Articles

The Santa Marta sabrewing, a highly elusive bird, showed itself in 2022, in Colombia, giving hope to conservationists.

Dedicated Scientists and Birdwatchers Tracked Down These Five ‘Lost’ Birds

A worldwide search party is using 21st-century tools to uncover long-unseen species, one of which hadn't been found since the 19th century

Paul Mescal as Lucius Verus in Gladiator II, which tells a heavily fictionalized story of the joint reign of brothers Geta and Caracalla

Based on a True Story

The Real History Behind Ridley Scott's 'Gladiator II' and Life as a Fighter in the Ancient Roman Arena

The "Gladiator" sequel centers on Lucius Verus, the secret son of Russell Crowe's character from the 2000 film. Both men achieve fame as enslaved fighters driven by their desire for revenge

Left, Bob Fletcher in the California fields; right, Marielle Tsukamoto beneath a flock of paper cranes, symbols of peace and resilience, at an internment exhibition at the California Museum in Sacramento.

During World War II, This Farmer Risked Everything to Help His Japanese American Neighbors

When the U.S. government sent the Tsukamoto family to an incarceration camp in 1942, one neighbor stepped up to save the farms they left behind, giving them something to come home to

An example of the American Pedometer with the decimal face and original packaging

From Jealous Spouses to Paranoid Bosses, Pedometers Quantified Suspicion in the 19th Century

The devices were used to track movement and measure productivity—an insightful foreshadowing of our current preoccupation with personal data

Song-sharking companies sometimes began by offering free consultations for everyday poets—as in this 1921 advertisement in Film Fun magazine.

A Curious Industry Once Gave Anyone With a Song in Their Heart a (Long) Shot at Stardom

How the dubious tradition of song-sharking led to a strangely beautiful repository of folk art

The mistletoe plant has white berries, not red like the fake ones have.

How Mistletoe Became a Christmas Kissing Tradition

The thorny origins of the yuletide canoodling ritual

Two ivory-billed woodpeckers in one of the historic photographs that Arthur Allen captured in the field in 1935.

The Hero Who Convinced His Fellow Ornithologists of the Obvious: Stop Shooting Rare Birds and Watch Them Instead

Too late to save the ivory-billed woodpecker, Arthur Allen changed science forever with his seemingly simple idea

A potato baked in a hay crust at Hisa Franko.

Discover the Fresh and Unexpected Flavors of Slovenia, a Secret European Delight

In the young, tiny nation, inventive chefs are putting their own twists on classic regional dishes, using river trout, berries and other locally sourced delicacies to create some of the hautest cuisine around

Alice Beatrice Rhinelander, née Jones (seated at center), looks at her father, George Jones, as they await the verdict in the Rhinelander v. Rhinelander case.

How an Interracial Marriage Sparked One of the Most Scandalous Trials of the Roaring Twenties

Under pressure from his wealthy family, real estate heir Leonard "Kip" Rhinelander claimed that his new wife, Alice Beatrice Jones, had tricked him into believing she was white

The proudly jutting—and sometimes-imperiled—terraces above the cataract that gave the world-famous house its name.

How Fallingwater Gave Frank Lloyd Wright a Second Wind

The architectural wonder re-established the designer as a titan of his generation and shifted the public's view of Modernism from a foreign movement to a part of the American character

A view of the soft-bottomed Los Angeles River below the 400-foot-long Taylor Yard Bridge in Elysian Valley. The newest Taylor Yard parcel, currently fenced off as it undergoes toxic remediation, can be seen on the far right.

How the Arrival of an Endangered Bird Indicates What’s Possible for the L.A. River

Could the waterway that the city was built around make a comeback?

Archaeologists believe this area on Smith’s Island, in Bermuda, is where an early British colony flourished and helped sustain the settlers in Jamestown, Virginia.

The Hidden History of Bermuda Is Reshaping the Way We Think About Colonial America

New archaeological finds on the islands have revealed secrets about one of Britain’s first settlements in the Americas—and the surprising ways it changed the New World

The laptop that belonged to Chris Janczewski, former IRS-CI agent

A Federal Agent’s Laptop Held the Keys to Seize $3.6 Billion in Stolen Bitcoin. Here’s How It Ended Up at the Smithsonian

Soon to be on display at the National Museum of American History, the laptop is the centerpiece of a criminal case that shows an evolving understanding of cryptocurrency

Twenty-five years after Angel Island Immigration Station was named to the endangered list, the detention barracks have been restored and an immigration museum has opened in the former hospital building.

These Historic Sites in the U.S. Were Once Endangered. Now They're Thriving

Since 1988, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has been naming America’s most endangered historic places, attracting much-needed awareness and funding

In Ecuador, a glass frog from a new species identified in 2022, Hyalinobatrachium nouns, hangs from the underside of a leaf, seen from below.

The Andes’ Translucent Glass Frogs Need to Be Seen to Be Saved

The amphibians are at the mercy of mining operations that are destroying their ecosystems, but local communities throughout South America are fighting back

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The Feminist Who Inspired the Witches of Oz

The untold story of suffragist Matilda Gage, the woman behind the curtain whose life story captivated her son-in-law L. Frank Baum as he wrote his classic novel

A dried sample of the original Penicillium mold that Fleming discovered in 1928.

The ‘Penicillin Girls’ Made One of the World’s Most Life-Saving Discoveries Possible

The true, forgotten and sometimes-stinky history of the cohort who took Alexander Fleming's innovation and forever changed the face of modern medicine

A Komodo dragon flicks its tongue out on Komodo Island, part of Komodo National Park in Indonesia.

The Most Infamous Komodo Dragon Encounters of the Century, From a Fatal Attack on an 8-Year-Old Boy to a Zookeeper Bitten by a Battling Animal

As tourism to see the endangered species is on the rise and their habitat decreases, on some very rare occasions, the animals bite

At dawn, a woman and her dog walk along a serene shore in the Corona Del Mar area of Newport Beach as gentle waves greet them.

Smithsonian Photo Contest Galleries

See 15 Stunning Photos of California That Showcase the Golden State's Majestic Beauty

California offers lovely beaches, forests, deserts, mountains and more!

Floating Clouds, Hisako Hibi, oil on canvas, 1944 

Discover the Remarkable Paintings of Three Japanese Americans Whose Life Stories Are Told Through Their Work

A new exhibition spotlights a trio who pushed the boundaries of American art and illustrated the experiences of World War II incarceration

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