Articles by Chris Heller from Smithsonian Magazine

How Walt Disney inspired the world's scariest Halloween tradition

Updated: October 31, 2017 | Originally Published: October 28, 2015

A second-by-second guide to the historic mission

November 24, 2015

How Great Britain and France secretly negotiated the Sykes-Picot Agreement

November 16, 2015

How one of the world's most famous skyscrapers was built

November 10, 2015

The famed archaeologist took detailed notes of what he found inside King Tut's tomb

November 5, 2015

After Confederate forces seized Fort Sumter, a U.S. Army officer dashed off this message to Washington

November 3, 2015

A conversation with Sarah Vowell about her new book, the American Revolution and what we can learn from the Founding Fathers

November 2, 2015

A new glass bridge in China is suspended 590 feet in the air — and visitors brave enough to cross it can see all the way down

October 8, 2015

A French missionary, Teddy Roosevelt’s sons, and a widowed socialite all factor into the tale of how the nation fell in love with the rare beast

September 21, 2015

Nature built them, but humans made them their own

September 21, 2015

Can't get enough of the panda cam? You're not alone.

September 15, 2015

Feast your eyes on some of this year's wildest art installations

September 8, 2015

Initially seen as the Army's answer to how to settle the frontier, the camels eventually became a literal beast of burden, with no home on the range

August 6, 2015