

Millions of Americans will fill out a NCAA basketball tournament bracket this year. How did it become such an incredible social phenomenon?

An illustration of the large, feathered Anzu wyliei depicts several striking anatomical features—its long tail, feathered arms, toothless beak and a tall crest on the top of its skull.

Scientists Discover a Large and Feathered Dinosaur that Once Roamed North America

The ‘Anzu wyliei’ species looks like a cross between a chicken and a lizard

Redpath lectures lasted well into the 20th-century (above, 1913), but when James Redpath started them in the late 1860s, he sought out speakers who could electrify an audience.

Before SXSW and Ted, A Manic Visionary Revolutionized the American Lecture Circuit

Meet James Redpath, the man who coached national celebrities on how to bring a crowd to its feet

An artist's rendering of Kepler-34b, an exoplanet believed to orbit two stars.

Life in the Cosmos

How Do Astronomers Actually Find Exoplanets?

A handful of ingenious methods have been used to detect the planets too far away for us to see

A veggie burger with a zucchini, feta, and pea patty.

The History of the Veggie Burger

Now mainstream, the hippie food changed vegetarian culture forever in 1982

A venture capital firm plans to launch hundreds of miniature satellites—capable of beaming websites to the world's most remote areas for free—into space by 2015.

Tech Watch

Could Mini Satellites Provide Free Internet to All?

A venture capital firm plans to make the World Wide Web available to anyone with a WiFi-enabled device

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