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American History

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North Dakota Makes a Push for a Teddy Roosevelt Presidential Library

The towns of Dickinson and Medora are raising money in hopes of establishing a library and museum to the 26th president who once ranched in the area

From left to right: Jennifer Woodul, Meg Christian (in glasses), Ginny Berson (whose hand is on Meg's leg), Kate Winter (above) and Judy Dlugacz (far right).

Women Who Shaped History

How Should We Archive the Soundtrack to 1970s Feminism?

It’s time to talk about the lasting legacy of Olivia Records, a leading voice of the women’s music movement, whose history is ready to come out of storage

How a $10 Billion Experimental City Nearly Got Built in Rural Minnesota

A new documentary explores the “city of the future” that was meant to provide a blueprint for urban centers across America

U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev exchange pens during the signing ceremony for the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in the White House East Room on December 8, 1987.

Why “The Americans” Is Taking a Big Leap Forward to 1987

The beginning of the end of the Soviet Union provides great drama for the show’s final season

Virginia Irwin, in St. Louis in 1939. The Post-Dispatch on the desk next to her typewriter is the edition of Oct. 17, 1939, reporting the German sinking of the British Battleship Royal Oak at Scapa Flow, Scotland.

Women Who Shaped History

Journalist Virginia Irwin Broke Barriers When She Reported From Berlin at the End of WWII

Her exclusive dispatches from the last days of Nazi Germany appeared in newspapers around the country, briefly making her a national celebrity

This May 8, 1964 file photo shows Linda Brown Smith standing in front of the Sumner School in Topeka, Kansas.

Trending Today

Linda Brown, at the Center of Brown v. Board of Education, Has Died

After being refused enrollment at an all-white school in Topeka, Kansas, Brown’s court case led to the historic Supreme Court ruling that ended segregation

Roger Williams University in Nashville, Tennessee, was a historically black college founded in 1866.

First Museum Committed to Sharing the Stories of Historically Black Colleges Opens

The HBCU Museum in Washington, D.C., launched March 9 and has plans to expand to a second location in Atlanta

The wreckage of a Southern Airways DC-9 sits in the front yard of a home facing the road that the plane attempted an emergency landing on in New Hope, Ga., April 5, 1977. The pilot's attempt to save himself and his passengers occurred after the plane's engines failed during a heavy thunderstorm.

What Happened When a Southern Airways Flight 242 Crashed in Sadie Burkhalter’s Front Yard

Her home became a makeshift hospital when she looked out her front door to a fiery inferno

The "Time Team" glams it up, and Lucy's costume presents a Hollywood mystery.

'Timeless' Recapped

The Drama Intensifies When “Timeless” Visits “Hollywoodland”

A plot to steal ‘Citizen Kane’ and a visit from inventor Hedy Lamarr give the Time Team a taste of the movie industry’s golden age

American Farm Hand by Sandor Klein, 1937

How Portraiture Gave Rise to the Glamour of Guns

American portraiture with its visual allure and pictorial storytelling made gun ownership desirable

Postcard of the Napa State Hospital in Napa, Calif., circa 1905. Over 1,900 Californians were recommended for sterilization while patients here.

Race in America

California Once Targeted Latinas for Forced Sterilization

In the 20th century, U.S. eugenics programs rendered tens of thousands of people infertile

A movie screening at Hollywood Forever.

From Yoga to Movie Nights: How Cemeteries Are Trying to Attract the Living

These cemeteries around the country are more public space than burial ground

Women Who Shaped History

Ruth McGinnis: The Queen of Billiards

Back when pool was a serious sport that grabbed the attention of the nation, one woman smoked the competition

Carroll O'Connor as Archie Bunker

How Archie Bunker Forever Changed in the American Sitcom

The return of ABC’s ‘Roseanne’ inspires a reevaluation of television’s history of portraying the working class

Ask Smithsonian

Why Don’t We See Fireflies in the Western U.S.?

You asked, we answered

The King and Queen of Hearts wave from their parade float to crowds gathered for D.C. Capital Pride 2014. The next year, the Academy of Washington waved farewell after 54 years of service to the D.C. community.

These Newly Donated Artifacts Capture the Spirit of Washington, D.C. Drag

Mementos from the Academy of Washington drag organization add a valuable thread to the tapestry of American LGBTQ history

Investigators on Lookout for 314 Items Stolen From Carnegie Library’s Rare Books Room

A first edition of Isaac Newton’s “Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica” was among the items taken

James K. Polk. Oil on canvas.

Trending Today

Tennessee Votes to Keep Polk’s Grave Where It Is. For Now

A resolution to move the grave from the capitol grounds in Nashville to one of his boyhood homes failed by one vote

The names of 50 victims of the 1887 Thibodaux massacre in Louisiana are among those inscribed on the new memorial.

A New Memorial Remembers the Thousands of African-Americans Who Were Lynched

Next month’s opening of the monument in Alabama will be a necessary step in reckoning with America’s deadly past

The Stephen Foster statue will be replaced with a monument in honor of an African American woman who made an outsized impact on Pittsburgh.

Monument to a Historic Black Woman Will Replace Racist Statue in Pittsburgh

A city task force is asking the public to help decide who should be honored

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