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Smart News / Smart News Arts & Culture

High school: difficult to live through, harder to get right in writing.

‘The Outsiders’ Was Groundbreaking, But It Didn’t Create YA Fiction

Many have claimed that “young adult” fiction didn’t exist before S.E. Hinton wrote her cult classic–but it did, sort of

A spotter with binoculars at an anti-aircraft command post.

Cool Finds

Check Out These Rare Color Images of World War II

The photos are part of a new book from the Imperial War Museums which includes many images published for the first time

A TeleGuide terminal developed in the early 1990s by Swedish phone company Televerket, with IBM and Esselte.

A New Museum in Sweden Is All About Failure

Visit the many examples of products that were short-sighted, short-lived or just silly

This painting by Adriaen Coorte was among art stolen from an East German art collector by the Stasi in the 1980s.

Trending Today

Germany Will Research Stasi Art Seizures

The Nazis weren’t the only group that looted German treasures

Reconstruction of the Tham Lod woman who lived 13,600 years ago

New Research

Researchers Work to Take the Bias Out Of Facial Reconstruction

Instead of relying on European-centric data sets, researchers used a global database to help image a 13,600-year-old woman from Thailand

This illustration from The Murders in the Rue Morgue portrays Dupin, the first literary 'genius detective,' questioning a suspect.

Without Edgar Allan Poe, We Wouldn’t Have Sherlock Holmes

C. Auguste Dupin, Poe’s main character, was the first genius detective

Later Stone Age paintings

New Research

New Technique Shows San Rock Art Is 5,000 Years Old

Using a highly refined form of carbon dating, researchers were able to date the pigments in art in Botswana, Lesotho and South Africa

A Minnesota Home Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright Is For Sale, Original Furniture And All

Everything from the floor color to the light fixtures is as the architect designed it

Paul Revere gets all the credit, but he had a little help from his friends.

The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere and Some Other Guys

The midnight ride wasn’t so much a solo operation as it was a relay

The City Palace of Jaipur was designed with vastu shastra ideals

Ancient Architectural Science is Coming to a Renowned Indian Engineering School

Principles of alignment with the sun and magnetic fields in vastu shastra stretch back 8,000 years

A souvenir program from the 1925 Woman's World's Fair in Chicago.

A Look Back at the 1925 Woman’s World Fair

After the success of the Chicago World’s Fair, women made their own event

Everything's coming up Lego.

Cool Finds

Thousands of Lego Daffodils Are Blooming in Britain

The brick-built botanicals celebrate the UK’s 2017 City of Culture

Ireland May End Its Historic Good Friday Alcohol Ban

The 1927 prohibition restricted the sale of booze on Good Friday, Christmas Day and St. Patrick’s Day

Four Paws coordinated the rescue mission to bring Simba and Lula to safety.

Last Surviving Animals of Mosul Zoo Transported to Safety

Lula the bear and Simba the lion have been evacuated to a wildlife shelter in Jordan

This 1898 photograph shows two children holding hands during the Easter Egg Roll at the White House. 

The Curious History of the White House Easter Egg Roll

Thousands of families enter the lottery each year to take part in this White House tradition

Aromatic New Museum Celebrates the Art and History of Perfume

From the ancient Egyptians to Elizabeth Taylor, the Grand Musée du Parfum tells the story of fragrance

This dress is made with the power of cow manure.

Cool Finds

Fashion Made From Cow Poo Wins Innovation Award

Mestic looks to manure to produce bioplastic, paper and fashion-forward textiles

Adults slumber beneath a blue whale at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Trending Today

Slumber With Skeletons at This New York Museum

Whales, mummies and adults are invited to a special sleepover

Progress, meet cemetery.

Cool Finds

Digital Tombstone Brings the Dead Back to Life

Death is eternal—but cemeteries are changing with the times

"Wing," "coin" and "toil" are all words you can play in any Scrabble game. "Biten," however, is not legal.

The Tournament Scrabble Dictionary Contains More Than A Hundred Slurs

One woman first raised the issue of the Scrabble dictionary containing offensive words in the 1990s

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