Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Arts & Culture

Enrico Fermi, Italian-American physicist, received the 1938 Nobel Prize in physics for identifying new elements and discovering nuclear reactions by his method of nuclear irradiation and bombardment.

Was Enrico Fermi Really the “Father of the Nuclear Age”?

A new book takes a fresh look at the famed scientist

Most of the T-shirts had in common the image that appeared on Juan Diego’s cloak: the Virgin modestly looking down, her hands folded together in prayer.

A New Way to Show Your Devotion in Mexico City: Wear a T-Shirt

A Smithsonian folklorist makes the pilgrimage to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe and discovers an emerging tradition

Ryan McGinley, Dakota Hair, 2004.

Don’t Miss These 10 New Art and Design Exhibits Opening This Winter

Explore everything from artistic chairs to underground magazines this season

Tagliavini is attracted to the time of Filippo Lippi, famously said by Robert Browning to “paint the soul.”

An Extravagant New Tribute to the Rise of Portraiture 600 Years Ago

The artist takes 21st century technology and culture to a 15th century aesthetic

Viewers are invited to sprawl on the carpeted floor and look up.

People Are Lying on the Floor To See this Dazzling Ceiling Puzzle

The work pays homage to the vaulted domes, ornate Italianate arches and Art Deco geometric forms of nine of the nation’s historic ceilings

The Ten Best History Books of 2017

From presidential biographies to a look at the long rise of fake news, these picks will surely interest history buffs

Bentley found "each snowflake is as different from its fellows as human beings are from each other."

The Man Who Revealed the Hidden Structure of Falling Snowflakes

Beginning in the 1880s, amateur photographer Wilson A. Bentley considered the endlessly varied crystals “miracles of beauty”

Hurricane Maria, September 2017

Turning Hurricane Data Into Music

Can listening to storms help us understand them better? A meteorologist and a music technologist think so

The film (with Dustin Hoffman and Katharine Ross) is still subversive, though in different ways.

When ‘The Graduate’ Opened 50 Years Ago, It Changed Hollywood (and America) Forever

The movie about a young man struggling to find his way in the world mesmerized the nation when it debuted

Gold plating sheathes most of C-3PO’s costume. Later films included variations such as a red arm.

How Anthony Daniels Gives C-3PO an Unlikely Dash of Humanity

The fussy but brave “protocol droid” plays the role of the Greek chorus in the Star Wars franchise

Ivan Chermayeff (June 6, 1932-December 2, 2017)

Commentary

Designer of the Smithsonian Sunburst Logo Dies

Ivan Chermayeff was a brilliant designer, a gifted artist and the purveyor of a unique visual language, says Smithsonian curator Ellen Lupton

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery is home to a photograph of Travolta by Douglas Kirkland, (above, detail), striking his characteristic dance pose.

John Travolta’s Breakout Hit Was America’s Best Dance Party

It’s been 40 years since ‘Saturday Night Fever’—a gritty film powered by music, machismo and masterful footwork—became a cultural phenomenon

A pod of dolphins swim along a boat in the Channel Islands National Park, California

What Archaeologists and Historians Are Finding About the Heroine of a Beloved Young Adult Novel

New scholarship reveals details about the Native American at the center of the classic Island of the Blue Dolphins

The Ten Best Travel Books of 2017

These reads will remedy even the direst cases of wanderlust

Thomas Wilfred Sitting at the Clavilux “Model E,” about 1924

This Artist Painted With Light. An Admiring Astronomer Helped Make Him a Star

The works and machinations of Thomas Wilfred, a lone performer, inventor and visionary, are now on view

From left to right: Toni L. Martin (Sephronia), Harriett D. Foy (Nina Simone), Felicia Curry (Sweet Thing) and Theresa Cunningham (Sarah) in Nina Simone: Four Women, running November 10-December 24, 2017 at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater.

Maverick Music Takes Center Stage in This New Play on Nina Simone

A Smithsonian expert delves into the song and struggle at the heart of ‘Four Women’ at D.C.’s Arena Stage

The accused "Angel Makers of Nagyrév" walk in the Szolnok prison yard in Hungary.

Is There Humanity to Be Found Within Serial Killers?

A new book tells the complex stories behind murderous women, the so-called “femmes fatales.”

Gotcha!

Gulliver’s Travels Wasn’t Meant to Be a Children’s Book And More Things You Didn’t Know About the Literary Classic

Even now, 350 years after his birth, the great Irish satirist Jonathan Swift remains as sharp and relevant as ever

Johnny Depp stars in Twentieth Century Fox’s “Murder on the Orient Express.”

A Trip Inspired by ‘Murder on the Orient Express’

On the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, the murder mystery is not included

Marley Dias

American Ingenuity Awards

Marley Dias’ Inspirational Goal to Collect Books About Girls of Color

What can we learn from a 12-year-old who’s turning the literary world upside down? Everything

Page 120 of 369