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History

Entering German cities within days of their capture by Allied forces, the special Army-led team slipped into bomb-ravaged Cologne in early March 1945.

The Untold Story of the Secret Mission to Seize Nazi Map Data

How a covert U.S. Army intelligence unit canvassed war-torn Europe, capturing intelligence with incalculable strategic value

Eileen Collins in space in 1995, when she became the first woman to pilot a space shuttle.

What It Was Like to Become the First Woman to Pilot and Command a Space Shuttle

Eileen Collins talked to Smithsonian about her career in the Air Force and NASA, women in aerospace and more

The Zamboni totally transformed winter sports by giving chopped-up ice surfaces a fresh-frozen smoothness in a matter of minutes.

How the Zamboni Changed the Game for Ice Rinks

Invented by rink owner Frank Zamboni, the ice-clearing machine celebrates its 70th anniversary this year

The tools and objects carried by an ancient warrior from a major battle in Europe more than 3,000 years ago.

What a Warrior’s Lost Toolkit Says About the Oldest Known Battle in Europe

More than 3,000 years ago, soldiers appear to have traveled hundreds of miles from southern Europe to fight in what is now northern Germany

The Smithsonian's American Food History Project seeks to understand the history of the U.S. through the multi-faceted lens of food.

Food, Glorious Food

How Food Brought Success to a Chef, a Cookbook Author and a Restaurateur

Historian Ashley Rose Young shares research from the Smithsonian’s 23-year-long ‘American Food History Project’

The fifth season of BBC drama "Peaky Blinders" is available now on Netflix

Based on a True Story

Who Were the Real ‘Peaky Blinders’?

The Shelby family is fictional, but a real street gang operated in Birmingham at the turn of the 20th century

Scientific illustrations, Humboldt once wrote, should “speak to the senses without fatiguing the mind.” His famous illustration of Chimborazo volcano in Ecuador shows plant species living at different elevations.

Alexander von Humboldt

The Pioneering Maps of Alexander von Humboldt

Beautiful and insightful, the illustrations of the German naturalist helped shape a new understanding of the world

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For Indigenous Peoples’ Day, a Rethinking of How We Celebrate American History

Indigenous Peoples’ Day recognizes that Native people are the first inhabitants of the Americas, including the lands that later became the United States

Fred Rogers, wearing his usual uniform of a cardigan and a tie, in the 1980s.

The Behind-the-Scenes Quest to Find Mister Rogers’ Signature Cardigans

The USPS, a $70 soup pot and whole lot of effort went into finding the perfect zip-up cardigan for Fred Rogers

TV's "Julia" premiered on September 17, 1968 and the show was an instant hit, winning actress Diahann Carroll (above with Marc Copage as Corey Baker) the Golden Globe Award for best actress in a comedy in its first season.

Was the 1968 TV Show ‘Julia’ a Milestone or a Millstone for Diversity?

Diahann Carroll’s award-winning series was a hit, but it delivered a sanitized view of African-American life

Gray’s general store, located in Little Compton, Rhode Island, was built the year before George Washington was sworn in as the nation's first president. Shown here in 2017, the store closed in 2012 after the owner died.

What the 17th-Century Ideal of a ‘Commons’ Means in the 21st Century

Is there even such a thing anymore as a completely public space?

Monon and Ottily Bayer, the daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Otto Bayer of Costamesa, California, pose in a small, "bunk bed" trailer at their campground in the Shasta National Forest. California, August 1953.

Ten Inventive Attempts to Make Camping More Comfortable

Making a stay in the great outdoors more luxe isn’t new—even if glamping and #vanlife are

The Hondius map of 1589 inset depicts Drake's encampment at New Albion, Portus Novas Albionis.

Did Francis Drake Really Land in California?

New research suggests that one of the state’s greatest historians had a hand in perpetrating an infamous hoax

Modern-day baby feeding from reconstructed infant feeding vessel of the type investigated in the new study.

Bronze Age Baby Bottles Reveal How Some Ancient Infants Were Fed

Drinking vessels found in Bronze and Iron Age children’s graves contained proteins from animal milk

A still life of Renia Spiegel’s diary

The Unforgotten: New Voices of the Holocaust

How an Astonishing Holocaust Diary Resurfaced in America

Hidden for 70 years, a new invaluable contribution to Holocaust literature—the diary of Renia Spiegel—was rediscovered inside a desk in New York

The Evidence Room represents thousands of pages of testimony that was assembled by Robert Jan van Pelt, an architectural historian and the main expert witness in a British lawsuit brought by a Holocaust denier.

Using Art to Talk About the Holocaust in ‘The Evidence Room’

Museum staff discuss the reception of a difficult work that showed the vivid and painful documentation of a Nazi death camp

“We call ourselves the Great Convener,” says the new Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III, “but really we’re a Great Legitimizer. And I want the Smithsonian to legitimize important issues."

Lonnie Bunch Sizes Up His Past and Future at the Smithsonian

Bunch’s new memoir details the tireless work it took to build NMAAHC and offers insights into his priorities as Smithsonian Secretary

Illustration by Be Boggs

How the ‘Blonde Rattlesnake’ Stirred Public Fascination With Female Accomplices

In 1933, Burmah White was punished harshly—and amidst a media frenzy—after she and her husband committed a spree of crimes in Los Angeles

Soldiers take a psychological test (the exact type of examination is unclear) in Camp Lee in Virginia in November 1917, the year the United States entered World War I and Woodworth first developed his test.

The Future of Mental Health

The First Personality Test Was Developed During World War I

Long before online quizzes and Myers-Briggs, Robert Woodworth’s “Psychoneurotic Inventory” tried to assess recruits’ susceptibility to shell shock

Charlotte Moore Sitterly made huge strides in our understanding of how atoms are structured and what stars, especially our sun, are made of.

Women Who Shaped History

How Charlotte Moore Sitterly Wrote The Encyclopedia of Starlight

The “world’s most honored woman astrophysicist” worked tirelessly for decades to measure the makeup of the sun and the stars

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