Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Smart News

Qin Shihuang, the first emperor of China, may not have discovered an elixir to life but he did achieve his own form of immortality through his teracotta army

2,000-Year-Old Texts Reveal the First Emperor of China’s Quest for Eternal Life

Qin Shihuang issued an executive order demanding that his subjects search for an immortality elixir

“Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee” by Rembrandt, one of 13 works stolen during the 1990 theft.

Trending Today

Speak Now: Reward for Biggest Art Heist in History Gets Cut in Half on New Year’s

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum hoped the $10 million reward would shake loose new clues in the 27-year-old crime

Trending Today

Russia Proposes “Luxury Hotel” for the International Space Station

The NEM-2 module would have four cabins, two bathrooms, exercise equipment, WiFi and a lounge with a 16-inch window

Emerald Bay and Mount Tallac, Lake Tahoe, 1935.

Cool Finds

Cache of Newly Digitized Travel Photographs Will Transport You to 1900s California

Travelers William and Grace McCarthy really got around, and in nearly 3,000 photos, they captured a unique view of San Francisco, Tahoe and Yosemite

A YMCA gym in 1910.

The YMCA First Opened Gyms to Train Stronger Christians

Physical fitness was a secondary goal for the movement

Madame Pompadour, by Francois Boucher

Madame de Pompadour Was Far More Than a ‘Mistress’

Even though she was a keen politicker and influential patron, she’s been historically overlooked

The triforium undergoing renovations

Cool Finds

30,000 Shards of Historic Stained Glass Found in Westminster Abbey’s Attic

The glass and other trash was excavated from depressions in the vaulted ceiling and are being made into new windows for the Abbey

Excavations at Legio

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Find Gate to Headquarters of Famed “Ironclad” Sixth Legion in Northern Israel

Inscriptions on the find imply the gate could be part of a dedication or it could list the names of the legion’s commanders or war heroes

Trending Today

Belgium Ends Telegram Service After 171 Years

The end of Belgian telegrams isn’t the end of the service across the world, but it’s getting close

Tomb Door Engraved with Menorah Discovered in Israel

The artifact tells the story of the three major religious groups that have occupied Tiberias over the centuries

Photographer Don Hogan Charles on the streets of late 1960s New York.

Don Hogan Charles, Who Captured the Civil Rights Movement, Has Died at 79

In 1964, Charles became the first black photographer hired by the New York Times

A 2013 Romanian stamp features Cochran and her dishwasher.

This Time-Saving Patent Paved the Way for the Modern Dishwasher

Josephine Cochran just wanted to stop having broken dishes

Women dynamite workers at one of Alfred Nobel's factories in the 1880s.

The True Story of Mrs. Alford’s Nitroglycerin Factory

Mary Alford remains the only woman known to own a dynamite and nitroglycerin factory

The Magnolia tree, left, was planted on the south grounds of the White House by President Andrew Jackson in 1835.

White House Magnolia Tree Planted by Andrew Jackson Will Be Cut Down

Despite multiple attempts to save it, the tree is in bad shape

Limited Number of Critically Ill Evacuated from Besieged Syrian Region

29 people have been approved for evacuation from eastern Ghouta, but hundreds more are in desperate need of medical care

Often known as the redbird or common cardinal, the northern cardinal is a North American bird in the genus Cardinalis.

Trending Today

Five Things to Know About the Recently Changed Migratory Bird Act

A new rule prevents industry from being prosecuted for killing birds under the 100-year-old conservation law

Trending Today

The Library of Congress Will Stop Archiving Twitter

Because tweets have become too long and too numerous, the Library will only archive tweets of ‘historic value”

Before the 1840s, women had no choice but to deliver children without anesthetic.

It Didn’t Take Very Long For Anesthesia to Change Childbirth

The unprecedented idea of a painless delivery changed women’s lives

After Heavy Criticism, German City’s Exhibition on Jewish Art Dealer Is Back On

Officials said the previously cancelled show will be put on view in a “more complete and revised form” at a later date

Carry A. Nation with her bible and her hatchet not long before she died in 1911.

Three Things to Know About Radical Prohibitionist Carry A. Nation

Nation was convinced she was on a mission from God

Page 614 of 1116