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Latest Features

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SCIENCE

What Happens When Animals Cross the Road

Visitors to the Red Flat in Sofia, Bulgaria, immerse themselves in the lives of an average 1980s-era Bulgarian family.

TRAVEL

How Museums in Central and Eastern Europe Tell the Complicated Story of Life Behind the Iron Curtain

Visitors left notes, photos and mementos at the base of an oak tree Flaco the Eurasian eagle-owl had favored after escaping from the Central Park Zoo. A memorial for Flaco was held there on March 3.

SCIENCE

What Flaco the Owl’s Death Teaches Us About Making Cities Safer for Birds

Karl Friedrich Hieronymus, the real Baron Münchhausen, was a retired German officer who fought with a Russian regiment in two campaigns against the Ottoman Empire.

HISTORY

The 18th-Century Baron Who Lent His Name to Munchausen Syndrome

Fans hold a photo of Selena during the ceremony honoring her with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2017.

AT THE SMITHSONIAN

How Museums Are Preserving and Celebrating Selena's Legacy

JBS Haldane and Edwin Martin Case (pictured) experimented on themselves to study the effects of nitrogen narcosis, in which the gas becomes a powerful narcotic drug under increased pressure.

HISTORY

To Help the Allied War Effort, These Scientists Got Drunk on Nitrogen

Farmer Robert Tomlinson harvests forced rhubarb by candlelight on his farm in Pudsey, near Leeds in northern England, in January 2022. 

TRAVEL

The English Farmers Who Harvest Rhubarb by Candlelight

This false-colored image of Mercury reflects the varying age and mineral composition of the surface.

SCIENCE

The Seven Most Amazing Discoveries We’ve Made by Exploring Mercury

Current Issue

Smithsonian magazine April/May 2024 issue cover

Most Popular

1.

Smart News

A Massive Crane Helping With the Baltimore Bridge Cleanup Was Built to Recover a Sunken Soviet Submarine

The Chesapeake 1000 was used to construct a ship for a top-secret CIA mission in the 1970s

2.

Smart News

A Michigan Hunter Thought He Killed a Large Coyote. It Turned Out to Be an Endangered Gray Wolf

Wildlife officials believe the animal was likely the first gray wolf spotted in the southern Lower Peninsula in 100 years

3.

Smart News

The Nepali Army Is Removing Trash and Bodies From Mount Everest

They expect to haul off ten metric tons of garbage and up to five bodies from the world's tallest peak

4.

Smart News

Family Accidentally Ends Up With 50 Baby Octopuses After Their Pet—Thought to Be Male—Laid Dozens of Eggs

Now, the Oklahoma residents are working with aquariums and researchers that might take the babies

5.

Travel

The English Farmers Who Harvest Rhubarb by Candlelight

The secret to the world’s sweetest rhubarb? Sealed sheds, total darkness and a little old-fashioned flair

Smithsonian Voices
Smithsonian Education

Smithsonian Education Awards Ceremony Honors Outstanding Contributions of Educators to Inspire Learners Everywhere

National Museum of Natural History

Just Our Type: Museum's Dinosaur Skeleton Becomes the Scientific Standard for Its Species

Smithsonian Education

Going Deep Into Our Understanding of Our Ocean Planet Through Museum Learning

National Air and Space Museum

The Final Reno Air Show

National Museum of American History

Marking Asian American and Jewish American Heritage Months and EMS Day

Smithsonian Center for Folklife & Cultural Heritage

Filmmaker Billy Luther Explains How Frybread Face and Me Was a Labor of Love

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Special Report
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Alaska

Alaska is nicknamed "The Great Land," and for good reason: it is wild, rugged and expansive. In a series of articles, Smithsonian magazine explores the history, culture and natural wonders of the 49th state.

