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History

The Great White Fleet of the United States Navy, 1907 -- We need a fleet of spacecraft to open “This New Ocean” of space

Let’s Argue About The Right Things

We seem to be in one of those periods in which basic reasons for doing what we do as a nation are called into question

Soldiers arrest Gavrilo Prinzip, assassin of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo.

World War I: 100 Years Later

The Origin of the Tale that Gavrilo Princip Was Eating a Sandwich When He Assassinated Franz Ferdinand

Was it really a lunch-hour coincidence that led to the death of the Archduke in Sarajevo in 1914—and, by extension, World War I?

Paul Robeson, in 1942, leads Oakland shipyard workers in the singing of the National Anthem

What Paul Robeson Said

Bob Clevenhagen, known to many as the Michelangelo of the mitt, has been designing baseball gloves since 1983 for the Gold Glove Company.

Baseball’s Glove Man

For 28 years, Bob Clevenhagen has designed the custom gloves of many of baseball’s greatest players

Pablo Fanque: expert equestrian, tightrope walker, acrobat, showman–and Britain's first black circus owner.

Pablo Fanque’s Fair

The showman whom John Lennon immortalized in song was a real performer—a master horseman and Britain’s first black circus owner

When Pride Still Mattered, a biography of Vince Lombardi, is as much about the man as it is about the coach.

The Essentials: Five Books on Football History

Sports columnist Sally Jenkins picks out the books that any true sports fan would want to read

Inspired by recent archaeological research, the people in the Cuzco region of Peru are rebuilding terraces and irrigation systems and reclaiming traditional crops and methods of planting.

Farming Like the Incas

The Incas were masters of their harsh climate, archaeologists are finding—and the ancient civilization has a lot to teach us today

Marm Mandelbaum, the "Queen of Fences"

The Life and Crimes of “Old Mother” Mandelbaum

She had the eyes of a sparrow, the neck of a bear and enough business acumen to build an empire as the “Queen of Fences”

Setting up a mining operation on an asteroid may be difficult

Destination: Moon or Asteroid? Part III: Resource Utilization Considerations

The Great Pyramid: Built for the Pharaoh Khufu in about 2570 B.C., sole survivor of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, and arguably the most mysterious structure on the planet

Inside the Great Pyramid

No structure in the world is more mysterious than the Great Pyramid. But who first broke into its well-guarded interior? When? And what did they find?

Charles M. Conlon was a proofreader at the New York Telegram when he began shooting pictures as a hobby. Shown here is one of his iconic photographs of Ty Cobb sliding into third base.

Charles Conlon: The Unheralded Baseball Photographer

Stalwarts of early 20th-century sports pages, Conlon’s photos of the national pastime have their second chance at the plate

Samuel Morse consolidated Louvre masterpieces in an imaginary gallery.

Samuel Morse’s Reversal of Fortune

It wasn’t until after he failed as an artist that Morse revolutionized communications by inventing the telegraph

There were emotional hugs on May 2, 2011, near the construction site of the new World Trade Center in New York City, after Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan by Navy Seals.

What 9/11 Wrought

The former editor of the New York Times considers the effects of the terrorist attacks on the 10th anniversary of the fateful day

The Taj backs up against the once-vibrant Yamuna River, now often dried to the point where locals can walk in the riverbed.

Ask Smithsonian 2017

How to Save the Taj Mahal?

A debate rages over preserving the awe-inspiring, 350-year-old monument that now shows signs of distress from pollution and shoddy repairs

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September Anniversaries

Momentous or Merely Memorable

Union generals lost a week long siege of Lexington, Missouri, shown here, but took control of Ship Island, off Mississippi's coast.

September 1861: Settling in for a Long War

During this month, the civil war expands to Kentucky and West Virginia, and President Lincoln rejects an attempt at emancipation

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Coming to Terms

In the United States and Finland

Historypin is a website that allows users to "pin" old photographs, video or audio clips to Google Maps at the very locations they were snapped and recorded. Shown here is the Wisconsin State Capitol from 1939.

Q & A with Nick Stanhope, Creator of Historypin

By merging old photographs with new mapping technology, this site fuses new connections between the generations

Ty Cobb

The Knife in Ty Cobb’s Back

Did the baseball great really confess to murder on his deathbed?

Mrs. Grace Humiston, a.k.a. "Mrs. Sherlock Holmes"

“Mrs. Sherlock Holmes” Takes on the NYPD

When an 18-year-old girl went missing, the police let the case grow cold. But Grace Humiston, a soft-spoken private investigator, wouldn’t let it lie

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