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Wong Kim Ark's departure statement

Untold Stories of American History

How the Fight for Birthright Citizenship Shaped the History of Asian American Families

Even after Wong Kim Ark successfully took his case to the Supreme Court 125 years ago, Asian Americans struggled to receive recognition as U.S. citizens

Lego Caveman comes armed with a toy wooden club.

Did Our Ancestors Actually Wield Clubs?

Inspired by pop culture depictions of cavepeople, an archaeologist searches for what is real and what is a myth

This functional connectivity map, a kind of “fingerprint” of the brain, displays how different regions interact with each other in 12-year-olds. The map was constructed from resting-state MRIs, where participants were lying down and not completing a task. Larger red circles denote brain “nodes” with more connections.

The Future of Mental Health

Can a ‘Fingerprint’ of Your Brain Help Predict Disorders?

Using new medical imaging techniques, researchers are working to identify early signs of developmental disorders and mental illness

Frederick Douglass once said, “Samuel R. Ward has left no successor among the colored men amongst us, and it was a sad day for our cause when he was laid low in the soil of a foreign country.”

Untold Stories of American History

Frederick Douglass Thought This Abolitionist Was a ‘Vastly Superior’ Orator and Thinker

A new book offers the first full-length biography of newspaper editor, labor leader and minister Samuel Ringgold Ward

Richard’s life has long sparked debate, with two competing views of the last Yorkist king emerging in the centuries after his reign ended in 1485.

Based on a True Story

‘The Lost King’ Dramatizes the Search for Richard III’s Remains. The Monarch’s Life Was Even More Sensational

A new film offers a sympathetic portrait of the 15th-century ruler, who seized the crown from his nephew before dying on the battlefield

The rocky beach in Wrangell, Alaska, is decorated with more than 40 petroglyphs.

Discover Alaska

The Mystery of This Petroglyph-Covered Alaskan Beach

The 8,000-year-old rock carvings were likely created by the Tlingit

Many of the reptiles that thrived during the Triassic were crocodile relatives that dinosaurs would later mimic through evolutionary happenstance, such as Postosuchus (back) and Desmatosuchus (front).

Dinosaurs Were Evolutionary Copycats of These Long-Lost Look-Alikes

Before T. rex and ankylosaurus ruled the Earth, a host of similar Triassic reptiles reigned

Picasso in Place Ravignan in Montmartre in 1904

Why French Authorities Placed a Young Pablo Picasso Under Surveillance

Police suspected the 19-year-old Spanish expatriate of harboring anarchist views

Wandering albatross pair in courtship in South Georgia. Researchers have found some birds have bolder personalities than others.

Animal Personalities Can Trip Up Science

Individual behavior patterns may skew studies, but researchers have a solution to this problem

Salmon spread is a common snack across Alaska.

Discover Alaska

Salmon Spread Might Just Be the Most Alaskan Food

The smoky snack captures the state’s love for both salmon and preserved foods

Jews wearing yellow stars at the Kistarcsa concentration camp in Hungary in 1944

The Long History of Forcing Jews to Wear Anti-Semitic Badges

The practice was common in medieval Europe

To collect a saliva sample, technicians instruct a person to tilt their head for two to five minutes and spit the accumulated saliva into a sterile tube. The saliva-filled tube is kept on ice and sent to the laboratory to test for the presence of biomarkers for cancer or other diseases.

Is Saliva the Next Frontier in Cancer Detection?

Scientists are finding tumor signals in spit that could be key to developing diagnostic tests for various types of cancer

“Spirit in the Dark: Religion in Black Music, Activism and Popular Culture,” (above: Nina Simone by G. Marshall Wilson, 1959) is on view at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture through November 2023.

Movements Capturing the Spiritual Roots of Black Culture

A new exhibition of rarely seen images and artifacts chronicles the African American religious experience

“Marie Antoinette,” a new series premiering in the United States on March 19, is the first major English-language television show to tell the French queen’s story.

Based on a True Story

Why Marie Antoinette’s Reputation Changes With Each Generation

A new television series portrays the French queen as a feminist, drawing criticism from historians

The adaptive lighting cooked up by Camilla Rathsach and Mette Hvass would automatically adjust to the availability of moonlight, tweaking this church’s lighting automatically to balance visibility and darkness. This mock-up shows how the church would be lit under a full moon.

This Danish Church Is a Beacon for How to Protect Wildlife From Artificial Light

A proposed design looks to automatically adjust the exterior lighting on the Anholt Island building to the moonlight

A cockatoo uses a sharp stick to poke through a membrane before using a scoop to fish out the cashew inside the box.

Like Humans and Chimps, Cockatoos Can Use a Set of Tools to Get a Meal

In lab experiments, the brainy birds carried a stick and scooped with them to get at cashews kept in a box

Carrie Coon (left) as Jean Cole and Keira Knightley (right) as Loretta McLaughlin in the Boston Strangler movie

Women Who Shaped History

The Tenacious Women Reporters Who Helped Expose the Boston Strangler

A new film explores Loretta McLaughlin and Jean Cole’s efforts to unmask a serial killer believed to have murdered 13 women between 1962 and 1964

The sun sets over the Susquehanna River in northern Pennsylvania.

America's Waterways: The Past, Present and Future

America’s Waterways: The Past, Present and Future

In a series of articles, Smithsonian magazine highlights all that draws our eyes to our nation’s fresh and coastal waters

A $25 million plan to uncover 1,100 feet of Jordan Creek and build three bridges is moving forward in Springfield, Missouri.

America's Waterways: The Past, Present and Future

How ‘Daylighting’ Buried Waterways Is Revitalizing Cities Across America

Urban centers are exhuming creeks and streams once covered up to control floodwater—and bringing life back in the process

Movements, Motions, Moments offers a visual journey from the early 1870s to the present, depicting the story of how African Americans take action in sacred worship, ministry or ceremony according to their beliefs.

These Photographs of Spirituality in America Will Speak to Your Soul

A new volume from the National Museum of the African American History and Culture explores religion in the Black community

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