Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Smart News / Smart News Travel

Stalin, Leningrad, USSR, 1978

Found: 30,000 Photographs by the ‘Russian Vivian Maier’

The photographer’s daughter stumbled upon the photo-films in the family attic

Cool Finds

Nearly 9-Hour Rainbow in Taiwan Sets New Guinness Record

Last November, researchers recorded more than 10,000 photos and videos documenting the long-lasting weather phenomenon

See Classic Sculptures Reimagined With Prosthetic Limbs

The aid organization Handicap International outfitted statues in France with prosthetic limbs to raise awareness about the global need for prostheses

Europe

Casanova Is Getting a Museum

The womanizer and Enlightenment polymath will be memorialized with an interactive museum in Venice opening April 2

A sunny day in Finland, the world's happiest country in 2018 according to new UN report.

Europe

UN Report Finds Finland Is the Happiest Country in the World

In the 2018 World Happiness Report, Finland scored high on six key variables

The artist’s impression of "Self-Conscious Gene."

Europe

Sculpture of ‘Zombie Boy’ Fleshes Out London’s Science Museum

A giant sculpture of artist and model Rick Genest, who has covered himself in tattoos of the inside of his body, will debut in its new Medicine Galleries

A beach in Naples.

For the Third Year in a Row, This City Was Tapped as America’s Happiest

The area’s success may be due, in part, to the fact that it is home to a large number of older Americans

Two Antarctic Penguins Took an Adorable ‘Selfie’

They were investigating a camera belonging to an expeditioner with the Australian Antarctic Division

The ‘Mona Lisa’ May Leave the Louvre for the First Time in 44 Years

France’s culture minister said she is ‘seriously considering’ sending da Vinci’s masterpiece on a tour of the country

131-Year-Old Message in a Bottle Found on Australian Beach

The oldest yet found, the relic was thrown into the Indian Ocean by German sailors conducting an experiment

Synchronous fireflies flash in harmony in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee.

These Were America’s Most-Visited National Parks in 2017

Of the National Park Service’s 417 sites, 385 keep track of their park visitors

"Reflections of the Weeping Willow on the Water-Lily Pond" Claude Monet

Long-Lost Monet, Sent Away for Safekeeping Before WWII, Found in Louvre Storage

The painting was acquired by Japanese art collector Kōjirō​ ​Matsukata in the 1920s. It will go on view at the National Museum of Western Art in 2019

The castle in 2012

Rubens’ Sprawling Castle in the Belgian Countryside Is on the Market

The famed Flemish painter redesigned the castle in Flemish Renaissance style

Under a new initiative, a digital art installation will cover the facade of Chicago's Merchandise Mart.

World’s Largest Digital Art Display Will Go Live This Fall in Chicago

Art deco landmark Merchandise Mart will be lit up across nearly 3 acres of its river-facing façade

Salvador Dalí (1904-1989), Untitled, 1932

Rediscovered Salvador Dalí Painting Goes on Display

The work, authenticated by Dalí scholar Nicolas Descharnes, was stored in private collections for the past 75 years

Tai Hang fire dragon

These Tiny Works of Art Depict a Disappearing Way of Life in Hong Kong

Hong Kong’s largest miniature art exhibition featured 52 dioramas made by 19 artists

Construction Underway on Clock That Will Keep Time for 10,000 Years

Funded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the $42 million mechanical timekeeper will be located inside a mountain in west Texas

"Untitled, 1969" and other works by artist and activist Howardena Pindell are the focus of a new show at the Modern Contemporary Art Chicago.

Howardena Pindell Gets Her First Major Museum Survey

The multidisciplinary artist and activist reshaped what art could be

Books!

Cool Finds

Turkish Garbage Collectors Curate Their Own Library

The sanitation workers have already amassed a collection of more than 6,000 books

The Aluminaire House was designed in 1931 by architects Albert Frey and A. Lawrence Kocher.

First American Project by Desert Modernism Architect to be Rebuilt in Palm Springs

It will join the rest of Albert Frey’s work

Page 60 of 118