Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Smart News / Smart News Travel

Trending Today

Japan Plans to Make Olympic Medals Out of Electronic Waste

Organizers hope to reclaim gold, silver and copper from the used electronics for the 2020 games

This engraving of the 'Titanic' sinking was made shortly after the event happened, when the world was still reeling from the massive loss of life.

The Chief Designer of the ‘Titanic’ Saved Everyone He Could as His Ship Went Down

Thomas Andrews had argued for more lifeboats on the ship, but he was rebuffed on the grounds that it would ruin the view

Although it's possible that Sandro Botticelli threw other works of his on the bonfire, the Birth of Venus thankfully survived.

A Fanatical Monk Inspired 15th-Century Italians to Burn Their Clothes, Makeup and Art

He told Florentines the apocalypse was coming, and to save themselves through self-censorship

Preening automaton

Cool Finds

This Robotic Silver Swan Has Fascinated Fans for Nearly 250 Years

It preens, fishes and impresses

So hot, it's cool.

Cool Finds

Watch a Lava “Firehose” Spew Out of a Hawaiian Cliff

Kilauea is putting on a spectacularly scorching show

The beautiful Mauritius island may be hiding a chunk of continent.

New Research

Researchers Think They’ve Found a Mini Continent in the Indian Ocean

The island of Mauritius sits on a sunken piece of earth’s crust torn apart by plate tectonics

This photograph of Abigail Scott Dunway features the words "Yours for Liberty,"—the phrase she always used when she signed her name.

Cool Finds

This Hell-Raising Suffragist’s Name Will Soon Grace an Oregon Hotel

Abigail Scott Duniway staged a lifelong fight for women’s rights

The President, one of only three Inner Circle members who are allowed to handle Punxsutawney Phil, holds him aloft during ceremonies in 2013.

Meet the Inner Circle That Runs Groundhog Day

They’ve been holding the ceremony in Gobbler’s Knob every year since 1887

Just call it "the house on Pooh corner."

Cool Finds

The House Where ‘Winnie-the-Pooh’ Was Written Is for Sale

The 9.5-acre estate was once home to Christopher Robin and A.A. Milne

Balloon prints like this one, of the Great Nassau “enable us to share some sense of the excitement that gripped those watching their fellow beings rise into the sky for the first time,” writes Tom D. Crouch of the National Air and Space Museum.

A Picture History of One of the World’s Greatest Hot Air Balloons

Designed by Charles Green, the Great Nassau was big enough to capture the imaginations of an entire country

Though coral usually needs light to thrive, the Amazon Reef survives despite murky waters.

Cool Finds

Underwater Images Give First Glimpse of Newly Discovered Brazilian Reef

The Amazon Reef once shocked scientists. Now, for the first time, we know what it looks like

The National Mall as seen in 2010

Trending Today

The National Park Service Warns Inauguration-Goers to Keep Off Its Lawn

The National Mall finally recovered from President Obama’s first inauguration, and rangers want to keep it that way

Millions of immigrants passed through Castle Garden on as they entered the United States.

Cool Finds

America’s First Immigration Center Was Also an Amusement Park

Castle Garden went from fort to pleasure grounds to precursor of Ellis Island

"Container Trade Object"

Cool Finds

New Exhibition Highlights Art Inspired by Standing Rock

Art as a lens to understand the protest

Central High School, where school integration battles of the Civil Rights Movement played out, is among 39 sites and historical projects to get National Park Service grants.

Trending Today

New Grants Give Out Millions to Preserve African-American History

A $7.5 million grant program will fund 39 projects in over 20 states

Samuel Zemurray was sometimes called "The Banana Man."

Where We Got the Term “Banana Republic”

Hint: it’s not a great moment in American history

Detail of a surfer in "A View of Karakakooa, in Owyhee," an etching made by an artist accompanying the Cook expedition.

What the First European to Visit Hawaii Thought About Surfers

The Europeans were fascinated by Pacific Islanders’ comfort in the water

Cool Finds

This Altar Cloth Might Have Been Elizabeth I’s Skirt

It belonged to a parish church for centuries

Cool Finds

Austin Is Looking for Its First Artist-in-Residence

Winning artists will be embeded in city agencies to help bring in new eyes to reconsider old problems

Civil Rights-era freedom riders are just one of the groups whose history is honored in three new national monuments.

Trending Today

New National Monuments Highlight Reconstruction and Civil Rights History

President Obama designated three Southern sites critical to sharing that story

Page 78 of 117