World History

In the spring of 2018, Angeline Nanni revisited Arlington Hall, where the Venona team got cracking. It is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

Secrets of American History

The Women Code Breakers Who Unmasked Soviet Spies

At the height of the Cold War, America’s most secretive counterespionage effort set out to crack unbreakable ciphers

How to Cipher Like a Soviet

See if you can figure out how the American code-breakers unraveled the complexities of the Russian codebook

How Italy Used Human Torpedoes to Attack British Ships

On December 16, 1941, the Italian navy launched a daring attack on three British ships outside Alexandria harbor

Throughout the mid-1800s, improvements on the spectroscope allowed physicists to more accurately measure the wavelengths of light and identify new elements—like helium.

How Scientists Discovered Helium, the First Alien Element, 150 Years Ago

First found only on the sun, scientists doubted the mysterious element even existed for more than a decade

The dairy aisle

Nut Milks Are Milk, Says Almost Every Culture Across the Globe

Even though the dairy industry may not like it, labeling the juice from almonds and soy beans 'milk' follows centuries of history

Vuë de la Ruë grande vers l'Eglise du Sud des Presbiteriennes a Boston. Augsbourg, 1778

European Printmakers Had No Idea What Colonial American Cities Looked Like, So They Just Made Stuff Up

To satisfy customers hungry for visions of the British colonies, these artists created wildly imaginative and inaccurate scenes

Why the USSR's First Nuclear Submarine Was a Disaster

The U.S. developed the world's first nuclear submarine in 1954 - and the USSR felt pressured to respond

How This Brave Young Woman Saved Danish Jews From Nazis

Henny Sundø is a pivotal figure in the history of WWII Danish resistance. In 1943, aged just 19, she risked it all to make a daring journey in her boat

The Royal Library where the bill was found

The Prince Who Preordered Jane Austen’s First Novel

The future George IV was a big fan of the author, a feeling she half-heartedly reciprocated with a dedication years later

Children in Internment Camps: A Japanese American's Reflection

Life for the 110,000 Japanese-Americans living in internment camps was oddly surreal: they could work, study, pray, even join the military

Heinz is why ketchup seemed to become distinctly American.

A Brief (But Global) History of Ketchup

Canada recently slapped a tariff on U.S. exports of ketchup, and the EU plans to do the same. But is the condiment all that American?

The 1964 Olympics Was Pivotal to Postwar Tokyo

The economic and infrastructure rebuilding of postwar Tokyo was nothing short of a miracle. It culminated with hosting the 1964 Olympic Games

Pictured at center, Yekaterina Budanova was one of the only women fighter pilots of World War II, and remains one of the most successful in history.

A Soviet Ace Shot Down Nazi Pilots With Great Skill, But Her Feats Are Mostly Forgotten Today

Yekaterina Budanova, who died in combat 75 years ago today, reveals a larger story about the complicated history of women soldiers in the Red Army

Cover of a propaganda comic book, 1947. During the Cold War, book publishing and popular culture became an ideological battleground.

This Cold War-Era Publishing House Wanted To Share American Values With the World

Funded by the U.S. government, Franklin Publications was viewed as pushing imperialist propaganda

Socialists gather in New York City, but the crowd is conspicuously male-dominated considering the party's official stance on women's rights.

The Historical Struggle to Rid Socialism of Sexism

When it was founded, the Socialist Party of America proclaimed itself as the champion of women's rights. The reality was much more complicated

A view of St. Ottilien monastery in 1945

When a Bavarian Monastery Provided a Home to Jewish Refugees

As World War II ended, Europe’s Jews began the process of rebuilding their lives and families. But few places were like St. Ottilien

The Deadly Attempt to Assassinate Qin Shi Huang

In 230 BC, the armies of the powerful Qin Shi Huang looked set to conquer all before them. But one neighboring kingdom, Yan, had other ideas

This Chinese Emperor Was Betrayed by His Mother's Lover

China's young emperor, Qin Shi Huang, faced a serious threat to his reign in 238 BC. At the heart of it was his mother, Queen Zhao, and her ambitious lover

What Meghan Markle and Frances Work Have in Common

In the 1880s, Frances Ellen Work, a free-spirited American heiress married James Roche, an Irish baron

The giants and big heads have been a hit among Folklife Festival-goers, says performer Jesus Bach Marques. "They're amazed by our giants! For most of them, it's something really new."

Catalonia

For Hundreds of Years, Papier-Mâché Has Lent a Surreal Face to Catalan Culture

Street performers disguised as Giants and Big Heads blend reverence with ribaldry at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival

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