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At the Smithsonian

"The seemingly rigid frontiers that have come to define places like Africa and Asia," says the museum's director Gus Casely Hayford, "are in fact remarkably fluid, connected through the intersections of art, commerce and culture."

First Major Swahili Coast Art Show Reveals a Diverse World of Cultural Exchange and Influence

At the Smithsonian’s African Art Museum, international influences commingle to create a farrago of artisanal splendors

A Curtiss "Jenny" biplane carrying mail for Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, before takeoff from the Polo Grounds in Washington, D.C.

Delivering the Mail Was Once One of the Riskiest Jobs in America

A new exhibition at the National Postal Museum honors the nation’s first airmail pilots

A very happy World Bee Day to you. Let's talk pollinators.

How to Protect Your Local Pollinators in Ten Easy Ways

As the first annual World Bee Day looms, insect and garden lovers are abuzz with excitement

Mrs. Jane Loudon’s The Ladies' Flower-Garden of Ornamental Greenhouse Plants (1848)

A Botanical Wonderland Resides in the World of Rare and Unusual Books

The Smithsonian’s librarian and antiquarian Leslie Overstreet time travels, sharing centuries of horticultural splendors

“Inverted Jennies” grew in notoriety; as one writer note, they “blossomed into the Taj Mahal of stamps."

How the Inverted Jenny, a 24-Cent Stamp, Came to Be Worth a Fortune

Mark the centennial of an epic mistake at the National Postal Museum where several of these world-famous stamps are on view

Henrietta Lacks (HeLa): The Mother of Modern Medicine by Kadir Nelson (detail, above) is on view at the National Portrait Gallery through November 4, 2018.

Women Who Shaped History

Famed for “Immortal” Cells, Henrietta Lacks is Immortalized in Portraiture

Lacks’s cells gave rise to medical miracles, but ethical questions of propriety and ownership continue to swirl

“All ten of this year’s winners present a powerful design perspective and body of work that is at once inclusive and deeply personal,” says the museum's director Caroline Baumann.

Future of Art

America’s Top Designers Are Both Embracing and Breaking With Tradition

Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt announces ten National Design Award winners

The long-barreled pistols will be on view at the Postal Museum from May 25 through June 24.

Hamilton and Burr’s Dueling Pistols Are Coming to Washington, D.C.

Don’t throw away your shot to see these infamous flintlocks, and an incredible assortment of other Hamilton memorabilia, at the National Postal Museum

The enthralling c. 1993 portrait of Anthony by ADÁL (detail above), face and palms to the sky, captures the performer’s signature flair.

Marc Anthony Garners the Big Win in the Portrait Gallery’s People’s Choice Award

A portrait of salsa music’s all-time top-selling artist is on display on the museum’s “Recognize” wall

Tenant associations lead a march up Columbia Road N.W. in protest against threats of eviction at a time when land speculation and residential displacement were growing more common in the Adams Morgan neighborhood and across Washington, D.C.

A New Show About Neighborhoods Facing Gentrification Offers a Cautionary Tale

As cities face multi-billion-dollar developments, the question remains “Who Owns the City?”

Guzmán and his team were only able to pinpoint the whale shark's whereabouts when it rose to the surface to feed.

What the Longest Known Whale Shark Migration Ever Tells Us About Conservation

Researchers in Panama tracked a specimen via satellite over an unprecedented 12,516 miles

Charles Darwin was an avid fossil collector and during his expedition on the HMS Beagle, he was one of the first to collect remains of extinct South American mammals.

How Darwin’s Theory of Evolution Evolved

A new Smithsonian Book highlights firsthand accounts, diaries, letters and notebooks from aboard the HMS Beagle

Voiced by Josh Brolin, the hulking alien aggressor Thanos moves and speaks precisely as Brolin did on set, thanks to state-of-the-art performance-capture technology.

How the ‘Infinity War’ Directors’ Childhood Gave Them the Guts to Pull Off That Ending

Marvel comes to D.C. to delve into Avengers spoilers and make a Smithsonian donation

Most White Sands moths are white to blend in with their environment, but a select few black species have evolved as well.

Dissecting Moth Genitals In the Name of Science

How “moth evangelist” Eric Metzler uncovered hundreds of moth species in the barren dunes of New Mexico

A new show at the Smithsonian's Cooper Hewitt in New York City looks at how design interacts with other senses beyond vision, like this "smell" map of Amsterdam by Kate McLean that reveals the aroma of the city's restaurants, old book stores, laundromats and other neighborhood sites.

Could Our Housewares Keep Us Healthier?

Some designers are harnessing sound, color, smell and touch in products that promote well-being and independence for all

Using the encyclopedia as a guide, a group of Islay villagers worked through the night stitching together a Stars and Stripes.

A Hundred-Year-Old Handmade American Flag Flies Home… to Scotland

When WWI soldiers died off the coast of Islay Island, a group of villagers brought honor to their memory with this flag

Pepper talks to a group of museum visitors on the lower level of the National Museum of African Art.

The Smithsonian Is Using a Swahili-Speaking Robot to Break Down Language Barriers

Pepper the Robot’s vocabulary lessons help visitors understand the great influence of southeast African art on global culture

The Smithsonian Craft Show in 2010

Future of Art

How the Work of a Sculptor and a Doctor Landed In the Nation’s Top Craft Show

More than 100 artists in the 36th annual Smithsonian Craft Show capture Asia’s influence on American design

Diane Arbus with her photograph A young Brooklyn family going for a Sunday outing, N.Y.C., 1966

A Window into the World of Diane Arbus

Photographs from the portfolio, “A box of ten,” reveal some of the photographer’s secrets

Armenia

These Two Brothers Are Helping Keep Armenia’s Stone Carving Tradition Alive

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