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Arts & Culture

The new statue was installed overnight in Waterloo Place.

Attributed to Banksy, a New Statue of a Suited Man, Blinded by a Flag and Walking Off a Ledge, Appeared in Central London

The artwork was installed under the cloak of night this week, less than two months after a journalism investigation into Banksy’s true identity was published

Christian Thorsberg

Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends live in a case at the New York Public Library.

The Real Winnie-the-Pooh Lives at the New York Public Library. When Queen Camilla Visited the Bear, She Reunited Him With a Dear Friend

The game has taken a variety of twists and turns.

How the Classic American Game of Twister Went From Risqué to Record-Breaking

A damaged portrait of Mary Magdalene by Artemisia Gentileschi (left) and a similar version of the same scene (right) housed at the Pitti Palace in Florence, Italy

Rolled Up in a Cellar for Decades, This Artemisia Gentileschi Painting Is Now Up for Auction. Why Is Mary Magdalene’s Face Missing From the Portrait?

A detail of Lucknow From the Gomti, made between 1821 and 1826 in India

A Mysterious, Monumental Scroll on Public Display for the First Time Paints a Picture of Artistic Fusion in Colonial India

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The subject of this portrait is often identified as Mary Boleyn.

History Remembers Mary Boleyn as the Scandalous ‘Other Boleyn Girl.’ New Research Debunks the Myths Surrounding the Tudor Mistress

Sylvia Barbara Soberton’s latest book challenges the perception of Anne Boleyn’s sister as “promiscuous, intellectually incurious and unambitious”

John Hancock left this trunk of documents at a Lexington tavern. Paul Revere and fellow Bostonian John Lowell recovered the trove of papers and carried it across the village green.

America's 250th Anniversary

Everyone Remembers Paul Revere’s Midnight Ride. But His Forgotten Race to Secure a Trove of Documents Reveals How Government Records Helped Win the War

During the American Revolution, both the British and the patriots fought to keep sensitive papers out of enemy hands

The game has taken a variety of twists and turns.

How the Classic American Game of Twister Went From Risqué to Record-Breaking

Sixty years ago, Johnny Carson and Eva Gabor played Twister on the “Tonight Show,” and the public took it as permission to buy the controversial game

This map shows an English flag flying over Calais, an English territory lost to France in 1558.

Cool Finds

A Collection of Maps Owned by England’s First Queen Spent Centuries Overlooked in a Family Library. Now, the Rare Volume Is on Sale for $1.6 Million

Created for Mary I, the first woman to rule England in her own right, the book is “perhaps the most significant artifact of Tudor intellectual history still in private hands,” the seller says

An aerial view of the Ford Motor Company's River Rouge plant, circa 1945

Walt Disney Visited a Ford Factory in 1948. What He Witnessed There Laid the Groundwork for What Would Become Disneyland

A new book argues that the film producer’s trip to the River Rouge plant in Michigan inspired him to embrace the power of automation when designing the first Disney theme park

A festivalgoer shows a child how to "grunt" for earthworms.

In This Tiny Town in Florida’s Panhandle, Fishermen Are Hooked on ‘Worm Grunting,’ and the Worms Are Still Taking the Bait

Luring earthworms out of the soil to use as live bait is a long-running tradition in Sopchoppy, home to the annual Worm Gruntin’ Festival

The Mona Lisa returning to the Louvre in 1914

Andrew Lloyd Webber Says He’s Writing a New Musical About the Time the ‘Mona Lisa’ Vanished Without a Trace in 1911

Known for spectacles like “The Phantom of the Opera,” Broadway’s most commercially successful composer now wants to tell the story of the world’s most famous painting

An 1818 John Trumbull painting of the presentation of the draft Declaration of Independence to the Continental Congress

In 1776, the Declaration of Independence Was Breaking News. Here’s How the Founding Document Reached the American Public

A new book by historian Emily Sneff records the journeys of the Declaration’s first printed copies, tracking their reception in the Thirteen Colonies and overseas

Málaga’s famous espetos, or sardines, are cooked over an open flame in traditional blue fishing boats right on the beach.

