Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Magazine

Sunlight illuminates a plaque in Charleston, South Carolina, honoring 36 likely enslaved people—ranging in age from 3 to over 50—whose remains were discovered in 2013.

Tracing a Lost Ancestry

A New Project Uses Isotopes to Pinpoint the Birthplaces of the Enslaved

In South Carolina, members of the local Black community are teaming up with scientists to produce a novel study of the trans-Atlantic slave trade

Ruiz-Redondo examines a partially flooded chamber of Cova Dones. 

Just How Old Are the Cave Paintings in Spain’s Cova Dones?

With help from a now-extinct bear, archaeologists have unlocked the mysteries of Spain’s Cova Dones

Coltrane rehearses backstage before a show in London in November 1961. 

Tracing a Lost Ancestry

How John Coltrane’s ‘My Favorite Things’ Changed American Music

Looking back at the moment when one of our greatest jazzmen raised the stakes for everyone who came after

A leatherback turtle returns to the sea after nesting. Females spend three to five months at a time nesting, laying eggs for periods of about nine days.

Should Endangered Turtles Have Legal Rights?

To protect the majestic reptiles around the isthmus of Panama, an ambitious conservation group digs deep both on and off the beach

The fateful tent on display at the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia.

From These Modest Wartime Quarters, George Washington Kept the Revolution Alive

The general’s war tent, an iconic part of the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia, carries as much symbolism now as it did then

Ai Weiwei’s relocation to Portugal was largely practical, offering affordable land and access to European residency and travel visas. Visiting for the first time, he says, “There was no traffic on the road, a continuous empty landscape, just trees and grass. I thought it would be a nice place to settle.”

Ai Weiwei’s Latest Work Is a Monument to His Past

The groundbreaking, exiled Chinese artist builds a hopeful new life—and a new studio, in the Portuguese countryside

A player serving on an outdoor court. In 2022, the Association of Pickleball Professionals estimated there were 36.5 million pickleball players in the U.S.

How the Obscure Sport of Pickleball Became King of the Court

With origins dating back to the 16th century, paddle sports have always had an unmistakable allure

Nubian giraffes in South Sudan during an aerial survey in April 2023. The area is home to what is probably the planet’s largest land mammal migration.

Giraffes Are Notoriously Hard to Track, But New Technology Is Helping Scientists Protect the Beloved Species

As populations plummet across Africa, researchers have designed an ingenious method to study the graceful creatures

Jared Miller poses as his ancestor Richard Oliver, a soldier in the 20th Colored Infantry, at Penumbra Tintype Portrait Studio in New York City.

Descendants of Black Civil War Heroes Wear Their Heritage With Pride

A bold new photographic project asks modern-day Americans to recreate portraits of their 19th-century ancestors in painstakingly accurate fashion

None

Readers Respond to the November 2023 Issue

Your feedback on Vietnam veterans, the value of stagecraft and one very adventurous anthropologist

Pressurized water shoots from the drill’s head to cool the marble and prevent excessive dust (detail).

Can Robots Replace Michelangelo?

In the birthplace of Italian sculpture, a powerful automated machine tries its hand at an ancient craft

A portrait of the congressman by the famous photographer Mathew Brady, c. 1860.

Why America Is Just Now Learning to Love Thaddeus Stevens, the ‘Best-Hated Man’ in U.S. History

The Pennsylvanian was one of America’s greatest heroes. Why hasn’t he gotten his due?

Babyn Yar, outside Kyiv, where 33,771 Jews were killed over two days in September 1941. The small portraits show unidentified Ukrainians, likely Jews, before the war.

Ukraine Planned an Ambitious Memorial at the Site of a Holocaust Massacre. Then War Came to Kyiv

The Nazis and Soviets sought to erase the mass killing of 33,000 Jews at Babyn Yar, but a new effort seeks to remember the dead even as Russia attacks

Svalbard reindeer graze during an early snowfall. If temperatures rise again, food may be trapped under ice during a critical time for packing on winter pounds.

Northern Europe and the British Isles

The World’s Smallest Reindeer Get Their Day in the Sun

On Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, a rare animal is thriving—for now

Stark-Star grapes—native to North America, and considered a “champion cultivar” by Jerry Eisterhold, founder of TerraVox Winery.

The Man Who’s Saving America’s Forgotten Grapes

Bordeaux. Napa Valley. Missouri? This vintner wants to put this once-booming wine region back on the map

Left, a 1932 self-portrait by Lee Miller. Right, a 1943 portrait of Miller by American photojournalist David Scherman.

Women Who Shaped History

How Lee Miller, a Magazine Model and Muse, Became a Daring World War II Photographer

The bold journalist, who made a splash on both sides of the lens, is the subject of a new biopic starring Kate Winslet

A glass of homemade eggnog dusted with cinnamon is a mouthwatering prospect to some—and an abomination to others.

The Uniquely American History of Eggnog, Everyone’s Favorite—or Least Favorite—Holiday Quaff

This Yuletide mainstay continues to warm cockles and ventricles everywhere

The horned marsupial frog, which carries its eggs in a pouch on its back, lives in the canopy of tropical rainforests.

The Surprise Reappearance of a Rare Frog Has Scientists Leaping to Protect Its Habitat

The marsupial frog, which incubates its young in a pouch on its back, was thought to be extinct in some countries

Why can't machines process CO2 the way trees do?

Why Can’t Machines Process CO2 Like Trees? And More Questions From Our Readers

You’ve got questions. We’ve got experts

An original Michtom teddy bear once held by two of Teddy Roosevelt’s great-grandchildren, Mark and Anne.

The Teddy Bear Was Once Seen as a Dangerous Influence on Young Children

Inspired by a moment of empathy from President Theodore Roosevelt, the huggable toy had a rocky start before it became the stuff of legend

Page 15 of 92