Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

History / U.S. History

None

Chat with Jimmy Carter

Discuss “The Ethiopia Campaign” with President Carter

Princess Alexandrina Victoria, 18, ascends to the British throne when her uncle, King William IV, dies June 20, 1837.

June Anniversaries

Momentous or Merely Memorable

This Honus Wagner baseball card sold for $2.35 million in March.

A Brief History of the Honus Wagner Baseball Card

From cigarette pack insert to multi-million-dollar treasure

A player wearing an old-fashioned catcher's mask

April Anniversaries

Momentous or Merely Memorable

None

What’s Up

Duke Ellington, animated movies and the old ballgame

Capt. John Smith and Chief Powhatan had historic encounters in Werowocomoco.

Lost City of Powhatan

The Algonquian settlement crucial to the survival of Jamestown 400 years ago has been found. Finally

Congress finally passed the suffrage amendment in January 1918, but the Senate and the states took more than two years to approve it. In August 1920, a young Tennessee representative cast the deciding vote—at the urging of his mother—and ratified the amendment, thereby enfranchising half of the U.S. population. After a 72-year struggle, women had finally won the right to vote.

Equal Say

A photographic essay of how women won the vote

None

General Resent

In this interview, Ernest “Pat” Furgurson, author of “Catching Up with ‘Old Slow Trot,’” says some people are still fighting the Civil War

None

The Stranger and the Statesman

An excerpt from Nina Burleigh’s book, The Stranger and the Statesman: James Smithson, John Quincy Adams, and the Making of America’s Greatest Museum

James Smithson by Hattie Elizabeth Burdette, 1872

Why This Wealthy British Scientist Saw So Much Potential in the United States of America

James Smithson’s biographer offers insight into ideals born of the Age of Enlightenment that gave rise to the founding of the Smithsonian

None

The Forgotten General

Historians’ perspectives on George H. Thomas

None

March Anniversaries

Momentous or Merely Memorable

The Amazon loses 8,800 acres a day to "This army does not retreat," Gen. George H. Thomas famously asserted. Later in 1863, he rallied Union troops in the Battle of Chickamauga, in Georgia. His equanimity shows in a Civil War portrait, as it did in the heat of combat.

The Civil War

Catching Up With “Old Slow Trot”

Stubborn and deliberate, General George Henry Thomas was one of the Union’s most brilliant strategists. So why was he cheated by history?

Francine Prose

Against the Grain

Rebels by any name

The restored family home of First Lady Ida McKinley (wife of President William McKinley) became part of the National First Ladies' Library in 1998.

Remembering the Ladies

A new series of commemorative coins honors presidential spouses whose achievements have long been overlooked

Unveiled at a recent ceremony in Washington honoring Virginia Hall, this portrait will be added to the CIA's Fine Arts Collection. Painted by artist Jeff Bass, it shows her transmitting messages from occupied France using her suitcase radio. The painting was underwritten by a donation from attorney Robert Guggenhime.

WANTED: The Limping Lady

The intriguing and unexpected true story of America’s most heroic—and most dangerous—female spy

None

February Anniversaries

Momentous or Merely Memorable

In his picture of Y. A. Tittle, Morris Berman captured the vanquished warrior's bloody struggle. But the now-classic photograph wasn't even published at first.

Fallen Giant

“A whole lifetime was over,” legendary quarterback Y.A. Tittle recalls

Chief Justice Warren Burger swears in Gerald R. Ford as the 38th president in 1974.

The Pardon

President Gerald R. Ford’s priority was to unite a divided nation. The decision that defined his term proved how difficult that would be

Artifacts unearthed on Ossabaw Island offer insights into the lives of slaves.

Sea Island Strata

At a former Georgia plantation, archaeologists delve into both the workaday and spiritual lives of slaves

Page 151 of 171