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December 2004

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Features

Herd on the Street

In Anchorage, Alaska, you never know when a moose will show up on your doorstep

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Free at Last

A new museum celebrates the Underground Railroad, the secret network of people who bravely led slaves to liberty before the Civil War

John James Audubon Trumpeter Swan

America's Rare Bird

A new biography tells how the foreign-born frontiersman became one of the 19th century's greatest wildlife artists and a patron saint of the ecology movement

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Slices of Life

From Hollywood to Buchenwald, and Manhattan to the Kalahari, the magazine pioneered photojournalism as we know it. A new book shows how

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The Vikings: A Memorable Visit to America

The Icelandic house of what is likely the first European-American baby has scholars rethinking the Norse sagas

Vilnius Remembers

In Vilnius, Lithuania, preservationists are creating a living memorial to the nation's 225,000 Holocaust victims

Peter Pan Turns 100

But the boy who never grew up shows no signs of getting old

Departments

The Object at Hand

How 260 Tons of Thanksgiving Leftovers Gave Birth to an Industry

The birth of the TV dinner started with a mistake

Phenomena & Curiosities

Wicked Weed of the West

Spotted knapweed is driving out native plants and destroying rangeland, costing ranchers millions. Can anybody stop this outlaw?

People File

Treasure Quest

For more than a decade, American Robert Graf has combed the waters of a Seychelles island for a multimillion-dollar booty stashed by pirates 300 years ago

From the Secretary

Being There

Robotic spacecraft allow geologists to explore other planets as if they were on-site