Articles tagged as Cold War | Smithsonian Magazine

Garment workers and union members from the Puritan Underwear Company taking part in the 1916 May Day parade in New York. While these parades were common early in the century, they began to disappear over time.

The US Declared “Loyalty Day” in the 1950s to Erase Worker Protest

Under Eisenhower during the Cold War, “Loyalty Day” was declared to paper over International Workers’ Day

May 1, 2017

This painting by Adriaen Coorte was among art stolen from an East German art collector by the Stasi in the 1980s.

The Nazis weren’t the only group that looted German treasures

April 21, 2017

This Mysterious Albanian Island Is Reopening to Tourists This Summer

A former military base during the Cold War, this island is covered with abandoned bunkers and tunnels

April 18, 2017

Many of the records from MKUltra have been destroyed, but 8,000 pages of records were discovered in 1977.

What We Know About the CIA’s Midcentury Mind-Control Project

Project MKUltra began on this day in 1953 and continued for years

April 13, 2017

Sergei Korolev was technically still a political prisoner when he began working on the Soviet rocket program.

The First Manned Space Flight Was the Rocket Designer’s Victory as Much as Yuri Gagarin’s

Sergei Korolev designed the entire Soviet rocket program. But nobody knew his name until after he died

April 12, 2017

Albrecht Dittrich as a student, just a few years before he came to the U.S. under the name Jack Barsky as a KGB spy.

How a KGB Spy Defected and Became a U.S. Citizen

Jack Barsky wanted to stay in the country, so he let the Soviets think he was dead

April 3, 2017

Cool Finds

Watch Declassified Nuclear Bomb Tests Online

Weapons physicist Greg Sprigg has spent five years declassifying, digitizing and reanalyzing film of the U.S.’s 210 open air nuclear detonations

March 22, 2017

This grapefruit-sized object is Vanguard TV-3, an exact replica of Vanguard 1 that failed to launch into orbit. It's now on display at the National Air and Space Museum.

The World’s First Solar-Powered Satellite is Still Up There After More Than 60 Years

This tiny grapefruit-sized satellite will still be up there well into the 2100s if we don’t take it down

March 17, 2017

American South

This Virginia Winery Once Housed One of WWII’s Most Important Spy Stations

Speakeasies are so 2012—this place has actual secrets

March 14, 2017

Hyman G. Rickover created the U.S. Navy's nuclear program, but remained ambivalent about it throughout his life

Happy(?) Birthday to the Father of the Nuclear Navy

Hyman G. Rickover pushed to nuclearize the Navy’s submarines, but admitted he’d rather ‘sink them all’ to protect humanity

January 27, 2017

Paul Robeson, photographed by Alfredo Valente in 1940.

Remembering Paul Robeson, Actor, Sportsman and Leader

Among other things, Robeson transformed one of history’s most famous showtunes into a protest song

January 23, 2017

In 1957, The U.S. Flew a Jet Around the World to Prove it Could Drop a Nuclear Bomb Anywhere

The B-52 bomber that made the flight was part of a new bomber class that was still proving its worth

January 16, 2017

British double-agent Guy Burgess was one member of the Cambridge Five ring of spies.

The Student and the Spy: How One Man’s Life Was Changed by the Cambridge Five

An unlikely friendship with Guy Burgess, the infamous British double-agent, brought unexpected joy to Stanley Weiss

January 10, 2017

President Harry S. Truman, addressing Americans by radio in 1945.

We Can Thank Harry Truman for TV Politics

Truman was the first president to regularly appear on television

January 5, 2017

Mikhael A. Menshikov, new Soviet ambassador, outside White House, going to visit with President Eisenhower

Cool Finds

How Adlai Stevenson Stopped Russian Interference in the 1960 Election

The Soviets offered the former presidential candidate propaganda support if he ran in 1960, an offer he politely declined

January 4, 2017

Refugees stream across the River Ganges Delta at Kushtia, fleeing the violence in East Pakistan during the ongoing West Pakistani military campaign called Operation Searchlight. (AP Photo/Michel Laurent)

The Genocide the U.S. Can’t Remember, But Bangladesh Can’t Forget

Millions were killed in what was then known as East Pakistan, but Cold War geopolitics left defenseless Muslims vulnerable

December 16, 2016

Wernher von Braun, one of the architects of the Apollo program, was a Nazi scientist brought to the U.S. in secret in 1945.

As the war came to a close, the U.S. government was itching to get ahold of the German wartime technology

November 16, 2016

Archival image of one of the U-Bahn's "Dora" trains in service.

Cool Finds

See the Cold War-Era Trains Berlin Is Bringing Back Into Service

The “Dora” is returning to the tracks of the U-Bahn

November 9, 2016

A replica of the lost Mark IV nuclear bomb at the Royal Aviation Museum of Western Canada

The purported bomb was discovered by a man searching for sea cucumbers

November 8, 2016

The spycatcher in the disguise he wore when he
testified in court

The FBI’s Fake Russian Agent Reveals His Secrets

In an exclusive interview, a retired FBI agent who posed as a KGB officer finally spills the beans about his greatest sting operations

November 2016