Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Arts & Culture

Thought to be the world's oldest existing running shoe, this footwear dates back to the early 1860s.

Running Shoes Date Back to the 1860s, and Other Revelations From the Brooklyn Museum’s Sneaker Show

A show on sneaker culture at the Brooklyn Museum hypes its modern Nikes, but perhaps most fascinating are the historic kicks that started it all

Captivating Photos of the Survivors of the Nepal Earthquake

Photographer Sara Hylton visited the central Asian nation once the 7.9 tremor shook the earth

Plaster cast of Greek Slave, 1843, by Hiram Powers

The Scandalous Story Behind the Provocative 19th-Century Sculpture “Greek Slave”

Artist Hiram Powers earned fame and fortune for his beguiling sculpture, but how he crafted it might have proved even more shocking

A Bengali edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The beloved children's book by British scholar Charles Lutwidge Dodgson has been translated into every major language and numerous minor ones, including many that are extinct or invented.

The Mad Challenge of Translating “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”

Explore the linguistic tricks used to make Lewis Carroll’s puns, parodies and nonsense accessible in hundreds of tongues

Signs welcome visitors to Howard Finster’s Paradise Garden.

When Rock Bands Flocked to Howard Finster’s Remote, Bizarre Artist Compound

Even today you can visit the site where groups such as R.E.M. found a true artistic genius

Stone steps descend as far as 500 feet into the Moray concentric agriculture terraces near Maras, Peru, crossing a temperature differential of some 60 degrees. Ancient innovators may have domesticated and hybridized plant species here, using temperature ranges to simulate conditions found across the far-flung Inca Empire.

Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly: Inca Road

What Endures From the Ancient Civilizations That Once Ruled the Central Andes?

To journey here is to roam through almost six thousand years of civilization, to one of the places where the human enterprise began

Taken by ship to North America and Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries, the tiny fruit gave rise to all the many tomato varieties enjoyed today.

Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly: Inca Road

Why Is This Wild, Pea-Sized Tomato So Important?

Native to northern Peru and southern Ecuador, this tiny and rapidly vanishing tomato boasts outsized influence on world gastronomy

The Honda Smart Home, on the University of California, Davis, campus, is an experiment in efficiency.

What It’s Like to Live in This Smart, Energy-Efficient Home of the Future

Nine months in, a family of four adjusts to life in the Honda Smart Home, a testing ground for new technologies at University of California, Davis

Hundreds of people gather at the Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta, Indonesia to perform the Eid al-Fitr prayer. After the prayers, families and community members get together to celebrate with food and gifts.

Photos of Muslims Celebrating Eid al-Fitr Across the Globe

Muslims mark the end of Ramadan with food, festivities, gifts and prayers

Mission operations manager Alice Bowman shares the real secret behind the Pluto flyby in December 2014.

These Pictures Give a Rare Glimpse Into the Heart of the Pluto Flyby

Spanning the full 9.5 years of the mission to date, the images by Michael Soluri capture the people behind the epic close encounter

Seven Ways to Revamp Deserted Spaces Under New York City’s Highways and Elevated Trains

The Design Trust for Public Space reimagines neglected areas under the city’s infrastructure

Inside of the labyrinth, along one of the bamboo corridors.

Get Lost in the World’s Largest Maze

Ponder existence while wandering through the bamboo stalks of Italy’s Masone Labyrinth

The History of Creepy Dolls

Take a trip to the uncanny valley and hope you make it back unscathed

After World War II, Gottschee ceased to exist as an independent community

An Attempt to Keep the Dying Gottschee Culture Very Much Alive

Inspired by a trip to Slovenia with her grandmother, one New Yorker took it upon herself to chronicle the story of a lost piece of European history

Sponsor: National Portrait Gallery

Which of These Baseball Players Should the Portrait Gallery Put on Display?

Vote for these all-stars in an entirely different kind of competition

The rolling hydraulic bridge at London’s Paddington Basin built in 2004 curls up on itself like a pillbug.

A Look Into the Innovative Mind of One of the World’s Most Inventive Architects

A new show at the Cooper Hewitt reveals the process behind designer Thomas Heatherwick’s projects

The "Queer Threads" exhibition, which ran in early 2014, examined the diversity of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer experiences.

Urban Explorations

What it Took to Create the World’s First Gay Art Museum

Charles Leslie’s passionate half-century of homoerotic art collecting offers a mirror for the history of gay history itself

Digital artist Jeremy Sutton's finished painting captured the many elements of the event.

This Is How You Live Paint an Event

Artist Jeremy Sutton painted on his iPad while musicians performed and visitors played virtual reality games at the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Turning New York City’s Subway Into a Symphony

Musician James Murphy wants to replace the beeps of the system’s turnstiles with beautiful music

Page 167 of 368