History

Get the latest History stories from Smithsonian magazine in your inbox.

By checking this box, I agree to receive other information from the Smithsonian, including relevant content and programming, news about Smithsonian events, trips and offers, and museum updates. Click to visit our Privacy Statement.
Easy unsubscribe links are provided in every email.

Latest
By age 16, “being on some occasion made ashamed of my ignorance in figures, which I had twice failed in learning when at school,” Benjamin Franklin wrote, “I took Cocker’s book of arithmetic and went through the whole by myself with great ease.”

After Failing Math Twice, a Young Benjamin Franklin Turned to This Popular 17th-Century Textbook

A 19th-century scholar claimed that "Cocker's Arithmetick" had "probably made as much stir and noise in the English world as any [book]—next to the Bible"

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

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

Photographs of “disappeared” Argentines inside a courtoom in September 2024, during one of 17 ongoing trials of former junta officials.

Four Decades After the Fall of Argentina’s Dictatorship, a Fight Over the Country’s Darkest Chapter Is Reopening Grievous Wounds

Inside the fight to memorialize victims of the military junta that ruled over the South American nation in the 1970s and '80s

An 1812 illustration of a private from the Fifth West India Regiment. In the 1790s, the remaining members of the Carolina Corps became part of the newly established First West India Regiment.

These Black Soldiers Fought for the British During the American Revolution in Exchange for Freedom From Slavery

The Carolina Corps achieved emancipation through military service, paving the way for future fighters in the British Empire to do the same

In the early ninth century, a Frankish courtier used a story of demonic possession to criticize the realm’s leaders for their “manifold sins.”

How a Tale of Demonic Possession Predicted the Decline of an Early Medieval Empire

A new book examines the rise and fall of the Carolingian dynasty, discussing how people across social classes understood the momentous history of their day

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

The Real Story Behind Netflix's 'The Six Triple Eight,' a New Tyler Perry Film About the Women of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion

The Black, female unit sorted through a massive backlog of undelivered mail, raising American soldiers' morale during World War II

Estimates of the number of Pacific Islanders captured by blackbirders and forced to work on cotton and sugar plantations in Fiji and Australia range from 61,610 to more than 100,000.

How 'Blackbirders' Forced Tens of Thousands of Pacific Islanders Into Slavery After the Civil War

The decline of the American South's cotton and sugar industries paved the way for plantations in British-controlled Fiji and Australia, where victims of "blackbirding" endured horrific working conditions

Visitors gather at the foot of Monkey Mountain, an attraction at Frank Buck's Jungle Camp in Massapequa, New York, around 1939.

When 170 Wild Monkeys Escaped From a 'Jungle Camp' and Terrorized New York

In 1935, dozens of rhesus macaques absconded from Frank Buck's Long Island menagerie. Nearly a century later, 43 members of the same species broke out of a South Carolina research facility

Smithsonian's picks for the best history books of 2024 include The Barn, Eden Undone and The Wide Wide Sea.

The Ten Best History Books of 2024

Our favorite titles of the year resurrect forgotten histories and examine how the United States ended up where it is today

Today’s traditional Thanksgiving dinner includes turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes. However, the very first Thanksgiving most likely included wildfowl, corn, porridge and venison.

What Food Was Served at the First Thanksgiving in 1621?

Turkey may have been part of the holiday meal, along with venison, shellfish and corn, but pies and potatoes were decidedly not on the menu

Elliot Heffernan (left) and Saoirse Ronan (right) portray a mother and son in Steve McQueen's new film, Blitz.

The Real Story Behind Apple TV+'s 'Blitz,' a New Steve McQueen Movie About Britain's Everyday World War II Heroes

Starring Saoirse Ronan as a young mother, the film celebrates Londoners' resilience in the face of an eight-month Nazi aerial bombing campaign

How do scientists know which insects can see color?

Can Insects See Color? And More Questions From Our Readers

You’ve got questions. We’ve got experts

Paul Mescal as Lucius Verus in Gladiator II, which tells a heavily fictionalized story of the joint reign of brothers Geta and Caracalla

The Real History Behind Ridley Scott's 'Gladiator II' and Life as a Fighter in the Ancient Roman Arena

The "Gladiator" sequel centers on Lucius Verus, the secret son of Russell Crowe's character from the 2000 film. Both men achieve fame as enslaved fighters driven by their desire for revenge

Left, Bob Fletcher in the California fields; right, Marielle Tsukamoto beneath a flock of paper cranes, symbols of peace and resilience, at an internment exhibition at the California Museum in Sacramento.

During World War II, This Farmer Risked Everything to Help His Japanese American Neighbors

When the U.S. government sent the Tsukamoto family to an incarceration camp in 1942, one neighbor stepped up to save the farms they left behind, giving them something to come home to

An example of the American Pedometer with the decimal face and original packaging

From Jealous Spouses to Paranoid Bosses, Pedometers Quantified Suspicion in the 19th Century

The devices were used to track movement and measure productivity—an insightful foreshadowing of our current preoccupation with personal data

The mistletoe plant has white berries, not red like the fake ones have.

How Mistletoe Became a Christmas Kissing Tradition

The thorny origins of the yuletide canoodling ritual

Two ivory-billed woodpeckers in one of the historic photographs that Arthur Allen captured in the field in 1935.

The Hero Who Convinced His Fellow Ornithologists of the Obvious: Stop Shooting Rare Birds and Watch Them Instead

Too late to save the ivory-billed woodpecker, Arthur Allen changed science forever with his seemingly simple idea

Alice Beatrice Rhinelander, née Jones (seated at center), looks at her father, George Jones, as they await the verdict in the Rhinelander v. Rhinelander case.

How an Interracial Marriage Sparked One of the Most Scandalous Trials of the Roaring Twenties

Under pressure from his wealthy family, real estate heir Leonard "Kip" Rhinelander claimed that his new wife, Alice Beatrice Jones, had tricked him into believing she was white

The proudly jutting—and sometimes-imperiled—terraces above the cataract that gave the world-famous house its name.

How Fallingwater Gave Frank Lloyd Wright a Second Wind

The architectural wonder re-established the designer as a titan of his generation and shifted the public's view of Modernism from a foreign movement to a part of the American character

Archaeologists believe this area on Smith’s Island, in Bermuda, is where an early British colony flourished and helped sustain the settlers in Jamestown, Virginia.

The Hidden History of Bermuda Is Reshaping the Way We Think About Colonial America

New archaeological finds on the islands have revealed secrets about one of Britain’s first settlements in the Americas—and the surprising ways it changed the New World

Smithsonian Channel

Preview thumbnail for video 'How the Meaning of Thanksgiving Has Changed

How the Meaning of Thanksgiving Has Changed

Play
Preview thumbnail for video 'This Object in History: Fernandomania

This Object in History: Fernandomania

Preview thumbnail for video 'This Ancient Egyptian Mega-Tomb Is the Largest of Its Kind

This Ancient Egyptian Mega-Tomb Is the Largest of Its Kind

Photo of the day

The rare and only alpine parrot in the world lives in New Zealand. The 'Kea' lives high up in the mountains, and this one was incredibly cheeky. This photo still blows my mind. Mount Cook, the tallest mountain in NZ, stands proud behind the beloved bird of the country. It brings tears to my eyes that I got to enjoy this incredibly unique and rare scene in person. Photoshop? AI? Nope, Just New Zealand