See the ‘Fantastical Beasts and Foliage’ Featured in These Rare, Newly Discovered Tudor Wall Paintings
Created in the Grotesque style, the 16th-century images—revealed by renovations at a lodge in England—mimic historic textile designs
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Why Skiers Are Ending the Season With a Splash—and Keeping the Raucous Tradition of Pond Skimming Alive
For nearly 100 years, die-hards have been saying goodbye to winter by speeding down the slopes and water skiing over massive puddles
Paul Revere Wasn’t the Only Midnight Rider Who Dashed Through the Darkness to Warn the Patriots That the British Were Coming
Revere, who was later immortalized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s famous poem, was one of many riders who rode through the countryside, spreading the alarm on April 18, 1775
Dive Into the Deeper Story of the American Revolution on How New England and Virginia United Against the British
Inside the steeple of Old North Church and among the Southern Colonies, less familiar stories of the events from 250 years ago emerge
Eight Historic Moments That Took Place at the Waldorf Astoria New York
The famous hotel reopens this spring after an extensive renovation that began in 2017
How Dreams of Buried Pirate Treasure Enticed Americans to Flock to Florida During the Roaring Twenties
1925 marked the peak of the Florida land boom. But false advertising and natural disasters thwarted many settlers’ visions of striking it rich in the land of sunshine
The Long, Strange Trip of the Titanic Victims Whose Remains Surfaced Hundreds of Miles Away, Weeks After the Ship Sank
Rescuers only recovered the bodies of 337 of the 1,500-plus passengers and crew who died in the disaster. Around one-third of these corpses were buried at sea
Two Centuries Ago, Batteaumen on Virginia’s James River Ended Long Work Days With a Taste of Freedom
The James River Batteau Company, an outdoor recreation-meets-historical tour business, has designed a dinner cruise that honors the resilience and culinary ingenuity of enslaved boatmen
How Bergen-Belsen, Where Anne Frank Died, Was Different From Every Other Nazi Concentration Camp
A new exhibition at the Wiener Holocaust Library in London chronicles the German camp complex’s history, from its origins housing prisoners of war to its afterlife holding displaced persons
How the Misrepresentation of Tomatoes as Stinking ‘Poison Apples’ That Provoked Vomiting Made People Afraid of Them for More Than 200 Years
The long and fraught history of the plant shows that it got an unfair reputation from the beginning
We Rediscovered Robert Caro’s Abandoned Novel About an Intrepid Journalist Buried in His Archives
A deep dive into the legendary biographer’s papers leads to the surprising revelation of a work he has all but forgotten
History-Hunting Mudlarks Scour London’s Shores to Uncover the City’s Rich Archaeological Treasures
A new exhibition at the London Museum Docklands spotlights hundreds of mudlarking finds, from Bronze Age tools to Viking daggers to medieval spectacles
A Field of Dreams Built in an Unlikely Place: A Japanese American Internment Camp
A baseball diamond buried long ago at Manzanar has been rebuilt to honor the Americans who once played the sport there
How an American Merchant, a French Official and a Pioneering Chemist Smuggled Much-Needed Gunpowder to the Continental Army
The trio’s scheming became a crucial element of the fledgling nation’s success in the Revolutionary War
Through Good Teams and Bad, Wrigley Field Remains the Coziest Park in Baseball
The Chicago landmark represents the purest form of the American pastime
Carrots Can’t Help You See in the Dark. Here’s How a World War II Propaganda Campaign Popularized the Myth
The British government claimed that eating carrots helped its fighter pilots shoot down German planes at night. In truth, the Royal Air Force relied on top-secret radar
Two Great Empires Traded for Financial Gain and Achieved a Brilliant Cultural Exchange as Well
A new show illuminates the rich artistic wonders that arose out of the 400 years of commerce between the Republic of Venice and the Ottoman Empire
What Spurred the South to Join the American Revolution?
How a disagreement with a Scottish lord over westward expansion, a cache of gunpowder, and the future of enslaved labor helped kick-start the southern colonies’ embrace of the radical cause
![Senator Joseph McCarthy “comes along really chronologically halfway through the story [in the early 1950s], and there’s a lot that happened before he was even on the scene,” says author Clay Risen.](https://th-thumbnailer.cdn-si-edu.com/ee-zkNhyyeZSehRcxDnYUB-QAj4=/450x300/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/dd/f0/ddf0fc8a-56de-40d6-ae40-efcb46ac804b/gettyimages-515261284.jpg)
Newly Declassified Documents Reveal the Untold Stories of the Red Scare, a Hunt for Communists in Postwar America
In his latest book, journalist and historian Clay Risen explores how the House Un-American Activities Committee and Senator Joseph McCarthy upended the nation
This New Book Reveals the Daredevil Lives of Four Italian Women Who Stood Up to Hitler and Mussolini
By delivering newspapers, munitions and secret messages to resistance groups, among many other incredible tasks, the brave fighters strove for a freer world
The Nation’s First Black Female Doctor Blazed a Path for Women in Medicine. But She Was Left Out of the Story for Decades
After earning a medical degree in 1864, Rebecca Lee Crumpler died in obscurity and was buried without a headstone
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