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Artist's rendering of John Canoe (Jan Kwaw), the Ahanta king who likely inspired the Bahamas' Junkanoo festival

The Gold Coast King Who Fought the Might of Europe’s Slave Traders

New research reveals links between the 18th-century Ahanta leader John Canoe and the Caribbean festival Junkanoo

Forest Lawn Memorial-Park doubled as a spectacle of art, Christianity, architecture and patriotism.

Inside the Disneyland of Graveyards

How Forest Lawn Memorial-Park, a star-studded cemetery in Los Angeles, corporatized mourning in America

“The first people to look at the Rosetta Stone thought it would take two weeks to decipher,” says Edward Dolnick, author of The Writing of the Gods: The Race to Decode the Rosetta Stone. “It ended up taking 20 years.”

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Two Hundred Years Ago, the Rosetta Stone Unlocked the Secrets of Ancient Egypt

French scholar Jean-François Champollion announced his decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs on September 27, 1822

Andrew Dominik's Blonde doesn't purport to be historically accurate. Instead, like the Joyce Carol Oates novel it's based on, the film seeks to be spiritually faithful to the image Monroe embodied.

Women Who Shaped History

Who Was the Real Marilyn Monroe?

“Blonde,” a heavily fictionalized film by Andrew Dominik, explores the star’s life and legend in a narrative that’s equal parts glamorous and disturbing

This month, Portraits, a podcast from the National Portrait Gallery, revisits "Finding Cleopatra," a Sidedoor episode with host Lizzie Peabody exploring the life of the artist Edmonia Lewis (above: a photographic portrait by Henry Rocher, c. 1890).

Cleopatra’s Iconoclastic Sculptor Was Her Own Kind of Queen

Smithsonian podcasts delve into the life of Edmonia Lewis, how astronauts sleep, the evolution of the human brain; and drop in on painter Kay WalkingStick

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Women Who Shaped History

The Little-Known Story of the Women Who Stood Up to General Motors and Demanded Equal Pay

In the 1930s, Florence St. John and her co-workers at an automotive plant won a hard-fought victory for fairness

Florence Pugh (left) stars in Don't Worry Darling as Alice, a 1950s housewife who resides in an idyllic California community with her husband, Jack (Harry Styles, right).

The Feminist Inspiration Behind ‘Don’t Worry Darling’

Director Olivia Wilde dubbed the new film “‘The Feminine Mystique’ on acid”

The signpost of hometowns for each of the characters in the sitcom "M*A*S*H" is now held in the collections of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, where it will go on view December 9.

The Stars Are Aligned at the National Museum of American History

Fifty Years and TV’s ‘M*A*S*H’ Still Draws Audiences

Fans are making plans to visit the Smithsonian this December when the show’s signature signpost goes on view in the new exhibition “Entertainment Nation”

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The Noble Fury of Samuel Adams

How America’s “first politician” galvanized a colony—and helped set a revolution in motion

Bakhtiari nomads in the Zagros Mountains of Iran in June 2017

How Nomads Shaped Centuries of Civilization

A new book celebrates the achievements of wanderers, whose stories have long been overlooked

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The Remarkable Effort to Locate America’s Lost Patents

An 1836 blaze destroyed thousands of records that catalogued the young nation’s ingenuity, but recent discoveries indicate that originals may still exist

Paula, Sam and Sol Messinger aboard the M.S. St. Louis in May 1939. The U.S. denied the ship entry, forcing its 937 passengers to return to Europe. More than a quarter of these refugees were later killed in the Holocaust.

Untold Stories of American History

Why Was America So Reluctant to Take Action on the Holocaust?

A new Ken Burns documentary examines the U.S.’ complex, often shameful response to the rise of Nazism and the plight of Jewish refugees

The Woman King tells the story of the Agojie, an elite, all-woman army in the West African kingdom of Dahomey.

Based on a True Story

The Real Warriors Behind ‘The Woman King’

A new film stars Viola Davis as the leader of the Agojie, the all-woman army of the African kingdom of Dahomey

The Trans Bhutan Trail, which was originally part of the Silk Road, is a historic pilgrimage route dating back thousands of years.

The 250-Mile Trans Bhutan Trail Will Reopen After 60 Years

After a major restoration project, the path connecting 400 cultural and historic sites is once again passable

Manual breast pump with black bulb, dating to sometime between 1920 and 1959

The Sucky History of the Breast Pump

Efficient, double electric pumps are only 30 years young, but contraptions for expressing breast milk have been around for millennia

Catherine de' Medici was the mother of three kings.

Based on a True Story

The Many Myths of Catherine de’ Medici

A new Starz series, “The Serpent Queen,” dramatizes the life of the much-maligned 16th-century ruler

Elizabeth arrives in Jamestown, Virginia, at the start of a visit to the United States in October 1957.

Why Women in 1950s America Looked to Elizabeth II as a Source of Inspiration

The British queen ascended to the throne at a time when most women were expected to conform to traditional domestic roles

Elizabeth remained staunchly tight-lipped, rarely commenting publicly on current events.

Elizabeth II Was an Enduring Emblem of the Waning British Empire

The British queen died on Thursday at age 96

Aerial view of the usually submerged ruins of the village of Aceredo in northwestern Spain on February 15, 2022

This Summer’s Drought Is Europe’s Worst in 500 Years. What Happened Last Time?

The 1540 megadrought brought mass suffering to the continent, but European society quickly bounced back

In “Postage Pairings,” from the National Portrait Gallery, host Kim Sajet speaks with the Smithsonian's Daniel Piazza, curator of philately, about postage stamps (left: 29c single, july 30, 1993) reproduced from portraits (right: Benjamin Franklin by Joseph Siffred Duplessis, c. 1785).

The Revolutionary Role Mail Played in America’s Fight for Independence

Hear about the colonial period postal service in the latest “Portraits” podcast

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