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Letters

Ever since its departure from England exactly 180 years ago, on May 19, 1845, the Franklin expedition has captivated the public’s imagination.

The Shipwrecks From John Franklin’s Doomed Arctic Expedition Were Exactly Where the Inuit Said They Would Be

In May 1845, 129 British officers and crew members set out in search of the Northwest Passage on HMS “Erebus” and HMS “Terror.” None returned

Members of the Six Triple Eight in Rouen, France, in 1945

Women Who Shaped History

The Only Black, All-Female Unit to Serve Overseas in World War II Receives the Congressional Gold Medal

The Six Triple Eight cleared a years-long backlog of mail in just three months. Eighty years later, the unit is finally getting the recognition it deserves

The letter was postmarked on April 11 in Queenstown, Ireland, one of the two stops the Titanic made before sinking. It reached London one day later.

He Boarded the Titanic, Then Wrote a Letter: ‘It Is a Fine Ship, But I Shall Await My Journey’s End Before I Pass Judgment’

First-class passenger Archibald Gracie wrote the missive shortly after settling into his cabin on the doomed vessel. It just sold at auction for nearly $400,000

A statue of Clementina Rind, a trailblazing publisher and printer who took over the Virginia Gazette after her husband's death, is featured in the Virginia Women's Monument.

America's 250th Anniversary

Newly Discovered Letters Illuminate the Life of a Female Printer Who Published Revolutionary Texts and Pushed the Colonies Toward Independence

As Virginia’s first female newspaper publisher, Clementina Rind emphasized women’s viewpoints and collaborated with prominent politicians like Thomas Jefferson

Written in 1777, the letter from George Washington is expected to sell for $150,000.

You Can Buy a Rare Letter by George Washington Written at a Crucial Turning Point in the Revolutionary War

In the optimistic missive, Washington extols the revolutionary spirit of the American people—even in defeat—and makes a rare reference to the experimental smallpox inoculation that helped prevent outbreaks

A recently discovered trove of Winnie-the-Pooh materials found new homes in the United States and the United Kingdom after selling at auction.

Cool Finds

Man Finds Rare Trove of Winnie-the-Pooh Drawings and Manuscripts in His Father’s Attic

The papers connected to author A.A. Milne—including original drafts, illustrations, letters, poems and corrected proofs—sold at auction for more than $118,000

The Charles Dickens Museum is celebrating its anniversary by displaying rare books, artworks, letters, artifacts and other unique historical objects connected to the 19th-century author.

See Charles Dickens’ Rare Manuscripts, Teenage Love Letters and a Copy of ‘David Copperfield’ That Traveled to Antarctica

To celebrate its 100th anniversary, the Charles Dickens Museum in London is staging an exhibition of historic objects that shed light on the writer’s life and legacy

The mailbox for letters to Santa Claus at the home of the Parsons family in Pennsylvania, on December 10, 2020

Ask Smithsonian

Kids Send Thousands of Letters to Santa Each Year. Here’s What Really Happens to Them

The United States Postal Service and volunteers have responded to North Pole holiday correspondence over the past century

Kerry Washington stars as Charity Adams in Tyler Perry's newest film, The Six Triple Eight.

Women Who Shaped History

How a Black, All-Female WWII Unit Saved Morale on the Battlefield

The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion sorted through a massive backlog of undelivered mail, raising American soldiers’ spirits during World War II

The letter inside the glass bottle was dated September 4, 1892.

Cool Finds

Read the 132-Year-Old Message in a Bottle Found Hidden Inside the Walls of a Scottish Lighthouse

Engineers discovered the mysterious missive while working on repairs at Corsewall Lighthouse last month. Now, they plan to write their own note for future generations to find

Makenzie Van Eyk (second from right) holds the message in a bottle that she wrote 26 years ago. Roland St. Pierre (far left) was her teacher at the time. Her daughter Scarlet (second from left) and son Huxley (far right) are enrolled in the same school she attended.

Cool Finds

A Little Girl Dropped a Message in a Bottle Into a Lake. Her Daughter’s Classmate Found It 26 Years Later

Makenzie Van Eyk wrote the letter as part of a class project in 1998, when she was in fourth grade. Recently, the note was discovered by a boy who goes to school with her daughter—who is now in fourth grade herself

The postcard is stamped April 11, 1912, just a few days before the Titanic sank.

Before the Titanic Sank, a Cheerful Passenger Wrote in a Postcard That He Was ‘Leaving for the Land of Stars and Stripes’

A handwritten note by Richard William Smith, a British businessman who perished in the disaster, is heading to the auction block, where it could sell for up to $12,600

Medieval women’s lives were “more vibrant than people expect,” says lead curator Eleanor Jackson, “and [visitors] will be surprised by the sheer variety of roles” that they occupied in the fields of politics, religion and the arts.

These Rare Artifacts Tell Medieval Women’s Stories in Their Own Words

A new exhibition at the British Library explores the public, private and spiritual lives of such figures as Joan of Arc, Christine de Pizan and Hildegard of Bingen

The 200-year-old message was found inside a glass salt bottle.

Cool Finds

Students Stumble Upon a Message in a Bottle Written by a French Archaeologist 200 Years Ago

The mysterious missive was written by P.J. Féret, who conducted an archaeological dig at the same site in northern France in 1825

The exterior of the Sainsbury Wing at the National Gallery in London. The controversial columns stood inside the ground-floor foyer.

Cool Finds

Workers Find Mysterious Letter Hidden Inside a Concrete Column at London’s National Gallery

John Sainsbury hoped the note would be found when the “unnecessary columns” were finally demolished

The front of the postcard features a print of The Challenge (1844) by English artist Edwin Henry Landseer.

Cool Finds

See a Mysterious Postcard That Was Delivered 121 Years Late

The handwritten note, which bears a 1903 postmark, recently arrived at a building society in Wales

The correspondence is undated, but experts think Kafka wrote it in the spring of 1920.

An Ailing Franz Kafka Curses Writer’s Block in This Handwritten Letter to a Friend

“I haven’t written anything for three years,” he admitted in the note, which will go to auction this summer

Archaeologists have been studying the pet cemetery since it was first discovered in 2011.

Cool Finds

Letters Written by Ancient Roman Commanders Have Been Found in a Pet Cemetery in Egypt

Discovered among the graves of hundreds of cats, dogs and monkeys, the correspondence was likely written by centurions in the first century

Haring created this whimsical mural, A Book Full of Fun, nine months before his death.

LGBTQ+ Pride

Keith Haring Painted This Mural on the Wall of an Iowa Elementary School Library

Ahead of planned construction, experts removed the 4,000-pound wall behind the 1989 artwork, which is now on public display for the first time

Alvin Gauthier drove more than 300 miles to personally deliver lost letters from a World War II veteran.

Mail Carrier Drives for Five Hours to Hand Deliver Lost World War II-Era Letters

When Alvin Gauthier found several letters written by a veteran in the 1940s, he went on a mission to return them

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