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American History

While tame by today's standards, the graphic violence in Mortal Kombat shocked parents in the 1990s.

How ‘Mortal Kombat’ Changed Video Games

According to one of its creators, the infamously gory game got caught up in a transitional moment in video gaming

APVA Jamestown Memorial Church, 1607 James Fort

The Misguided Focus on 1619 as the Beginning of Slavery in the U.S. Damages Our Understanding of American History

The year the first enslaved Africans were brought to Jamestown is drilled into students’ memories, but overemphasizing this date distorts history

A friendly Nauga.

How the Nauga and its Fictional Friends Helped Make Synthetic Fabric Cuddly

What started out as an advertising ploy turned into a low-key cultural phenomenon

This 1846 map of the solar system includes Vulcan as the planet closest to the sun.

Why Everyone Went on a Wild Goose Chase Looking for the Planet Vulcan

The idea of a ninth planet in the Solar System would resolve a mathematical conundrum about Mercury–only problem is, it wasn’t there

Developers are breathing new life into indoor shopping malls.

The Transformation of the American Shopping Mall

Headlines claim malls are dying, and some are. But many others are having second lives as churches, schools, hospitals, even farms

Aerial view of Pennsylvania Station

Five Architects on the One Building They Wish Had Been Preserved

From an elegant solution to urban density to a magnificent financial hub

In Charlottesville, Virginia, city workers drape a tarp over the statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Emancipation park to symbolize the city's mourning for Heather Heyer, killed while protesting a white nationalist rally in August.

Commentary

We Legitimize the ‘So-Called’ Confederacy With Our Vocabulary, and That’s a Problem

Tearing down monuments is only the beginning to understanding the false narrative of Jim Crow

Jenny Lind was massively popular in Europe and England, but she was a virtual unknown in America before 1849.

Why 30,000 People Came Out to See a Swedish Singer Arrive in New York

Most of them had never even heard Jenny Lind sing

This is what a touring car looked like in 1915.

Before She Was an Etiquette Authority, Emily Post Was a Road Warrior

Post didn’t drive herself, but she laid claim to her own authority on the road in other ways

This resplendent Tibetan shrine room will greet visitors to the Sackler Gallery's upcoming "Encountering the Buddha" exhibition.

From Egyptian Cats to Crime Scenes, Here’s a Preview of the Smithsonian’s Upcoming Shows

Gallery-goers in D.C. and NYC are in for a mental workout with shows that deliver on everything from the experimental to the traditional

A relief party works to find bodies after the hurricane's destruction.

More Than a Century Later, This Texas Hurricane Remains America’s Deadliest Natural Disaster

The Great Galveston Hurricane helped the city of Houston to rise to prominence

You can see the resemblance in his eyes.

This Nineteenth-Century Genealogist Argued Norse God Odin Was George Washington’s Great-Great-Great… Grandfather

Albert Welles’s ideas about whiteness were a reflection of his time, and would be continued into the future

Prisoners walk the treadmill at Coldbath Fields prison in England, circa 1864. Other prisoners are exercising in the yard below.

In the 19th Century, You Wouldn’t Want to Be Put on the Treadmill

This grueling nineteenth-century punishment was supposed to provide a torturous lesson about hard work

Old West, as seen through 1967 Orange County eyes

The Wild West of Knott’s Berry Farm Is More Fantasy Than Reality

A critic of government welfare, the theme park’s Walter Knott built the first “Old West” town as a shrine to rugged individualism

A Piggly Wiggly in 1939.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

The Bizarre Story of Piggly Wiggly, the First Self-Service Grocery Store

What’s in a name?

Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division escort the Little Rock Nine students into the all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Ark.

Traveling Along the U.S. Civil Rights Trail

The Youngest of the Little Rock Nine Speaks About Holding on to History

Carlotta Walls LeNier, whose school dress is in the Smithsonian, says much was accomplished and now we need to hold onto it

When the moment came to ring the Freedom Bell alongside President Obama and the First Lady, Ruth Bonner was overjoyed.

Ruth Odom Bonner, Who Rang the Freedom Bell With President Obama, Passes Away at 100

Looking back on the redoubtable woman who helped inaugurate the African American History Museum

Emma Nutt was just the leading edge of the wave.

Long Before Siri, Emma Nutt’s Voice Was on the Other End of the Line

She was the first female telephone operator. Before her, telephone operators were teenaged boys. That didn’t go so well

The 1919 Chicago White Sox team photo.

The 1919 Black Sox Baseball Scandal Was Just One of Many

They say baseball “lost its innocence” after 1919, but betting and other improper behavior was rampant in early-20th-century baseball

The first Labor Day was hardly a national holiday. Workers had to strike to celebrate it.

Striking Union Workers Turned the First Labor Day Into a Networking Event

The end-of-summer holiday was designed to spur overworked Americans to meet up, picnic and call for fairer labor laws

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