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History

The 18-month restoration of Gilbert Stuart's portrait of George Washington, the Lansdowne (above: the portrait before conservation treatment is on the left) is completed.

A Rainbow Shines Anew in National Portrait Gallery’s Iconic George Washington Portrait 

A glistening Lansdowne Portrait refresh harkens the reopening of “America’s Presidents”

American Expeditionary Force victims of the flu pandemic at U.S. Army Camp Hospital no. 45 in Aix-les-Bains, France, in 1918.

The Next Pandemic

How the 1918 Flu Pandemic Revolutionized Public Health

Mass death changed how we think about illness, and government’s role in treating it

“If ever one person was meant to have one profession, it was me and journalism," says Brokaw, "I just love the craft.”

Tom Brokaw’s Journey From Middle America to the World Stage

The history-making path of the former NBC Nightly News anchor is honored with a Smithsonian Lewis and Clark compass

Doctors Once Prescribed Terrifying Plane Flights to “Cure” Deafness

Stunt pilots, including a young Charles Lindbergh, took willing participants to the skies for (sometimes) death-defying rides

Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell) right before the famous match in Battle of the Sexes.

The True Story Behind Billie Jean King’s Victorious “Battle of the Sexes”

Smithsonian sports curator Eric Jentsch offers a look at her legacy beyond the legendary match

“As a guard, what I liked about the ABA ball was the color,” said former ABA player Gene Littles. “It was a special feeling to take a long shot and watch those colors rotate in the air and then see the ball with all those colors nestle into the net. It made your heart beat just a little bit faster when you hit a 25-footer with the ABA ball.” -Loose Balls by Terry Pluto

The ABA Was Short-Lived, but Its Impact on Basketball Is Eternal

The spectacular play you see today owes a mighty debt to the revolutionary, slam-dunking basketball league

A Panel from the Marvel Comics series ‘The 'Nam.’

How Comics Captured America’s Opinions About the Vietnam War

More than any other medium, comics closely followed the narrative arc of the conflict, from support to growing ambivalence

Victoria and Abdul: The Friendship that Scandalized England

Near the end of her reign, Queen Victoria developed a friendship with an Indian servant, elevating him to trusted advisor and infuriating her court

Salih reports that ISIS “looted all movable objects” from this tunnel at ancient Nineveh.

The Salvation of Mosul

An Iraqi archaeologist braved ISIS snipers and booby-trapped ruins to rescue cultural treasures in the city and nearby legendary Nineveh and Nimrud

Garfield Elementary's award-winning drumline performs with the cheerleading squad in celebration of the Anacostia Community Museum's 50th anniversary.

How This Washington, D.C. Museum Redefined What Museums Could Be

Fifty years after its founding, the Smithsonian’s beloved Anacostia Community Museum continues to tell stories heard nowhere else

Armenia

Star-Studded Photos Reveal the Beauty of Armenia’s Ancient Landscapes

The photographer behind ‘Your beautiful eyes’ documents his country’s storied landscape beneath canopies of stars

A late 19th century photograph from Antwerp, Belgium shows a typical milk cart pulled by dogs.

Four Weird Ways Dogs Have Earned Their Keep

From pulling milk carts to herding reindeer, dogs have had some odd jobs

The recipes in late 19th-century American cookbooks—precise and detailed—met the needs of cooks in a highly mobile and modern country. Image from "Recipes: cards with text; depicting a woman in a kitchen reading, a server, meat, fish and a scale."

The Making of the Modern American Recipe

Scientific methods, rising literacy and an increasingly mobile society were key ingredients for a culinary revolution

A page from a New England Primer printed in Massachusetts in 1811, with the text "Life and the Grave two different lessons give/Life shows us how to die, death how to live."

Children Used to Learn About Death and Damnation With Their ABCs

In 19th-century New England, the books that taught kids how to read had a Puritanical morbidity to them

The Tulip Folly

There Never Was a Real Tulip Fever

A new movie sets its doomed entrepreneurs amidst 17th-century “tulipmania”—but historians of the phenomenon have their own bubble to burst

Parlor scene of G. Burk, Warwick, New York

When the Idea of Home Was Key to American Identity

From log cabins to Gilded Age mansions, how you lived determined where you belonged

1879 football match between Yale and Princeton

Turn-of-the-Century Kid’s Books Taught Wealthy, White Boys the Virtues of Playing Football

A founder of the NCAA, Walter Camp thought that sport was the cure for the social anxiety facing parents in America’s upper class

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