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Arts & Culture

A glass of homemade eggnog dusted with cinnamon is a mouthwatering prospect to some—and an abomination to others.

The Uniquely American History of Eggnog, Everyone’s Favorite—or Least Favorite—Holiday Quaff

This Yuletide mainstay continues to warm cockles and ventricles everywhere

Why can't machines process CO2 the way trees do?

Why Can’t Machines Process CO2 Like Trees? And More Questions From Our Readers

You’ve got questions. We’ve got experts

An original Michtom teddy bear once held by two of Teddy Roosevelt’s great-grandchildren, Mark and Anne.

The Teddy Bear Was Once Seen as a Dangerous Influence on Young Children

Inspired by a moment of empathy from President Theodore Roosevelt, the huggable toy had a rocky start before it became the stuff of legend

Hoyma, which means “home” in Syðrugøta’s local dialect of Faroese, has featured 20 concerts by ten different artists who set up in the living rooms of ten different family homes in Syðrugøta.  

Northern Europe and the British Isles

Hoyma Is Bringing Music Home in the Faroe Islands

For one fall night, it is tradition for a handful of houses in Sydrugota, on the island of Eysturoy, to open their doors and host intimate concerts

Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein in Maestro, a new film that arrives on Netflix on December 20

LGBTQ+ Pride

The Real History Behind Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre’s Marriage in ‘Maestro’

The Bradley Cooper-led film is a dramatization of the storied composer and conductor’s complex love life

Smithsonian's picks for the best books about food of 2023 include Invitation to a Banquet, For the Culture: Black Women and Femmes in Food and More Than Cake.

The Best Books of 2023

The Ten Best Books About Food of 2023

Travel to Rome, Alaska, West Africa and beyond with this year’s best cookbooks, memoirs and historic deep dives

This turkey, with his impressive wattle and snood, has nothing to fear during the Thanksgiving holiday. He gives thanks every November that he lives the secure life of a beloved pet.

Smithsonian Photo Contest Galleries

Give Thanks for These 15 Photos Celebrating Thanksgiving

Gather together and commemorate the holiday of gratitude

Vanessa Kirby, who plays Joséphine in Ridley Scott's Napoleon, says the empress “was just this massive contradiction.” ­

Based on a True Story

The Real History Behind Empress Joséphine in Ridley Scott’s ‘Napoleon’

A new Hollywood epic traces Napoleon Bonaparte’s rise and fall through his checkered relationship with his first wife

The Dallas County Administration Building, formerly the Texas School Book Depository, as photographed in 2015

The Architectural History of the JFK Assassination Site

How November 22, 1963, changed Dallas’ Dealey Plaza forever

Smithsonian's picks for the best history books of 2023 include King: A Life, The Sisterhood and The Wager.

The Best Books of 2023

The Ten Best History Books of 2023

Our favorite titles of the year resurrect forgotten histories and illuminate how the United States ended up where it is today

“The World Made Wondrous: The Dutch Collector’s Cabinet and the Politics of Possession” takes a 17th-century Dutch cabinet as its starting point, tracing the threads of Dutch colonization through each object on view.

How Cabinets of Curiosities Laid the Foundation for Modern Museums

An exhibition at LACMA examines the legacy of Dutch colonization through a fictive 17th-century collector’s room of wonders

When the National Portrait Gallery opened more than a half-century ago, just 17 percent of its collection represented women—either as subjects or creators (above: Carmen de Lavallade, Michele Mattei, 2003, printed 2018). Today, that number has roughly doubled.

Beyoncé, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Other Iconic Women Take Their Place at the Smithsonian

This year, the National Portrait Gallery’s annual showcase of new acquisitions spotlights female subjects and female artists

Princess Diana in 1985. The sixth season of "The Crown" opens 12 years later, in the summer of 1997.

Based on a True Story

How Princess Diana’s Death Transformed the Royal Family

The last season of “The Crown” will examine the aftermath of the beloved royal’s death in a car accident in 1997

Fred McDowell, 1965, Como, Mississippi

Meet the Man Who Recorded the Music of America’s Front Porches and Backyard Parties

Chris Strachwitz, founder of Arhoolie Records, crisscrossed the United States photographing and recording musicians where they played

Julie Packard by Hope Gangloff is on view at the National Portrait Gallery in the new show, "Forces of Nature: Voices That Shaped Environmentalism."

Meet the Steely Gaze of Environmentalism

A new show at the National Portrait Gallery focuses on the defenders of Mother Earth over the past 150 years

Colman Domingo as Bayard Rustin in Rustin, a new film directed by George C. Wolfe

Based on a True Story

The Real History Behind Netflix’s ‘Rustin’ Movie

A new film finally spotlights Bayard Rustin, the gay civil rights activist who organized the 1963 March on Washington

Retired Col. Robert Certain returned to the site of the Hanoi Hilton 50 years after he was freed from the infamous prisoner of war camp.

There's More to That

Healing the Wounds of the Vietnam War

Two perspectives on the 20th-century conflict look back, five decades after the fighting stopped, to discuss what was lost and what is remembered today

The Aftel Archive of Curious Scents has been drawing commercial perfumers with a nose for aromas, gardeners, cooks and others since 2017.

This California Museum Is Home to Hundreds of Nature’s Scents

Perfumer Mandy Aftel’s spellbinding collection of rare essences and artifacts is on display at the Aftel Archive of Curious Scents in Berkeley

Charlotte Brontë’s attraction to the strange and horrific was an early vehicle for her love of storytelling.

An Early Charlotte Brontë Story Speaks to the Author’s Lifelong Fascination With the Supernatural

The 1830 account details an eerie encounter with a stranger who predicted the death of the writer’s father

The green gas emanating from this small jack-o’-lantern alludes to the spread of Covid-19. Fittingly, the photographer’s subject dons a beaked mask based on the ones worn by physicians treating bubonic plague victims in 17th-century Europe.

Smithsonian Photo Contest Galleries

Treat Yourself to 15 Eerie Images Celebrating Halloween

These highlights from the Smithsonian Photo Contest are sure to scare up some smiles

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