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History / World History

Overlooking the Sea of Galilee, Bethsaida was a day’s walk from Nazareth. When Jesus returned to his boyhood hometown to preach, the Gospels say he was rejected by a mob.

Unearthing the World of Jesus

Surprising archaeological finds are breaking new ground in our understanding of Jesus’s time—and the revolution he launched 2,000 years ago

Youngsters play soccer near a fort at the port of Korčula, which once served as the arsenal of the Venetian Empire in the Adriatic.

Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly: Venice

The Old-World Charm of Venice’s Windy Sister City

On the Adriatic island of Korčula, where Venice once ruled, ancient habits and attitudes persist—including a tendency toward blissful indolence

Jewish refugees about the St. Louis

The U.S. Government Turned Away Thousands of Jewish Refugees, Fearing That They Were Nazi Spies

In a long tradition of “persecuting the refugee,” the State Department and FDR claimed that Jewish immigrants could threaten national security

Document Deep Dive

The Origins of the World War I Agreement That Carved Up the Middle East

How Great Britain and France secretly negotiated the Sykes-Picot Agreement

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Rare Interviews With Hitler’s Inner Circle Reveal What Truly Happened on “The Day Hitler Died”

Broadcast for the first time in the U.S., these exclusive clips from a Smithsonian Channel program feature recently unearthed archival footage

Women observe anti-Semitic graffiti in Vienna in a film shot by an American in 1938.

Watch Rarely Seen Footage of Life in Nazi Austria, Thanks to a New Video Archive

The Ephemeral Films Project offers the public a chance to see what Jews experienced during the Anschluss

Five hundred years ago, officials welcomed foreign Jews to Venice, but confined them to a seven-acre section of the Cannaregio district, a quarter soon known as the Ghetto after the Venetian word for copper foundry, the site’s previous tenant.

Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly: Venice

The Centuries-Old History of Venice’s Jewish Ghetto

A look back on the 500-year history and intellectual life of one of the world’s oldest Jewish quarters

Document Deep Dive

A Look Inside Howard Carter’s Tutankhamun Diary

The famed archaeologist took detailed notes of what he found inside King Tut’s tomb

Images of survivors of the Herero genocide foreshadowed similar scenes from the liberation of Nazi death camps

A Brutal Genocide in Colonial Africa Finally Gets its Deserved Recognition

Activist Israel Kaunatjike journeyed from Namibia to Germany, only to discover a forgotten past that has connections to his own family tree

Secrets of American History

Thirty Years Later, We Still Don’t Truly Know Who Betrayed These Spies

Was there a fourth mole in the U.S. intelligence system that blew these secret agents’ covers?

A museum worker wearing gloves holds up a cuneiform clay tablet, one of a collection of over 100, on display at a museum in Jerusalem.

What the Heck is Cuneiform, Anyway?

The writing system is 6,000 years old, but its influence is still felt today

Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly: Venice

The Genius of Venice

The seafaring republic borrowed from cultures far and wide but ultimately created a city that was perfectly unique

A beach at Durban reserved for whites. An amendment to the Separate Amenities Act extended the laws to beaches. January 1, 1976

A Look Back at South Africa Under Apartheid, Twenty-Five Years After Its Repeal

Segregated public facilities, including beaches, were commonplace, but even today, the inequality persists

Silesian Station's main hall and platforms in 1937

History of Now

The Train Station That Has Been Housing the World’s Refugees for More Than a Century

Past and present collide at Berlin’s Ostbahnhof

Will Catalan Elections Allow an Old Nation to Become a New State In Europe?

Catalonians have long asserted they are not part of Spain, now the historical question of independence is on the ballot

An aerial view of Jamestown, St. Helena's capital.

It Just Got Easier to Visit the Place Where Napoleon Was Exiled (the Second Time)

Remote, rugged, finally accessible — St. Helena will soon have its first-ever airport

The World’s Oldest Papyrus and What It Can Tell Us About the Great Pyramids

Ancient Egyptians leveraged a massive shipping, mining and farming economy to propel their civilization forward

Alice Roosevelt and Nicholas Longworth disembark in Manila

Global Diplomacy Was in Theodore Roosevelt’s Hands, But His Daughter Stole the Show

Alice Roosevelt’s 1905 journey to Japan, Korea and China is documented in rare photographs held by the Freer and Sackler Galleries

The identity card of Johanna Koch with Marie Jalowicz's photo. The date of birth and the stamp over the photo were forged.

A Holocaust Survival Tale of Sex and Deceit

One Jewish woman’s personal story reveals what it took to elude capture in Nazi Germany

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