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Smart News / Smart News Arts & Culture

Screenshot of a new, interactive website devoted to Pablo Picasso's most famous work.

Cool Finds

You Can’t Get Closer to Picasso’s “Guernica” Than This 436-Gigabyte Image

The new “Rethinking Guernica” website also includes 2,000 documents and photos charting the painting’s 80-year history

Among the artifacts was a pair of John Lennon's glasses, complete with his optometrist's prescription.

100 Stolen John Lennon Items Found in Berlin

The trove of memorabilia, which was stolen from Yoko Ono, includes Lennon’s diaries, glasses and handwritten music scores

A cameraman at the coronation of King George V.

Why Do We Call TV Watchers ‘Viewers’?

It all goes back to a quirky BBC subcommittee working in the 1930s to change the English language

Portrait of Don Diego Ortiz de Zúñiga by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. Oil on canvas, in a carved and gilt wood frame.

“Lost” 17th-Century Portrait by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo Found in a Welsh Castle

The portrait, which depicts a Spanish writer and historian, has now been added to a Murillo exhibition in New York

Voltaire was enabled to become an old and famous aristocrat by his lottery winnings.

Voltaire: Enlightenment Philosopher and Lottery Scammer

The French government was trying to raise money by running a bond lottery, but a group of intellectuals had other ideas

Thanksgiving in the 19th century was less Norman Rockwell, more Mardi Gras.

The First Thanksgiving Parades Were Riots

The Fantastics parades were occasions of sometimes-violent revelry

A vintage Thanksgiving postcard featuring pardoned turkeys.

Presidents From Lincoln to FDR Kept the Thanksgiving Tradition Going

Lincoln started the process of making it a federal holiday in 1863, crystallizing something that had been around since the days of the Pilgrims

A mermaid eats an apple at the bottom of the (artificial) sea in this late 1940s postcard.

The Historic Tail of the Weeki Wachee Mermaids

You can even learn to “mermaid” yourself, if the fancy takes you

The marshmallows are essential, but the sweet potato is the heart of this classic dish.

How Marshmallow-Topped Sweet Potato Casserole Became a Thanksgiving Classic

Sweet potato pudding has been a part of American cuisine for a century

Born in 1888, author Raymond Chandler was best known for his detective novels.

Newly Discovered Raymond Chandler Story Skewers U.S. Healthcare System

It’s titled ‘It’s All Right – He Only Died’

A radio built in the 1930s.

How a New Accent Overturned BBC Tradition and Messed With the Nazis

A man with the name of Wilfred Pickles brought regional dialect to the BBC as part of an anti-Nazi-propaganda strategy

The Magritte Museum in Belgium contained the final piece of the Magritte puzzle.

Cool Finds

Final Piece of Hidden Magritte Masterpiece Found

X-rays have revealed the last bit of “La Pose Enchantee,” which the artist cut up and reused in the early 1930s

Leonardo da Vinci's 'Salvator Mundi'

Why Critics Are Skeptical About the Record-Smashing $450 Million da Vinci

While the sale of “Salvator Mundi” has generated a considerable amount of excitement, there are doubts about its authenticity

Lawsuit Seeks “Personhood” for Three Connecticut Elephants

An animal advocacy group has filed a petition requesting that the elephants be removed from a traveling zoo

“For 20 years, everyone referred to The Dinner Party as ... ‘vaginas on plates,’” Chicago says. “Nobody called it the history of women in western civilization, which of course, is what it is.”

These Fall Exhibitions Explore the Origins of Judy Chicago’s “Dinner Party”

Brooklyn Museum and National Museum of Women in the Arts revisit the artist’s celebration of unrecognized women, female body

A voting sign from the 2008 election.

For a Few Decades in the 18th Century, Women and African-Americans Could Vote in New Jersey

Then some politicians got angry

Mary Martin as Maria von Trapp in a publicity photo for The Sound of Music, the musical that debuted on Broadway on this day in 1959.

The Real-Life Story of Maria von Trapp

“The Sound of Music” was based on the true story of her life, but it took a few liberties

Cool Finds

New Portrait of Lord Nelson Found, Scars and All

One of many Nelson portraits by Leonardo Guzzardi, the painting has been restored to include his war wounds

Recycling bins at the Whiteman Recycling Center in Montana.

How the 1970s Created Recycling As We Know It

People recycled before then, but for different reasons

Sperry today sells a variety of footwear beyond the iconic deck shoes.

The Story of the Sperry Top-Sider

Paul A. Sperry’s innovative boat shoes were inspired by his dog

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