Skip to main content

Subscribe to Smithsonian magazine and get a FREE tote.

History / U.S. History

(Left to Right): Karen David as Young Denise Christopher, Claudia Doumit as Jiya, Abigail Spencer as Lucy Preston

'Timeless' Recapped

Who Shot the Sheriff? ‘Timeless’ Season 2, Episode 8, Recapped

The Time Team travels to D.C. to prevent a presidential assassination, but instead runs into a new old friend

One of the last few reminders of Shermantown is this scene in Stone Mountain Village

In the Shadow of Stone Mountain

The past, present, and future of the African-American community are nestled beneath the country’s largest Confederate monument

William Sloane Coffin Jr., followed by his sister, arrives at federal building in Boston on May 20, 1968.

How Vietnam War Protests Accelerated the Rise of the Christian Right

The anti-war efforts of Yale chaplain William Sloane Coffin Jr. and other church leaders alienated many Protestant Americans—with lasting repercussions

Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston’s ‘Barracoon’ Tells the Story of the Slave Trade’s Last Survivor

Published eight decades after it was written, the new book offers a first-hand account of a Middle Passage journey

Court scene: Trial Ziang Sung Wan

The Triple Homicide in D.C. That Laid the Groundwork for Americans’ Right to Remain Silent

Decades before the Supreme Court’s Miranda decision, a 1919 murder trial presented a precedent for protecting criminal suspects from police overreach

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

Sarah Sokolovic as Grace Humiston, the Mrs. Sherlock Holmes, in this week's episode.

'Timeless' Recapped

An Elementary Lesson in Women’s Suffrage: “Timeless” Season 2, Episode 7, Recapped

The Time Team, aided by the real-life ‘Mrs. Sherlock Holmes,’ travels to 1919 this week to save the 19th amendment

Waldorf Astoria Hotel

What Made Oscar Tschirky the King of Gilded Age New York

During his long tenure as maître d’ at the famed Waldorf Hotel, Oscar had the city’s elite at his fingertips

Theodore Roosevelt and his Big Stick in the Caribbean (1904)

Why Teddy Roosevelt Is Popular on Both Sides of the Political Aisle

A historian considers the forces that have shaped the Rough Rider’s presidential legacy in the decades since his death more than 100 years ago

Don the Talking Dog was a vaudeville hit.

When Don the Talking Dog Took the Nation by Storm

Although he ‘spoke’ German, the vaudevillian canine captured the heart of the nation

Robert Johnson (Kamal Naiqui) records some of his tunes that would later change rock music as we know it.

'Timeless' Recapped

Somebody’s Got a Case of the Blues: Timeless Season 2, Episode 6, Recapped

The time team’s humming a new tune after a run-in with one of the most influential men in American music history

On Tuesday night, Cal Ripken Jr. received the Smithsonian Great Americans medal recognizing lifetime contributions that embody American ideals and ideas

Baseball Legend Cal Ripken Jr. Takes Home Another Award, This Time From the Smithsonian

The Iron Man adds the American History Museum’s Great Americans medal to his trophy wall

A massive task force—150 full-time personnel from the FBI and the U.S. Postal Service—hunted the Unabomber.

When the Unabomber Was Arrested, One of the Longest Manhunts in FBI History Was Finally Over

Twenty years ago, the courts gave Theodore Kaczynski four life sentences, thereby ending more than a decade of terror.

Years after she captured this tender, reflective image of the First Lady, photographer Diana Walker sent a print of the photograph to George H. W. Bush. “It does seem like so long ago, but seeing this image brings everything back into focus,” President Bush wrote in response: “The photo now hangs in my office in Maine, and I enjoy it every day.”

Smithsonian Curators Reflect on How Barbara Bush Will Be Remembered

As both the First Lady and the mother of a President, Mrs. Bush leaves a legacy of a national grandmother with an iron backbone

Panama Canal construction in 1913 showing workers drilling holes for dynamite in bedrock, as they cut through the mountains of the Isthmus. Steam shovels in the background move the rubble to railroad cars.

How the Panama Canal Took a Huge Toll On the Contract Workers Who Built It

The project was a tremendous American achievement, but the health costs to the mostly Caribbean contract workers were staggering

Civil rights leader Rev. Ralph Abernathy, in short sleeves, leads the Poor People's March to the edge of the grounds of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, June 24, 1968. Abernathy and his followers from Resurrection City marched to the Agriculture Department and then to the Capitol.

Remembering Resurrection City and the Poor People’s Campaign of 1968

Lenneal Henderson and thousands of other protesters occupied the National Mall for 42 days during the landmark civil rights protest

Statue of James Marion Sims in front of the Alabama State Capitol.

A Statue of a Doctor Who Experimented on Enslaved People Was Removed From Central Park

The discussion over the memorialization of James Marion Sims offers the opportunity to remember his victims

A young JFK is all, like, "Whoa" when he gets taken from 1934 Connecticut to 2018 Palo Alto.

'Timeless' Recapped

JFK’s Excellent Adventure: “Timeless,” Season 2, Episode 5 Recapped

We learn a lot about the once and future President, and he learns way too much about himself, in a tense twist with the past coming to the present

Bill Kennedy placed second in France’s Chateau-Thierry-to-Paris relay race, in 1919.

When “Bricklayer Bill” Won the 1917 Boston Marathon, It Was a Victory For All Irish Americans

William J. Kennedy crossed the finish line wrapped in the American flag

Page 81 of 172