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From His Tattered Chair, TV’s Archie Bunker Caricatured America’s Divides

The 1971 show aired the fraught political differences that were “All in the Family”

This month's book picks include Icebound, A Shot in the Moonlight and The Eagles of Heart Mountain.

Books of the Month

A Doomed Arctic Expedition, Number-Free Math and Other New Books to Read

These five January releases may have been lost in the news cycle

The depiction of corsets in the premiere episode of "Bridgerton" is more of the same mythmaking from popular culture.

Based on a True Story

What ‘Bridgerton’ Gets Wrong About Corsets

Women’s rights were severely restricted in 19th-century England, but their undergarments weren’t to blame

From left: “Left Side Right Side” (still) by Joan Jonas, 1972. Alice Walker by Bernard Gotfryd. Louis Armstrong (detail) by Philippe Halsman.

Smithsonian Voices

Warm Up Your Winter With the National Portrait Gallery’s Online Events

Visitors and families can enjoy all the museum has to offer from the comfort of their own homes

Still from the 1974 film Julie by Robert and Ingrid Wiegand

Women Who Shaped History

Women Artists Reflect on How They Helped Shape SoHo

A Smithsonian online event kicks off a new monthly series exploring the pioneering art films and videos made by women

Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell were the first and third women doctors in the United States.

Women Who Shaped History

The Way Americans Remember the Blackwell Sisters Shortchanges Their Legacy

Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell deserve to have their incredible stories told in full

North American species like the Colorado potato beetle and the fall armyworm have become invasive elsewhere.

Ask Smithsonian

Have Any North American Species Become Invasive Elsewhere in the World?

You’ve got question. We’ve got experts

Smithsonian Associates Streaming presents "Mr. President: An Evening with Martin Sheen" on January 19.

Smithsonian Voices

An Evening With Martin Sheen and 24 Other Smithsonian Programs Streaming in January

Kick off the New Year with Smithsonian Associates’ virtual multi-part courses, studio arts classes and study tours

Veteran food critic Florence Fabricant has called peanut butter “the pâté of childhood.”

A Brief History of Peanut Butter

The bizarre sanitarium staple that became a spreadable obsession

Hieroglyphs line the walls in a shrine to the goddess Hathor at Serabit el-Khadim.

Who Invented the Alphabet?

New scholarship points to a paradox of historic scope: Our writing system was devised by people who couldn’t read

The otherworldly terrain dazzled early explorers. In 1827, trapper Daniel Potts noted that geysers erupted with a roar like “that of thunder.”

The Lost History of Yellowstone

Debunking the myth that the great national park was a wilderness untouched by humans

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This Ohio Golf Course, Built Atop a Hopewell Earthwork, Is Now the Subject of a Lawsuit

A legal battle brews over access to some of the world’s largest human-made structures of their kind

Rainey’s “polite and dignified bearing enforces respect,” an 1871 newspaper report said before disparaging him as unequal to the “best men of the House.”

Meet Joseph Rainey, the First Black Congressman

Born enslaved, he was elected to Congress in the wake of the Civil War. But the impact of this momentous step in U.S. race relationships did not last long

Closed to the public and financially strained, museums nevertheless managed to create thought-provoking alternatives to in-person viewing.

Virtual Travel

The Top Ten Online Exhibitions of 2020

From a Smithsonian show on first ladies to Mexican muralists, Rembrandt and the making of the Met, these were some of our favorite virtual experiences

Father Reginald Foster celebrating his birthday in 2019

Father Reginald Foster Used Latin to Bring History Into the Present

Who speaks Latin these days? A surprisingly large number of people, thanks to the late friar, who died on Christmas Day at 81

This year's top stories included an explainer on murder hornets, a list of fun facts about love and sex in the animal kingdom, and a look at the true history behind Hulu's "The Great."

Our Ten Most Popular Stories of 2020

From Anglo-Saxon artifacts to copper’s antibacterial properties, systemic racism and murder hornets, these were the most-read stories of the year

While fieldwork was postponed, scientists made discoveries studying fossil footprints, ancient apes, monkeys and hominins.

Ten New Things We Learned About Human Origins in 2020

Smithsonian’s archaeologist Ella Beaudoin and paleoanthropologist Briana Pobiner reveal some of the year’s best findings in human origins studies

Hank Adams carries a letter from the White House to Chief Frank Fools Crow (Oglala Lakota) during the siege of Wounded Knee. Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, 1973.

Smithsonian Voices

In Memory of Hank Adams, ‘The Most Important Indian’

The museum mourns the passing December 21 of Hank Adams (Assiniboine–Sioux, 1943–2020)

Fascinating finds revealed in 2020 ranged from a portrait of Mary Boleyn to a bust of the Greek god Hermes and one of the world's oldest swords.

Ninety Fascinating Finds Revealed in 2020

This year’s most intriguing discoveries include an Aztec skull tower, fossilized footprints and Nazi shipwrecks

Children cluster around Santa in this 1903 illustration.

Christmas Wasn’t Always the Kid-Friendly Gift Extravaganza We Know Today

How a once-raucous holiday became a time of childlike wonder and beribboned consumerism

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