Television

The final title card for Guiding Light.

TV's Longest-Running Soap Opera Was First Broadcast 80 Years Ago

Guiding Light had over 15,700 episodes between radio and television

Why Were Electric Cars Once Advertised as 'Ladies' Cars'?

Your questions answered by our experts

President Harry S. Truman, addressing Americans by radio in 1945.

We Can Thank Harry Truman for TV Politics

Truman was the first president to regularly appear on television

Souvenir Disneyland scrapbook with Frontierland’s iconic symbols from 1955

How Disney Came to Define What Constitutes the American Experience

The entertainment company has been in the business of Americana since its inception

An unidentified Hanna-Barbera Productions painter works on an animation cel of Fred Flintstone. THE FLINTSTONES and all related characters and elements © & ™ Hanna-Barbera. (s16)

Meet the Men Behind Saturday Morning's Most Memorable Cartoons

Zoinks! Hanna-Barbera once dominated kids’ Saturday schedules

Photo of Olivia de Havilland (left), Leslie Howard (center) and Vivien Leigh (right) from Gone With The Wind.

Why Do We Love Period Dramas So Much?

Gone With The Wind, the highest-grossing period drama ever, premiered on this day in 1939

"I try to go into the personal stuff because I really believe that’s the most universal," says Aziz Ansari.

With "Master of None," Aziz Ansari Has Created a True American Original

The star of the breakout television series brings the voice of his generation to the masses

American TV Watchers Spend Over a Year of Their Life Channel Surfing

As options of shows and ways to watch them increase, so does the time it takes to find something to watch

Walter Cronkite in 1985, four years after he retired from a 44-year-long career in television broadcasting.

Five Things to Know About Walter Cronkite

Over four decades of TV broadcasting, “Uncle Walter” defined a nation’s news

Listening to Norman Lear tell his stories is to hear the last 100 years.

Norman Lear Talks Art, Activism and the 2016 Election

For the famed showrunner, TV has always been a chance to make the political personal

Pediatricians Switch Up Screen Time Rules for Tots

Doctors say there’s no “one size fits all” approach to introducing kids to technology

Star Trek's Nichelle Nichols on Uhura's Radical Impact

Star Trek's decision to cast Nichelle Nichols, an African American woman, as major character on the show was an almost unheard-of move in 1968

Osgood says he can walk peacefully in total anonymity if he leaves his bow tie at home; but people always make him cakes with bow ties.

Charles Osgood's Love Affair With the Bow Tie Began With a Dire Warning About Clip-Ons

As one of his iconic bow ties arrives at the Smithsonian, Osgood reflects on good and bad doggerel and how to tie a good knot

On September 26, 1960, presidential candidates Richard M. Nixon and John F. Kennedy stood before cameras for the first-ever televised presidential debate.

Debating on Television: Then and Now

Kennedy and Nixon squared off in the first televised presidential debate decades ago and politics have never been the same

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The $10 Million Race to Invent Star Trek's Tricorder

Star Trek's fictional tricorder is far from becoming a reality. But a $10 million prize from the XPRIZE Foundation is hoping to motivate inventors

Boldly going where no curatorial object has gone before.

The Mission to Restore the Original Starship Enterprise

The beloved 1960s studio model stars in <em>Building Star Trek</em>, a documentary premiering on Smithsonian Channel this Sunday

President Ronald Reagan, just moments before he was shot by John Hinckley

The Media Learned Nothing After Misreporting the Reagan Assassination Attempt

As the shooter John Hinckley returns to life outside of imprisonment, it’s worth looking back at every thing the media got wrong that day

The new statue of Lucille Ball

"New Lucy" Is Unveiled Nearby "Scary Lucy" in Lucille Ball's Hometown

It's a tale of two Lucys

Convicted bank robber, Patty Hearst arrest photo

How the Abduction of Patty Hearst Made Her an Icon of the 1970s Counterculture

A new book places a much-needed modern-day lens on the kidnapping that captivated the nation

What the Candidates (and Journalists) Can Learn From the 1948 Democratic Convention

The first time television was beamed into millions of homes meant that presidential politics would have to change

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