TWITTER: @SmithsonianMag INSTAGRAM: @smithsonianmagazine FACEBOOK: smithsonianmagazine “The broken bodies . . . that came home might make for a more useful memorial.” The Art o ...

IN 1890, OUR GRAND ambitions for exploring the universe were hidden in an unassuming shed behind the Smithsonian Castle. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) would event ...

THE MODERN GOLD-AND-RHINESTONE, big-money televised sport of rodeo owes just about everything—its traditions, its attitudes, its fashions—to rough-and-tumble Mexican cowboys of ...

BILL PICKETT 1870-1932 Born to formerly enslaved parents in Texas, Pickett originated steer wrestling, a high-octane event still popular today. On horseback, Pickett would chase a ...

AS A YOUNG MAN, Havana-born Mariano Rodríguez (1912-1990) honed his painting technique in Mexico City and New York, influenced by giants like Diego Rivera and Paul Cézanne. Still ...

STEVEN PREISTER’S HOUSE in Washington, D.C. is a piece of American history, a gorgeous 110-year-old colonial with wooden columns and a front porch, perfect for relaxing in the su ...

WHITHER COAL? Coal-fired power peaked in 2007, then declined 61 percent by 2020. It surged in 2021, spurred by rising natural gas prices. WATER POWER As recently as 1950, hydropowe ...

IN DECEMBER 1821, the U.S. Navy schooner Alligator, under the command of Lt. Robert F. Stockton, sailed down Africa’s Windward Coast to anchor off a rocky headland known as Cape ...

IN 1939, the United States government awarded what was then the most expensive artistic commission in its history to Howard Chandler Christy, saddling the Capitol with a most curio ...

ON THE HOMA Peninsula in southwestern Kenya, east of Lake Victoria, lies an archaeological site where researchers have found some of humanity’s oldest tools. These implements, kn ...