Smart News Arts & Culture

Drummers in Benin

New Research

Big Data Traces the World's Most Distinctive Musical Traditions

An analysis of 8,200 recordings from 137 nations shows nations in sub-Saharan Africa have the most unique rhythms and melodies

China Brings an End to Its Ivory Trade

The country is believed to have been one of the world’s largest markets for ivory products

Rose Marie posing with her iconic black bow.

Rose Marie's Sprawling Legacy as Told Through the Artifacts She Left Behind

The late actress sang for mobsters, toured New York nightclubs and wisecracked her way through a career that spanned nine decades

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

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

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 <i>New York Times</i>

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

How 21st-Century Technology Is Shedding Light on a 2nd-Century Egyptian Painting

Researchers at UCLA and the National Gallery of Art have pioneered a technology that goes behind the scenes of a centuries-old artistic process

Mami Johnson photographed on February 14, 1998, at the Babe Ruth Museum in Baltimore.

Remembering Mamie ‘Peanut’ Johnson, the First Woman to Take the Mound as a Major-League Pitcher

The Negro Leagues trailblazer has died at 82. Barred from trying out for a segregated female league, she made her mark playing alongside men

John Michael Wright's portrait of King Charles II, in the Royal Collection

How Charles II Used Art to Bolster Britain’s Struggling Monarchy

A new exhibit at the Queen’s Gallery in London features more than 200 items from the collection of the “Merry Monarch”

Muppet characters Zeerak, left, and Zari, right, appear in an Afghan version of "Sesame Street."

'Sesame Street' to Create a Show for Syrian Refugee Children

A $100 million MacArthur grant will fund the important project, which will feature characters and narratives developed specifically for its unique audience

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