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History / World History

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

American South

The Oldest City in the United States

St. Augustine, Florida, was the first city founded by European settlers in North America

Three of the fifteen escaped Chibok girls have been integrated into a special American University of Nigeria program. They pose with their tutor-matron next to the library.

Escape From Boko Haram

In northern Nigeria, a fearless American educator has created a refuge for young women desperate to evade the terrorist group

The Yamaki Pine, which survived the bombing of Hiroshima, resides at the U.S. National Arboretum. The tree serves as a reminder of the continued peace between the United States and Japan.

The Bonsai Tree That Survived the Bombing of Hiroshima

Now living in Washington, D.C., this bonsai tree outlasted the atomic blast

After World War II, Gottschee ceased to exist as an independent community

An Attempt to Keep the Dying Gottschee Culture Very Much Alive

Inspired by a trip to Slovenia with her grandmother, one New Yorker took it upon herself to chronicle the story of a lost piece of European history

Urban Explorations

There Are New World Heritage Sites, Here Are the Ones You Should Travel to Now

This year, 24 sites from across the globe have been added to the heralded Unesco list

Past and Presence: The Power of Photographs

The shattering nature of violence. The resilience of the human spirit. The power of photographs. A Smithsonian special project

Yepraksia Gevorgyan fled Turkey with her family. Her father was killed along the way, and her mother died soon after they crossed into Armenia.

Armenia: Smithsonian Guide

One Photographer’s Personal Endeavor to Track Down Survivors of the Armenian Genocide, 100 Years Later

As children, they escaped ruthless state-sponsored violence. Now, these Armenian women and men visit the aching memory of what they left behind

Runnymede meadow in Surrey, England, is the site of historic Magna Carta negotiations.

The Mad King and Magna Carta

How did a peace treaty signed — and broken — more than 800 years ago become one of the world’s most influential documents?

Hiram Bingham called Machu Picchu “the most important ruin discovered in South America since the Spanish conquest.”

What It’s Like to Travel the Inca Road Today

A rocky rollicking journey to Machu Picchu along one of the greatest engineering feats in the Americas

The view inside Pompeii's old granary

The Fall and Rise and Fall of Pompeii

The famous archaeological treasure is falling into scandalous decline, even as its sister city Herculaneum is rising from the ashes

Rumi Colca gateway, Cusco, Peru, 2014

Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly: Inca Road

How the Inca Empire Engineered a Road Across Some of the World’s Most Extreme Terrain

For a new exhibition, a Smithsonian curator conducted oral histories with contemporary indigenous cultures to recover lost Inca traditions

The Most Loved and Hated Novel About World War I

An international bestseller, Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front was banned and burned in Nazi Germany

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