World History

"Last Days of Pompeii" depicts an artist's rendering of the catastrophic final hours of Pompeii as the citizens were buried alive in ash.

Resurrecting Pompeii

A new exhibition brings the doomed residents of Pompeii and Herculaneum vividly to life

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January Anniversaries

Momentous or merely memorable

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This Month in History

December anniversaries—momentous or merely memorable

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The Grand Union Flag, Free At Last, and Lighting Up Broadway...

December anniversaries— momentous or merely memorable

When the smoke cleared and Saddam withdrew from northern Iraq, Iraqi Kurds returned home by the truckload and began to erase reminders of his rule.

Iraq's Resilient Minority

Shaped by persecution, tribal strife and an unforgiving landscape, Iraq's Kurds have put their dream of independence on hold-for now

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Helen Gurley Brown, the World Trade Center and Nobel Prizes...

A look back at the world in Smithsonian Magazine's first year

35 Who Made a Difference: Mark Lehner

He took the blue-collar approach to the great monuments of Egypt

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Wealth of a Nation

An exhibition of portraits from Latin America highlights the region's many contributions to U.S. cultural life

Roman museums are among the most elegantly designed of any in the world and its archaeological sites are the most user-friendly.

The Glory That Is Rome

Thanks to renovations of its classical venues, the Eternal City has never looked better

Between 6 B.C. and A.D. 4, Roman legions established bases on the Lippe and Weser rivers.

The Ambush That Changed History

An amateur archaeologist discovers the field where wily Germanic warriors halted the spread of the Roman Empire

A U.S. official noted the "amaraderie and trust among these guys—the Peace Brothers"(Rabin, Mubarak, Hussein, Clinton and Arafat).

Ties That Bind

At last, all parties were ready to make peace in the Middle East. Whoops ... Not So Fast

In the Nigerian village of Tajaé, a woman named Rakany (with her great-grandson) says she was given as a slave to her owner when she was an infant. She is now 80 years old.

Born into Bondage

Despite denials by government officials, slavery remains a way of life in the African nation of Niger

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War Stories

Remembering the sound and fury—and the joy—of the end of World War II

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It's Over

We asked readers to tell us where they were and how they reacted to the news that World War II had ended. And what a response we got!

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Glyph Dweller

Archaeologist Alanah Woody's infectious enthusiasm for Nevada's rock art knows no bounds

Tut's head, scanned in .62-millimeter slices to register its intricate structures, takes on eerie detail in the resulting image. With Tut's entire body similarly recorded, a team of specialists in radiology, forensics, and anatomy began to probe the secrets that the winged goddess of a gilded burial shrine protected for so long.

King Tut: The Pharaoh Returns!

An exhibition featuring the first CT scans of the boy king's mummy tells us more about Tutankhamun than ever before

Mexicans entering the United States

Cross Purposes

Mexican immigrants are defying expectations in this country-and changing the landscape back home

The artifacts of the Pig War speak of peace: even these British Minié balls were discarded without having been fired.

Boar War

A marauding hog bites the dust in a border dispute between the United States and Britain that fails to turn ugly

"It's a plastered skull!" shouted anthropologist Basak Boz (with the artifact). To researchers, who have documented more than 400 human burials at Catalhoyuk, the find is evidence of a prehistoric artistic and spiritual awakening.

The Seeds of Civilization

Why did humans first turn from nomadic wandering to villages and togetherness? The answer may lie in a 9,500-year-old settlement in central Turkey

George Frideric Handel by Balthasar Denner

Fatal Triangle

How a dark tale of love, madness and murder in 18th-century London became a story for the ages

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