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History

When Michigan Students Put the Car on Trial

In a famous 1970 teach-in demonstration, prosecutors hammered away at the nation’s most powerful defendant

Documents from the Smithsonian's "Jogbra, Inc. Collection" include the company's marketing and advertising materials (above).

How the First Sports Bra Got Its Stabilizing Start

It all began when three frustrated women sought the no-bounce zone

Follow the antics of the National Zoo's giant pandas (above: Tian Tian munching on bamboo) on the Panda Cams.

Virtual Travel

How to Virtually Explore the Smithsonian From Your Living Room

Tour a gallery of presidential portraits, print a 3-D model of a fossil or volunteer to transcribe historical documents

The program for the National American Woman Suffrage Association procession in the capital city. This march occurred before the rift between the more moderate NAWSA and the less conciliatory National Woman's Party.

The Thorny Road to the 19th Amendment

Historian Ellen Carol DuBois chronicles the twists and turns of the nearly 75-year-path to securing the vote for women in her new book

A team photo of the 1919 team that won the Pacific Coast Hockey Association championship

Covid-19

When the Stanley Cup Final Was Canceled Because of a Pandemic

In 1919, a second wave of cases of the previous year’s flu lead to the sudden death of the hockey championship

A ward at the Mare Island Naval Hospital in California during the influenza epidemic, November 1918

The Next Pandemic

Ten Myths About the 1918 Flu Pandemic

The ‘greatest pandemic in history’ was 100 years ago – but many of us still get the basic facts wrong

Women Who Shaped History

A Tour of Beauty Industry Pioneer Madam C.J. Walker’s Indianapolis

The hair-care magnate at the center of the new Netflix series ‘Self Made’ left her imprint on the city where she launched her career

Follow along with the #SmithsonianEdu hashtag.

Education During Coronavirus

Eight Digital Education Resources From Around the Smithsonian

The newly launched #SmithsonianEdu campaign highlights 1.7 million online tools geared specifically toward students and teachers

The remains of the newly discovered structure.

A Mysterious 25,000-Year-Old Structure Built of the Bones of 60 Mammoths

The purpose of such an elaborate structure remains a big open question

Charles Lindbergh, Walter Winchell and Franklin D. Roosevelt (L to R) are among the public figures fictionalized in Philip Roth's The Plot Against America.

Based on a True Story

The True History Behind ‘The Plot Against America’

Philip Roth’s classic novel, newly adapted by HBO, envisions a world in which Charles Lindbergh wins the 1940 presidential election

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Neil Armstrong’s Spacesuit Was Made by a Bra Manufacturer

This wearable spacecraft let humans take one giant leap away from Earth

In 1985, Riddles was the first to cross the finish line after 18 days, 20 minutes and 17 seconds. Her win produced a new generation of women mushers competing in the Iditarod Sled Dog Race.

Facing Blizzards and Accidents, Iditarod’s First Woman Champion Libby Riddles Persisted

A sled in the Smithsonian collections marks the historic race

Left, a photograph of Helen Hamilton Gardener circa 1920. Right, an image of the Smithsonian's NAWSA exhibition, featuring the table upon which the "Declaration of Sentiments" was written.

Women Who Shaped History

The Woman Who Pushed the Smithsonian to Preserve the Victory for Suffrage

After lobbying in support of the 19th Amendment, free thinker Helen Hamilton Gardener strove to preserve the movement’s legacy in the public memory

Mapping the Gay Guides’ main function is preserving and publicizing an overlooked, under-studied chapter in LGBTQ history.

This Interactive Map Visualizes the Queer Geography of 20th-Century America

Mapping the Gay Guides visualizes local queer spaces’ evolution between 1965 and 1980

The Microbus revolutionized the automobile industry just as America's social revolution was beginning.

How the Volkswagen Bus Became a Symbol of Counterculture

Seventy years ago, the German car manufacturer started producing the Microbus—the first van and a striking vehicle for protest

Silhouette of Horace Greeley made by profile artist William H. Brown in 1872, the year Greeley died. Greeley changed journalism in America, considering himself to be a “Public Teacher” who exerted “a resistless influence over public opinion … creating a community of thought of feeling … giving the right direction to it.”

How Horace Greeley Turned Newspapers Legitimate and Saved the Media From Itself

The 19th-century publisher made reform-minded, opinion-driven journalism commercially viable

The military latched on to the trampoline as a training device for pilots, to allow them to learn how to reorient themselves to their surroundings after difficult air maneuvers.

How the Trampoline Came to Be

Inspired by circus performers, George Nissen created the bouncing ‘tumbling device’ that still captures imaginations 75 years later

This engraving by Paul Revere offered a specific argument about what happened that day in Boston.

A Fresh Look at the Boston Massacre, 250 Years After the Event That Jumpstarted the Revolution

The five deaths may have shook the colonies, but a new book examines the personal relationships forever changed by them too

Strobridge Lithographing Company, Kellar and His Perplexing Cabinet Mysteries, 1894. Purchase, funds graciously donated by La Fondation Emmanuelle Gattuso.

The Amazing Poster Art From the ‘Golden Age’ of Magic

An exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario shows how magicians enticed audiences with advertisements of levitations, decapitations and other deceptions

Cousins Flaurience Sengstacke (left) and Roberta G. Thomas (right) regaled readers with tales of their travels in some 20 Chicago Defender columns published between July 1931 and August 1932.

Experience 1930s Europe Through the Words of Two African American Women

In the pages of the “Chicago Defender,” the cousins detailed their adventures traversing the continent while also observing signs of the changing tides

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