Articles

A scene from Hulu's "The Looming Tower"

There’s Great Drama Within the Truths of “The Looming Tower”

How filmmaker Alex Gibney brought a documentarian’s eye to the story of the 9/11 attacks

Moviegoers familiarize themselves with the joystick that will allow them to interact with the film I’m Your Man during its premiere on Dec. 16, 1992.

Smell-O-Vision, Astrocolor and Other Film Industry Inventions That Proved To Be Flops

Sound, color and special effects transformed the moviegoing experience. These innovations decidedly did not.

Nicknamed the Hand of God, this pulsar wind nebula is powered by a pulsar: the leftover, dense core of a star that blew up in a supernova explosion. Before astronomers had any idea what they were, Jocelyn Bell Burnell found the signal of a pulsar in her telescope data in 1967.

Women Who Shaped History

Fifty Years Ago, a Grad Student’s Discovery Changed the Course of Astrophysics

By identifying the first pulsars, Jocelyn Bell Burnell set the stage for discoveries in black holes and gravitational waves

Set to land in mid 2018, the new mosquito emoji will give people a new way to talk about the dangerous insects.

Will a New Mosquito Emoji Create Some Buzz About Insect-borne Diseases?

Available in mid-2018, the emoji could provide a new means for communicating the science and health implications of mosquitoes

Will a New Law Forever Change the German Language?

When a language is strongly gendered, it can raise all sorts of challenges to a society that’s increasingly accepting of a wide spectrum of identities

The March That Led to MLK's Arrest and Famous Letter

In 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph Abernathy led a march through the streets of Birmingham, Alabama

Hawaii’s Last Outlaw Hippies

After half a century, the counterculture squatters of Kalalau Valley are facing a final eviction

Khash

Armenia

A Brief History of Khash, Armenia’s Love-It-or-Hate-It Hangover Cure (Recipe)

Cow foot soup: It’s what’s for breakfast

The Nazi atomic effort relied on work done in this remote lab.

How a Sneak Attack By Norway's Skiing Soldiers Deprived the Nazis of the Atomic Bomb

Seventy-five years ago, in Operation Gunnerside, a stealthy group of commandos took out a crucial Nazi chemical plant

Many of the fascinating stories tied to women across history are preserved in the collections of the Smithsonian Institution.

This Museum Tour Is the Perfect Guide to Celebrating Women’s History in Style

From the National Portrait Gallery to the Air and Space Museum, here’s where to find the stories of wondrous women come March

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A Quest to Find America's Best Craft Chocolate Makers

“Chocolate Noise” profiles the most original small-batch chocolatiers across the country

A drone image of a breeding colony of Greater Crested Terns. Researchers used plastic bird decoys to replicate this species in an experiment that compared different ways of counting wildlife.

New Research

When It Comes to Counting Wildlife, Drones Are More Accurate Than People

Technology could be a conservation gamechanger, but we need to interrogate its impact on wildlife

Easter Island is home to at least 142 endemic species, including the Easter Island butterfly fish.

Chile Announces Protections for Massive Swath of Ocean With Three New Marine Parks

The almost 450,000 square miles encompass a stunning diversity of marine life, including hundreds of species found nowhere else

To make it easier for those in the U.S. and in Germany to trace the history of World War II-era artworks, the Smithsonian and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation created the German/American Provenance Research Exchange Program for Museum Professionals (PREP).

How U.S. and German Art Experts Are Teaming Up to Solve Nazi-Era Mysteries

Specialists in WWII art loss and restitution discuss provenance research

The Senate as a Court of Impeachment for the Trial of Andrew Johnson

The Political Circus and Constitutional Crisis of Andrew Johnson’s Impeachment

When the 17th president was accused of high crimes and misdemeanors in 1868, the wild trial nearly reignited the Civil War

This Major Military Operation Ignited the Vietnam War

By 1965, the U.S. initiated a military deployment, Operation Rolling Thunder, to help South Vietnam defend its independence

At Sisian Ceramics, Vahagn Hambardzumyan throws clay on a wheel to make traditional Armenian shapes onto which Zara Gasparyan etches decorative patterns. The terracotta jugs on the left are made to hold water.

Armenia

The Art of Armenian Pottery Will Be on Display at This Summer's Smithsonian Folklife Festival

The artists behind Sisian Ceramics create works evocative of the Armenian landscape

Many of the pieces in "Brand New" are simply decontextualized products and ads, like these works from Joan Wallace, (left) The Pool Ladder Painting No. 2, 2004, and Jeff Koons, New! New Too!, 1982.

Are You Buying What These Artists Are Selling?

The absurdity of American commercialism is laid bare in the Hirshhorn’s latest exhibition

Slave sale, Charleston, South Carolina

When Emancipation Finally Came, Slave Markets Took on a Redemptive Purpose

During the Civil War, the jails that held the enslaved imprisoned Confederate soldiers. After, they became rallying points for a newly empowered community

Will structures like the Gangneung Ice Arena be worth the investment once the games wrap up?

Does Pyeongchang Have a Future As a Winter Sports Destination?

South Korea may fall short of its lofty goal to transform the region into an Asian hub for snow and ice sports

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