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History

Port Louis, Mauritius, in the first half of the 19th century

Naval Gazing: The Enigma of Étienne Bottineau

In 1782, an unknown French engineer offered an invention better than radar: the ability to detect ships hundreds of miles away

Life in a bubble: Westinghouse advertisement

Today at War, Tomorrow in Stores

Advertisers in the 1940s promised American consumers that they would be rewarded for their wartime sacrifices on the homefront

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Edison vs. Westinghouse: A Shocking Rivalry

The inventors’ battle over the delivery of electricity was an epic power play

The lunar feature Ina, an extremely young, unusual depression that may represent a gas eruption site on the Moon.

It’s a Gas, Man!

Apple CEO Steve Jobs delivering his keynote address at MacWorld Conference & Expo in San Francisco in 2007

Steve Jobs: Futurist, Optimist

The innovator wasn’t just this generation’s Thomas Edison, he was also its Walt Disney

"Greetings, Britons and everybody." Queen Victoria at about the time she made her Graphophone recording.

In Search of Queen Victoria’s Voice

The British monarch was present when a solicitor demonstrated one of the earliest audio recording devices. But did she really say “tomatoes”?

Historian Alfred W. Crosby coined the term "Columbian Exchange" in reference to the impact of living organisms traded between the New World and Old World.

Alfred W. Crosby on the Columbian Exchange

The historian discusses the ecological impact of Columbus’ landing in 1492 on both the Old World and the New World

In a video clip from the 1930s, old Confederate soldiers step up to a microphone and let loose with the howling yelp that was once known as the fearsome "Rebel yell."

The Civil War

Civil War Veterans Come Alive in Audio and Video Recordings

Deep in the collections of the Library of Congress are ghostly images and voices of Union and Confederate soldiers

"Airships may give us a birds eye view of the city."

The Boston Globe of 1900 Imagines the Year 2000

A utopian vision of Boston promises no slums, no traffic jams, no late mail deliveries and, best of all, night baseball games

A crowd gathers at the scene of the Wall Street bombing in September 1920.

Anger and Anarchy on Wall Street

In the early 20th century, resentment at the concentration of wealth took a violent turn

Marie Curie, in Paris in 1925, was awarded a then-unprecedented second Nobel Prize 100 years ago this month.

Madame Curie’s Passion

The physicist’s dedication to science made it difficult for outsiders to understand her, but a century after her second Nobel prize, she gets a second look

I Am A Man, Sanitation workers assemble outside Clayborn Temple, Memphis, TN, 1968.

The Power of Imagery in Advancing Civil Rights

“Whether it was TV or magazines, the world got changed one image at a time,” says Maurice Berger, curator of a new exhibit at American History

The Union is defeated at Ball's Bluff, where Col. Edward D. Baker becomes the only U.S. senator to be killed in battle as illustrated here in Death of Col. Edward D. Baker: At The Battle of Balls Bluff Near Leesburg, Va., October 21st, 1861.

Scattered Actions: October 1861

While the generals on both sides deliberated, troops in blue and gray fidgeted

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October Anniversaries

Momentous or Merely Memorable

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Great Cats

And things of beauty

King Ananda Mahidol of Siam in 1939

Long Live the King

A gunshot rang out in the king’s bedroom in June 1946, ending one reign and beginning another. Uncertainty over how it happened has persisted ever since

A circular landing track imagined for New York in 1919

When We All Commute by Airplane

If commuting to work via personal aeroplane was the future, how might the design of cities change to accommodate them?

Art from the 1950s envisioned a future with robots. Are we there yet?

I Have Seen the [retro]Future

One of Dahomeys' women warriors, with a musket, club, dagger—and her enemy's severed head.

Dahomey’s Women Warriors

Richard Von Gammon, a football casualty of 1897

Score One for Roosevelt

“Football is on trial,” President Theodore Roosevelt declared in 1905. So he launched the effort that saved the game

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