Magazine

A kindergartner frolics on a jungle gym during a festival in Louisville, Kentucky, in September 2017.

The Surprisingly Scientific Roots of Monkey Bars

A century ago, a Princeton mathematician created what would become a mainstay of the American playground

Steps lead to one of the pools that Louise du Pont Crowninshield had built among the remains of the former powder mill.

An Abandoned, Industrial Ruin Bursts With New Life in Delaware

Thanks to a few horticulturalists with an eye for history, a garden lost to time peeks out from the creeping vines

The Great Hall of the Castle (pictured in 1969) has housed exhibits, a library, special events and a visitor information center.

Why the Smithsonian Castle Is Getting a Major Overhaul

The iconic building on the National Mall will be closed for five years as its interior gets a highly anticipated makeover

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Readers Respond to the November/December 2022 and January/February 2023 Issues

Your feedback on Mississippi John Hurt, captive-bred lion hunting and Stradivarius violins

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

The lizards likely reached the islands by hitching a ride on logs, vegetation or other debris, and diverged from their terrestrial cousins some 4.5 million years ago.

Behold: The Galápagos’ Marine Iguana

This quirky icon of evolution faces a rocky future

How much advance warning would we have if a large comet were headed on a collision course with Earth?

How Much Warning Would We Have of an Earth-Shattering Comet? And More Questions From Our Readers

You’ve got questions. We’ve got experts

Wesley Miles, a Pima archaeologist, points out that the placement of this new canal parallel to a prehistoric channel “says something about our ancestors’ engineering skills.”

America's Waterways: The Past, Present and Future

This Native American Tribe Is Taking Back Its Water

With a new state-of-the-art irrigation project, Arizona’s Pima Indians are transforming their land into what it once was: the granary of the Southwest

Left, Girl with Bicycle, in the Coombe, Dublin, 1966. The Photo Museum Ireland says Hofer’s work from her Dublin visit captures Ireland at a cultural turning point. Right, Queensboro Bridge, New York, 1964. “Hofer wanted to get under the skin of a city, to picture the essential characteristics of a place and its people,” says exhibition co-curator April Watson.

Photographer Evelyn Hofer’s Timeless Portraits Get a Second Look

Taken a half-century ago, her images strike a contemporary pose

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

Íris Dröfn Guðmundsdóttir (left) and her cousin Anton Ingi Eiríksson release pufflings from the Hamarinn sea cliff on the Icelandic island of Heimaey.

An Icelandic Town Goes All Out to Save Baby Puffins

Kids and senior citizens alike rally to rescue beloved young seabirds that have lost their bearings

Six Triple Eight veteran Romay Johnson Davis gets handshakes and fist bumps from members of the Buffalo Soldiers Motorcycle Club in Montgomery, Alabama, in July 2022.

Women Who Shaped History

How an All-Black Female WWII Unit Saved Morale on the Battlefield

Glory goes to the Six Triple Eight, who overcame discrimination from fellow service members and are finally getting the recognition they earned

McClintock used this Bausch & Lomb wide-field binocular microscope to examine morphological mutations in corn.

Women in Science

By Studying Corn, Barbara McClintock Unlocked the Secrets of Life

A look through a historic microscope helps explain what we all owe the Nobel Prize-winning scientist

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Readers Respond to the November/December 2022 Issue

Your feedback on document detectives, the date, witches and more

This Du Bois infographic charted the dramatic growth in the value of property held by Black Georgians between 1875 and 1899.

Why W.E.B. Du Bois Remains Such an Inspiration

A new Smithsonian exhibition invites visitors to use his groundbreaking infographics as a lens into Black history

A captive-bred male lion at Warthog Safaris in Limpopo, South Africa. The breeding facility is one of an estimated 260 in the country.

Is It Ethical to Hunt Captive Lions?

In South Africa, the big cats are raised to be killed by hunters. Opponents are outraged, but advocates point to conservation benefits

Three Great Abolitionists: A. Lincoln, F. Douglass, J. Brown, c. 1945. The onetime expressionist saw his stark new style as “not a change but a development.”

William H. Johnson’s Art Was for His People

The painter’s entire “Fighters for Freedom” series is now on view for the first time in more than 75 years

In November 1955 at Carnegie Hall, Anderson performed Mozart, Schubert, spirituals and more.

How Marian Anderson Took the World by Storm

Her mighty contralto propelled her across color lines

The statue Sons of St. Augustine imagines a warm encounter between Alexander Darnes, a physician, and Edmund Kirby Smith, the Confederate general who had enslaved him.

The Doctor and the Confederate

A historian’s journey into the relationship between Alexander Darnes and Edmund Kirby Smith starts with a surprising eulogy

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