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History

The comb found by archaeologists in 2016

What a Comb Can Tell Us About the History of the Written Word

A curious new find yields clues to the origins of the alphabet

Emma Mackey as Emily Brontë in Emily, a new film from Frances O'Connor

Based on a True Story

The Making of Emily Brontë

A new film imagines the events that inspired the notoriously private author to write “Wuthering Heights”

Muriel Gardiner in 1934, the year she began her career in the Austrian Resistance.

The American Heiress Who Risked Everything to Resist the Nazis

When the fascists took power in Austria, Muriel Gardiner helped refugees and others in need, and never stopped

A boat makes a morning trip through the Erie Canal in Rochester, New York, October 2021.

A Brief History of the Erie Canal

The waterway opened up the heartland to trade, transforming small hamlets into industrial centers

Instead of transitioning between Latin and English, spoken Latin keeps the cognition all in one language.

Spoken Latin Is Making a Comeback

Proponents of the teaching method argue that it encourages engagement with the language and the ancient past

All but seven of the letters were previously thought to be lost.

Cool Finds

Code Breakers Discover—and Decipher—Long-Lost Letters by Mary, Queen of Scots

The deposed monarch wrote the 57 encrypted messages during her captivity in England

The cabbage soup diet of the 1950s allowed the indulgence in as much cabbage soup as one could consume.

The Seesawing History of Fad Diets

Since dieting began in the 1830s, the ever-changing nutritional advice has skimped on science

The door of the 1,900-square-foot Nantucket fallout shelter

Untold Stories of American History

Inside JFK’s Secret Doomsday Bunker

The president’s Nantucket nuclear fallout shelter could become a National Historic Landmark—but efforts to preserve its history have stalled

Neal V. Loving in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1954

In 1946, a Black Pilot Returned to the Cockpit After a Double Amputation

Neal V. Loving, whose memoir will soon be released by Smithsonian Books, built his own planes, ran a flight school and conducted research for the Air Force

At the Paris World's Fair a powerful display of hand-drawn diagrams (above: Income and expenditure of 150 Negro families in Atlanta, Ga.,U.S. designed by W.E.B. Du Bois and his students) called attention to the unrecognized contributions of Black Americans. The fragile posters are being rotatated in and out of an exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum through May 2023.

How W.E.B. Du Bois Disrupted America’s Dominance at the World’s Fair

With bar graphs and pie charts, the sociologist and his Atlanta students demonstrated Black excellence in the face of widespread discrimination

The cast of the 1983 film, from left to right: Patrick Swayze, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, C. Thomas Howell, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez and Tom Cruise

S.E. Hinton Is Tired of Talking About ‘The Outsiders.’ No One Else Is

The author reflects on her classic 1967 novel, its 1983 film adaptation and its legacy today

Miriam Wosk's illustration of a blue-skinned, eight-armed multitasking woman adorned the first cover of Ms. magazine. "Making her blue was a way of making her universal," says Gloria Steinem in this month's "Portraits" podcast.

Explore the Founding of ‘Ms.’ Magazine and the Making of a Space Telescope Photograph in This Month’s Featured Podcasts

“AirSpace” speaks to astronomer Shauna Edson and “Portraits” drops in on activist and author Gloria Steinhem

“People always liked and admired Colette, but after [World War I], with this need to consolidate French identity, Colette really becomes a classique,” says Kathleen Antonioli. 

Colette Revolutionized French Literature With Her Depictions of Female Desire

Born 150 years ago this week, the author was known for her incisive portrayals of women’s everyday lives

Fall/Winter Sears catalog from 1957

Before Folding 30 Years Ago, the Sears Catalog Sold Some Surprising Products

The retail giant’s mail-order business reigned supreme for more than a century, offering everything from quack cures to ready-to-build homes

Indigenous people brought to Spain by Hernán Cortés play the game patolli.

The Indigenous Americans Who Visited Europe

A new book reverses the narrative of the Age of Discovery, which has long evoked the ambitions of Europeans looking to the Americas rather than vice versa

Jill Biden addresses a crowd at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History on January 25. Inaugural ensembles by Gabriella Hearst (left) and Alexandra O'Neill (right) stand next to her.

Jill Biden’s Inaugural Attire Is on View at the Smithsonian

The day and evening ensembles are now the centerpiece of the American History Museum’s popular “First Ladies” exhibition

The installation Create to Free Yourselves: Abraham Lincoln and the History of Freeing Slaves in America by Georges Adéagbo (above) will be on view at President Lincoln’s Cottage in Washington, D.C. through February 15. ​​

At Abraham Lincoln’s Cottage, Artist Georges Adéagbo Pays Homage to the Great Emancipator

The award-winning Beninese artist unveils a work dedicated to the president’s “generosity of heart”

Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson at his desk in November 1957

When Lyndon B. Johnson Chose the Middle Ground on Civil Rights—and Disappointed Everyone

Always a dealmaker, then-senator LBJ negotiated with segregationists to pass a bill that cautiously advanced racial equality

On the morning of August 14, 1932, the Keuka sank under suspicious circumstances, prompting speculation both at the time and in the decades since.

Once a Floating Speakeasy, This Shipwreck Tells a Tale of Bullets and Booze

The “Keuka” sank in 1932, just three years after its grand opening as a dance hall, roller rink and illicit party boat

Drummer boy John Clem (left) and Robert Henry Hendershot, who claimed to be the celebrated "drummer boy of Rappahannock" (right)

Why the Union Army Had So Many Boy Soldiers

A new book unearths the startling numbers behind underage enlistment during the Civil War

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