Articles

Stories of the enslaved people who helped kick-start paleontology and the Native American guides who led naturalists to fossils around the continent have long been suppressed.

The First Fossil Finders in North America Were Enslaved and Indigenous People

Decades before paleontology’s formal establishment, Black and Native Americans discovered—and correctly identified—millennia-old fossils

Pancakes—or at least early versions of them—have been a culinary staple for tens of thousands of years.

A Brief History of Pancakes

From ancient Greece to Shrove Tuesday celebrations, the sweet or savory flat cakes have long been a culinary staple

Purple martins perch on a branch in the Brazilian Amazon.

The Wonderful World of Birds

Why Are Purple Martins Declining in the United States?

Mercury contamination in their Amazonian wintering grounds may play a role

Big Chief Monk Boudreaux (center) leads his Mardi Gras Indian tribe, the Golden Eagles, on Super Sunday.

What You Should Know About the Mardi Gras Indians

For more than a century, New Orleans' Black residents have donned Native-inspired attire to celebrate Carnival

Paczki made by Chicago bakery Delightful Pastries

What Is Paczki Day?

The Fat Tuesday tradition centered around eating fried, filled Polish pastries is celebrated across the Midwest, but especially in Chicago

John H. Smith (left), mayor of Prichard, Alabama, unsuccessfully campaigned for the creation of an Africatown national park.

Untold Stories of American History

The Forgotten 1980s Battle to Preserve Africatown

A new book tells the definitive history of an Alabama community founded by survivors of the slave trade

Aerial view of Apple's California headquarters

How California Took Over the World

A sweeping book offers a provocative new history arguing that today's inequality can be traced back to the state's founding

“Abraham Lincoln” (1865) by W.F.K. Travers in the "America's Presidents" gallery at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, on loan from the Hartley Dodge Foundation.

Life-Size 1865 Portrait of Abraham Lincoln Stands Tall at the National Portrait Gallery

The W.F.K. Travers painting hid in plain sight at a New Jersey town hall for 80 years before it was restored and brought back to Washington

Sophie Scholl (center) bids farewell to her brother Hans (left) and friend Christoph Probst (right) before their departure for the Eastern Front in July 1942.

Hans and Sophie Scholl Were Once Hitler Youth Leaders. Why Did They Decide to Stand Up to the Nazis?

Archival evidence offers clues on the radicalization of the German siblings, who led a resistance movement known as the White Rose

A kindergartner frolics on a jungle gym during a festival in Louisville, Kentucky, in September 2017.

The Surprisingly Scientific Roots of Monkey Bars

A century ago, a Princeton mathematician created what would become a mainstay of the American playground

The Great Hall of the Castle (pictured in 1969) has housed exhibits, a library, special events and a visitor information center.

Why the Smithsonian Castle Is Getting a Major Overhaul

The iconic building on the National Mall will be closed for five years as its interior gets a highly anticipated makeover

Steps lead to one of the pools that Louise du Pont Crowninshield had built among the remains of the former powder mill.

An Abandoned, Industrial Ruin Bursts With New Life in Delaware

Thanks to a few horticulturalists with an eye for history, a garden lost to time peeks out from the creeping vines

The lizards likely reached the islands by hitching a ride on logs, vegetation or other debris, and diverged from their terrestrial cousins some 4.5 million years ago.

Behold: The Galápagos’ Marine Iguana

This quirky icon of evolution faces a rocky future

Mobile, Alabama is considered by many to be the birthplace of Mardi Gras.

The Best Mardi Gras Parades Beyond New Orleans

You may think of the “Big Easy” on Fat Tuesday, but other towns throughout Louisiana and the wider Gulf Coast play host to raucous celebrations

Emma Mackey as Emily Brontë in Emily, a new film from Frances O'Connor

Based on a True Story

The Making of Emily Brontë

A new film imagines the events that inspired the notoriously private author to write "Wuthering Heights"

How much advance warning would we have if a large comet were headed on a collision course with Earth?

How Much Warning Would We Have of an Earth-Shattering Comet? And More Questions From Our Readers

You’ve got questions. We’ve got experts

Muriel Gardiner in 1934, the year she began her career in the Austrian Resistance.

The American Heiress Who Risked Everything to Resist the Nazis

When the fascists took power in Austria, Muriel Gardiner helped refugees and others in need, and never stopped

Left, Girl with Bicycle, in the Coombe, Dublin, 1966. The Photo Museum Ireland says Hofer’s work from her Dublin visit captures Ireland at a cultural turning point. Right, Queensboro Bridge, New York, 1964. “Hofer wanted to get under the skin of a city, to picture the essential characteristics of a place and its people,” says exhibition co-curator April Watson.

Photographer Evelyn Hofer’s Timeless Portraits Get a Second Look

Taken a half-century ago, her images strike a contemporary pose

Wesley Miles, a Pima archaeologist, points out that the placement of this new canal parallel to a prehistoric channel “says something about our ancestors’ engineering skills.”

America's Waterways: The Past, Present and Future

This Native American Tribe Is Taking Back Its Water

With a new state-of-the-art irrigation project, Arizona’s Pima Indians are transforming their land into what it once was: the granary of the Southwest

Musk ox calves vie for grass on a farm near Palmer, Alaska.

Alaska

Author Jan Brett Pans for Creative Gold in Alaska

Trips to the 49th state inspired the characters in the writer-illustrator's latest children’s book "Cozy in Love"

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