At the Smithsonian

Six years after Wilbur and Orville Wright invented the first airplane in 1903, the Army purchased the Wright Military Flyer for $30,000.

After the Wright Brothers Took Flight, They Built the World's First Military Airplane

The 1909 Military Flyer is the centerpiece of the "Early Flight" exhibition at the National Air and Space Museum

October 3, 2022 9:00 a.m.

The elkhorn coral is one of the most endangered corals in the Caribbean and the Florida Keys. In Florida alone, the population is reduced by over 95 percent. A coral breeding project using elkhorn coral gametes collected in Florida and Curaçao hopes to give this species a new lease on life.

This Moonshot for Coral Breeding Was Successful

But the coral are still in tanks, waiting to be released on reefs

October 3, 2022 8:00 a.m.

This year's Craft2Wear Show features over 60 premier jewelry, leather and wearables artisans from across the country.

The Art of Wearing Works of Art

From Japanese kimono silks to Navajo jewelry, Smithsonian’s 2022 Craft2Wear brings shoppers into a world of wearable craft and design

September 30, 2022

Five-day-old red-eyed treefrog embryos are tightly curled inside dehydrated eggs packed closely together. It’s dry enough to make them begin to hatch early amid heating.

Panama

When the Heat is On, Red-Eyed Treefrogs Hatch Early

The embryos make the move from clutches on leaves to rainforest ponds below

September 30, 2022

“This room is one of the masterworks of late 19th-century art and design, says the museum’s curator of American Art Diana Greenwold.

Whistler’s 'Peacock Room' Open After Weeks of Restoration

The story behind the Smithsonian’s showstopper is one of a major dust-up between the artist and his patron

September 29, 2022

This month, Portraits, a podcast from the National Portrait Gallery, revisits "Finding Cleopatra," a Sidedoor episode with host Lizzie Peabody exploring the life of the artist Edmonia Lewis (above: a photographic portrait by Henry Rocher, c. 1890).

Cleopatra’s Iconoclastic Sculptor Was Her Own Kind of Queen

Smithsonian podcasts delve into the life of Edmonia Lewis, how astronauts sleep, the evolution of the human brain; and drop in on painter Kay WalkingStick

September 23, 2022

Neal V. Loving’s WR-3, shown at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia, will move to the redesigned galleries on the National Mall.

The West Wing of the National Air and Space Museum Prepares to Take Flight

The Smithsonian museum reopens to the public, transforming the way we tell the story of aviation

October 2022

Florence Pugh (left) stars in Don't Worry Darling as Alice, a 1950s housewife who resides in an idyllic California community with her husband, Jack (Harry Styles, right).

The Feminist Inspiration Behind 'Don't Worry Darling'

Director Olivia Wilde dubbed the new film "'The Feminine Mystique' on acid"

September 22, 2022

The Bell X-1, a miracle of form and function.

How the Bell X-1 Ushered in the Supersonic Age

The speeding-bullet design propelled Chuck Yeager into history

October 2022

The signpost of hometowns for each of the characters in the sitcom "M*A*S*H" is now held in the collections of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, where it will go on view December 9.

Fifty Years and TV's 'MAS*H' Still Draws Audiences

Fans are making plans to visit the Smithsonian this December when the show's signature signpost goes on view in the new exhibition "Entertainment Nation"

September 20, 2022

One reader wonders: Why did ants make it all over the Americas while anteaters didn’t?

Why Do Anteaters Live Only in the Tropics and More Questions From Our Readers

You've got questions. We've got experts.

October 2022

The data, says the exhibition director Rachel Goslins, offers "a potential roadmap for anyone seeking to be inspired, as well as to inspire hope and action." (Above: the two-story interactive me + you, by the New York artist and architect Suchi Reddy, incorporated the latest in artificial intellegence analysis.)

What It Will Take to Inspire Hope for a Better Tomorrow

Visitor data from the Smithsonian’s FUTURES exhibition provides a road map for how to navigate the world ahead

September 16, 2022

The newly discovered Opisthiamimus gregori preys on a now-extinct water bug.

Scientists Discover Bug-Eating Reptile That Lived Among Dinosaurs

Delicate fossil reveals a cousin of the modern tuatara

September 15, 2022

A produce farm on the Rural Studio campus in Newbern, Alabama

These Are the Winners of the National Design Awards

This year, Cooper Hewitt honored innovators in climate change, clothing design and more

September 7, 2022

In “Postage Pairings,” from the National Portrait Gallery, host Kim Sajet speaks with the Smithsonian's Daniel Piazza, curator of philately, about postage stamps (left: 29c single, july 30, 1993) reproduced from portraits (right: Benjamin Franklin by Joseph Siffred Duplessis, c. 1785).

The Revolutionary Role Mail Played in America’s Fight for Independence

Hear about the colonial period postal service in the latest "Portraits" podcast

September 6, 2022

Septima Poinsette Clark by Brian Lanker, 1987

Women Who Shaped History

Evotourism ®

The 50 Million-Year-Old Treasures of Fossil Lake

In a forbidding Wyoming desert, scientists and fortune hunters search for the surprisingly intact remains of horses and other creatures that lived long ago

September 2022