Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

Smart News / Smart News Travel

An Illustrated Map of Chicago, Youthful City of the Big Shoulders, Restless, Ingenious, Wilful, Violent, Proud to be Alive! by Charles Turzak, Boston, 1931. A whimsical map of the city including parks, planes, and even Lake Michigan sea monsters

Cool Finds

Eight Awesome Maps From Stanford’s New David Rumsey Map Center

A collection of 150,000 historic maps merges paper and digital images in new ways

What the villa discovered in Wiltshire, England, would have looked like 1800 years ago

Cool Finds

Massive Roman Villa Found in British Backyard

One of the largest and best-preserved Roman homes ever found in Britain was discovered after a family decided they wanted to play ping-pong in their barn

The 7.8-magnitude earthquake decimated entire cities in northern Ecuador.

Trending Today

Help First Responders in Ecuador Without Leaving Your Desk

Scour satellite imagery of earthquake-stricken areas to help aid agencies decide where to go next

This silk satin, lace and whalebone corset gave an 1890s lady her hourglass figure and tiny waist.

Cool Finds

A New Exhibition Is All About Underwear

From a queen’s drawers to David Beckham’s briefs, The Victoria and Albert Museum gets “Undressed”

Six miles to Racetrack, a million miles from civilization—except for the tea.

Cool Finds

Death Valley Has a Secret Shrine to…Tea

Take a kettle, leave a kettle at this remote junction

Boat or floating farm forest? Swale is both.

Cool Finds

New York’s Newest Urban Farm Floats

A barge bursting with vegetables takes to the water this summer

At least the scent of despair comes in a pretty bottle.

Cool Finds

This Perfume Smells Like the Apocalypse

Artists bottled blood and thunder to capture the heady scent of the end times

The Grand Entrance Hall to the Thames Tunnel has been restored and reopened to the public.

Cool Finds

Historic Sites of the London Underground Will Soon Open for Visitors

See Churchill’s blitz bunker and the first underwater tunnel ever built

"Prague, Czechia" has a ring to it, doesn't it?

Trending Today

The Czech Republic Wants to Change Its Name

Welcome to “Czechia”

Cool Finds

Five Fascinating Places to Visit This Obscura Day

Atlas Obscura celebrates all things weird and wonderful worldwide this Saturday

The newly named Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument was ground zero for women's rights during the 20th century.

Trending Today

The U.S. Finally Has a National Monument That Honors Women’s History

144 Constitution Avenue is now one of the women’s movement’s most significant sites

Major construction: Coming to an art museum near you.

Trending Today

Museum Building Is Booming in the United States

In a seven-year period, museums in the U.S. spent around $5 billion

Kronborg Castle, listed as World Heritage by UNESCO, is known as the setting of William Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'.

Cool Finds

Celebrate Shakespeare’s Legacy at Hamlet’s Castle

Rest, rest, perturbed spirit! A bed awaits at “Elsinore”

Cool Finds

Researchers Crack Open the Mysterious Plain of Jars

After 80 years, archeologists get the chance to explore the Laotian plateau dotted with giant stone jars

Weird Animals

Eco-Celebrity Crane Inspires Wetland Protection in Taiwan

An endangered Siberian crane that has made Taiwan home is inspiring locals to protect the wetlands

The late Zaha Hadid sits in front of one of her structures, the Serpentine Sackler Gallery in London.

Austria

Here are Seven of Zaha Hadid’s Most Stunning Structures

The architect leaves behind an astonishing legacy

A box from Zuppardi's in West Haven, Connecticut.

Cool Finds

Chicago Is Getting a Pizza Museum

Hold the anchovies: This pop-up is a pizza-lover’s dream

A man with a mind-controlled prosthetic competes in a test run of October's Cybathlon in Switzerland.

Switzerland

Switzerland Will Host the First Cyborg Olympics

The “Cybathlon” will show what happens when humans and machines collaborate

A bison takes a stroll down the road in Elk Island National Park, Alberta

Trending Today

Genetically Pure Bison Will Return to Montana After 100 Years in Exile

Next week, the Blackfeet Tribe will receive 89 buffalo calves that descended from Montana stock in a Canadian National Park

A black rhino takes to the air in the first stage of its venture during the 2013 World Wildlife Fund's Black Rhino Expansion Project.

Trending Today

Rhinos Will Be Airlifted to Australia to Avoid Poachers

A new project is flying rhinos from South Africa to Australia to create a “biological insurance policy” against increased poaching

Page 91 of 118