History

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

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

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 comb found by archaeologists in 2016

What a Comb Can Tell Us About the History of the Written Word

A curious new find yields clues to the origins of the alphabet

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"

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

A boat makes a morning trip through the Erie Canal in Rochester, New York, October 2021.

A Brief History of the Erie Canal

The waterway opened up the heartland to trade, transforming small hamlets into industrial centers

Instead of transitioning between Latin and English, spoken Latin keeps the cognition all in one language.

Spoken Latin Is Making a Comeback

Proponents of the teaching method argue that it encourages engagement with the language and the ancient past

Six Triple Eight veteran Romay Johnson Davis gets handshakes and fist bumps from members of the Buffalo Soldiers Motorcycle Club in Montgomery, Alabama, in July 2022.

Women Who Shaped History

How an All-Black Female WWII Unit Saved Morale on the Battlefield

Glory goes to the 6888, who overcame discrimination from fellow service members and are finally getting the recognition they earned

All but seven of the letters were previously thought to be lost.

Cool Finds

Code Breakers Discover—and Decipher—Long-Lost Letters by Mary, Queen of Scots

The deposed monarch wrote the 57 encrypted messages during her captivity in England

The cabbage soup diet of the 1950s allowed the indulgence in as much cabbage soup as one could consume.

The Seesawing History of Fad Diets

Since dieting began in the 1830s, the ever-changing nutritional advice has skimped on science

The door of the 1,900-square-foot Nantucket fallout shelter

Untold Stories of American History

Inside JFK's Secret Doomsday Bunker

The president's Nantucket nuclear fallout shelter could become a National Historic Landmark—but efforts to preserve its history have stalled

Neal V. Loving in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1954

In 1946, a Black Pilot Returned to the Cockpit After a Double Amputation

Neal V. Loving, whose memoir will soon be released by Smithsonian Books, built his own planes, ran a flight school and conducted research for the Air Force

At the Paris World's Fair a powerful display of hand-drawn diagrams (above: Income and expenditure of 150 Negro families in Atlanta, Ga.,U.S. designed by W.E.B. Du Bois and his students) called attention to the unrecognized contributions of Black Americans. The fragile posters are being rotatated in and out of an exhibition at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum through May 2023.

How W.E.B. Du Bois Disrupted America’s Dominance at the World’s Fair

With bar graphs and pie charts, the sociologist and his Atlanta students demonstrated Black excellence in the face of widespread discrimination

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