Coastal Cities of Europe

Chiringuitos Offer the Quintessential Beach Bar Experience on Spain’s Costa del Sol

Steeped in history, the seafood joints are evolving to keep up with a global clientele and tightening environmental regulations

A photograph of Sophia Duleep Singh (on the right) with her older sisters, Catherine (left) and Bamba (middle)

This Punjabi Princess Fought for Women’s Suffrage and Sheltered Refugees During World War II. A Goddaughter of Queen Victoria, She Rejected British Imperialism

A new exhibition at Kensington Palace tells the riveting story of Sophia Duleep Singh, daughter of the last maharaja of the Sikh Empire

The Mercer Botanic Gardens in Houston, Texas, has its own Shakespeare garden.

Shakespeare Gardens Around the World Honor the Playwright—and Hold Their Own Storied History

The curated plots of flowers, herbs and trees serve as windows into Shakespeare’s work and life

Roo Satay, a dish at Attica, in Melbourne, featuring a skewer of grilled red kangaroo and rice studded with native fruits and wattleseeds, which were traditionally ground into flour for bread.

How Australian Chefs and Farmers Are Rediscovering the Ingredients That Have Been There All Along

From kangaroo grass to Kakadu plums, native foods are redefining diners’ taste buds and deepening their connection to the land

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‘The Queen of the Ghetto’ Gave New York’s Immigrant Community a Voice. A Century Later, It’s Re-emerging

Anzia Yezierska wrote from experience then worked hard to make sure her work found an audience. Then a new audience found her

The first episode of "Lucy Worsley Investigates: The American Revolution" premieres on April 7, with the second installment following on April 14. Note: The upside-down Union Jack as seen here was in the original publicity photograph provided by PBS.

America's 250th Anniversary

In a New Documentary, One of Britain’s Most Famous Historians Reframes the American Revolution as a ‘Messy Divorce’

Lucy Worsley’s PBS series highlights the emotional fallout of the conflict, with a focus on the British perspective

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See the Spectacular Winners of Smithsonian Magazine’s 23rd Annual Photography Contest

This year’s best photos command attention by capturing intimate moments and bold colors

Rotorelief no. 1. This 1935 lithograph, printed on a 7 7⁄8-inch cardboard disc, could spin on a record player to create a hypnotic illusion of three dimensions. 

MoMA Plans a Retrospective for Marcel Duchamp, the Dada Artist Who Was Unimpressed With His Own Masterpieces

The French-American avant garde artist said painting and sculpture exhibitions made him sick. But the collection of 200 of his works may tell the story of art in the 20th century

Original hand-carved hubs for the Purple Heart and Silver Star rest in the jeweler’s toolbox of legendary Providence-based hub carver Elio “Duke” Lossini.

This Massive Collection of More Than a Million Tools Tells the Striking History of Jewelry Making in America

Before computers and A.I., beautiful trinkets were formed with a combination of hubs, dies, finesse and force. Kevin Potter has perhaps the world’s largest assemblage of them

In this “Doonesbury” strip from January 17, 2004, Trudeau makes gentle fun of his own legendary political obsessions.

With ‘Doonesbury,’ Garry Trudeau Found a Way to Inform and Entertain a Generation of Newspaper Readers, One Panel at a Time

A new biography chronicles the history and evolution of the reserved artist who has always let his pen do the talking

Gertrude Lawrence as Anna Leonowens and Yul Brynner as Mongkut in the 1951 Broadway production of The King and I. The musical turns 75 on March 29.

Based on a True Story

‘The King and I’ Spotlights an English Governess Who Modernized Siamese Society. The Real Anna Leonowens Exaggerated Her Influence and Lied About Her Origins

The beloved musical is loosely based on a Eurasian schoolteacher’s accounts of her time at King Mongkut’s court. These memoirs masked her mixed-race status and unfairly portrayed the monarch as a tyrant

A young living root bridge, barely a decade old, is seen from the deck of a much older root bridge on the same riverbed. Five months after I shot this photograph, monsoon rains triggered a landslide that sent boulders crashing into the younger bridge. It absorbed the impact and shielded the older bridge downstream.

In One of the Wettest Places on the Planet, Indigenous People Build Bridges and Ladders Out of Living Tree Roots

For hundreds of years, Khasi and Jaintia people in Meghalaya, India, have woven the roots of Indian rubber trees into structures that help them navigate flooded areas

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