Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

History

The last photo of Mawson's Far Eastern Party, taken when they left the Australasian Antarctic Party's base camp on November 10, 1912. By January 10, 1913, two of the three men would be dead, and expedition leader Douglas Mawson would find himself exhausted, ill and still more than 160 miles from the nearest human being.

The Most Terrible Polar Exploration Ever: Douglas Mawson’s Antarctic Journey

A century ago, Douglas Mawson saw his two companions die and found himself stranded in the midst of Antarctic blizzards

None

Sunday Funnies Blast Off Into the Space Age

When Dr. Athelstan Spilhaus met President Kennedy in 1962, JFK told him, “The only science I ever learned was from your comic strip.”

Ben Hogan received a tickertape parade down Broadway in New York after winning the 1953 British Open and the "Hogan Slam."

Hit by a Bus, How Ben Hogan Hit Back

The champion golfer was critically injured in 1949—and went on to the most dominant phase of his career

An inventor from Philadelphia using his "wireless telephone" technology in 1920

The World’s First “Carphone”

Meet the 1920 radio enthusiast who had the foresight to invent the annoying habit of talking on the phone while in the car

Woman of the year 2000

In The Future, All Women Will Be Amazons

None

History Writers to Watch in 2012

A rundown of historians, authors and bloggers to follow in the coming year

According to NOAA marine archaeologist Joe Hoyt, shown here, 50 to 60 Allied, Axis and merchant vessel wrecks rest off the North Carolina coast.

Diving for the Secrets of the Battle of the Atlantic

Off the coast of North Carolina lie dozens of shipwrecks, remainders of a forgotten theater of World War II

Title card from the 1922 short silent film "Eve's Wireless"

A Mobile Phone From 1922? Not Quite

History often plays linguistic tricks on us, especially when it comes to rapidly changing technologies

Artist rendition of Charles Guiteau's attack on President Garfield

The Stalking of the President

Charles J. Guiteau said he wanted to kill President James A. Garfield “in an American manner.”

Illustration for the February, 1946 issue of the sci-fi magazine Amazing Stories

Trade Your Trouble for a Bubble

Sightseeing across the country in an atomic-powered “pleasure ball”

The New York subway system's moving sidewalk of the future by Goodyear (1950s)

Moving Sidewalks Before The Jetsons

The public’s fascination with the concept of “movable pavement” extends back more than 130 years

Izzy Einstein (left) and Moe Smith share a toast in New York City

Prohibition’s Premier Hooch Hounds

None

The Civil War

How Newspapers Reported the Civil War

A collection of historic front pages shows how civilians experienced and read about the war

Everyday Science and Mechanics (February, 1936)

Mobsters Tremble Before the Crime-Fighting, Red Flying Gondola

Science-fiction pioneer Hugo Gernsback predicted that, as long as police officers were stuck on terra firma, criminals always would have the edge

Harold Holt, the Australian Prime Minister, taking a swim

The Prime Minister who Disappeared

Laborers working at the face of the Thames Tunnel were protected by Marc Brunel's newly-invented "Shield"; behind them, other gangs hurried to roof the tunnel before the river could burst in. Nineteenth century lithograph.

The Epic Struggle to Tunnel Under the Thames

No one had ever tunneled under a major river before Marc Brunel began a shaft below London’s river in the 1820s

Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe by Elliott & Fry in 1896

One Newspaper to Rule Them All

According to author John M. Barry, Roger Williams, center, had a great facility with language—a great curiosity for language—and began trading with Indians and trying to learn their language.

John M. Barry on Roger Williams and the Indians

The founder of Rhode Island often helped out the early colonists in their dealings with Native Americans

After he was cast into the wilderness, Roger Williams argued that religion and government must be divided.

God, Government and Roger Williams’ Big Idea

The Puritan minister originated a principle that remains contentious to this day—separation of church and state

“It is splendid to have people who refuse to recognise difficulties,” British Capt. Robert Falcon Scott wrote early in the expedition to the South Pole. But they would after they set out from the pole.

The Doomed South Pole Voyage’s Remaining Photographs

A 1912 photograph proves explorer Captain Robert Scott reached the South Pole—but wasn’t the first

Page 243 of 302