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History / World History

Jeremy Scott (United States, born 1975) for Adidas, Boots, Spring/Summer 2013.

Take A Trip Through 300 Years of Men’s Fashion

At the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, a new exhibition highlights 200 styles, from military uniforms to punk jackets

Spared From the Holocaust by His Countrymen, a Jewish Refugee Hopes That Denmark Can Regain Its Humanity

Leo Goldberger will never forget how his fellow Danes kept him safe, but the reaction to today’s refugee crisis gives him pause about his former homeland

The city of Jodhpur spills out below Mehrangarh Fort, once the residence of the royal family.

Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly: India

The Fall and Rise of a Modern Maharaja

Born to a palace but stripped of his livelihood in the 1970s, Gaj Singh II created a new life dedicated to preserving royal Rajasthan

The details of the last days and the circumstances of Raoul Wallenberg's tragic death have long been mired in mystery and intrigue.

Raoul Wallenberg’s Biographer Uncovers Important Clues To What Happened in His Final Days

Swedish writer Ingrid Carlberg investigates the tragedy that befell the heroic humanitarian

Knee bending machine from Dr. G. Zander’s medico-mechanische Gymnastik by Alfred Levertin (Stockholm: 1892).

Dr. Gustav Zander’s Victorian-Era Exercise Machines Made the Bowflex Look Like Child’s Play

A Smithsonian librarian highlights the precursor to today’s gym enthusiasts

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Everybody Loves Lists

The Best History Books of 2015

Beyond the boldface names are these chronicles from the past year that are well worth your time

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

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