View Full Report

Featured Stories

Alps-Style Hut-to-Hut Travel Is On Its Way to Alaska

The World’s Most Grueling Race Journeys 1,000 Miles Down the Yukon

These Students Are Part of a 75-Year Study to Map Alaska’s Glaciers

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Smithsonian Videos

Preview thumbnail for video 'Ten Fun Facts About Jellyfish

Ten Fun Facts About Jellyfish

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Preview thumbnail for video 'The Ultimate Skywatching Guide for Every Season

The Ultimate Skywatching Guide for Every Season

Preview thumbnail for video 'The Best Small Towns to Celebrate Winter

The Best Small Towns to Celebrate Winter

Photo of the day

In post Soviet countries there are a lot of khrushchyovka house districts. These houses form a pattern and they are placed in certain way. They are kind of a reminder of the regime that once was. This inspired me to make a pattern of khrushchyovkas. The Soviet Pattern

History

JBS Haldane and Edwin Martin Case (pictured) experimented on themselves to study the effects of nitrogen narcosis, in which the gas becomes a powerful narcotic drug under increased pressure.

To Help the Allied War Effort, These Scientists Got Drunk on Nitrogen

During World War II, British researchers conducted tests on themselves to gauge how submariners' brains would function at extreme depths

The hideout boasted more than 1,000 bunk beds, a 400-seat cafeteria, individual auditoriums for both the Senate and the House of Representatives, vast water tanks, and a trash incinerator that could serve as a crematorium.

The Town That Kept Its Nuclear Bunker a Secret for Three Decades

Michael Douglas stars as Benjamin Franklin in the new Apple TV+ series "Franklin."

The Real Story Behind Apple TV+'s 'Franklin'

Science

A straw-headed bulbul 

How Singapore Became an Unexpected Stronghold for a Critically Endangered Bird

Despite being the smallest country in Southeast Asia, the city-state is now home to the largest population of the straw-headed bulbul

The flowers of the toromiro

How Rapa Nui Lost a Tree, Only to Have It Sprout Up Elsewhere

Imagine dragons—or go for a dive in the Pacific Ocean and keep an eye out for this astonishing two-inch sea slug known as Goniobranchus sp. 1.

Dive Into the Exotic World of Nudibranchs, the Spectacular Slugs of the Sea

Innovation

A bright spot for sake is in America. In 2022, according to the Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association, the U.S. was the No. 1 export market in terms of volume and second market in value for sake. 

An American-Made Sake Movement Is Underway

In the last decade, a truly homegrown effort has bubbled up in the United States

The Library Company reading room on Juniper Street in Philadelphia c. 1935, one of the group’s main locations from 1880 to 1935.

How Ben Franklin Invented the Library as We Know It

Texas Motor Speedway staff watch the August 21, 2017, total solar eclipse through special eclipse glasses.

This Is the Gear You Need to View the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse

Arts & Culture

American video artist Brian Fridge created a five-billboard series in Dallas called View Finder that portrayed a solar eclipse.

The Long History of Art Inspired by Solar Eclipses

For centuries, curious artists have been trying to make sense of the celestial event

An oak peacock moth lands on a window behind dancing wedding guests, illuminated in red light. This photograph won the category for butterflies and dragonflies.

See 11 Winning Images From the Close-Up Photographer of the Year Awards

The latest winner of a Japanese literary prize said she used ChatGPT to write parts of her novel.

ChatGPT Helped Write This Award-Winning Japanese Novel

Travel

Farmer Robert Tomlinson harvests forced rhubarb by candlelight on his farm in Pudsey, near Leeds in northern England, in January 2022. 

The English Farmers Who Harvest Rhubarb by Candlelight

The secret to the world’s sweetest rhubarb? Sealed sheds, total darkness and a little old-fashioned flair

Lofoten Islands, Norway

Northern Europe and the British Isles

A close-up of blooming blossoms captures their stunning detail.

Behold 15 Beautiful Photos of Cherry Blossoms in Bloom

At the Smithsonian

Clark Gable and Joan Crawford by George Hurrell, 1936, Gelatin silver print

How 'The Magic Man of Hollywood' Captured the Golden Age's Biggest Stars

George Hurrell’s photographs of actors from the 1930s and 1940s dazzle in a new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery

Hazel Fellows sews pieces of an Apollo A7L spacesuit on the production line at International Latex Corporation (ILC) in 1968.

From the Inventor of Mass-Market Paper Bags to a Scientist Who Unraveled the Mysteries of Polio, Meet Five American Women Whose Remarkable Achievements Have Long Been Overlooked

William H. Johnson, Harriet Tubman, ca. 1945, oil on paperboard.

How Painting Portraits of Freedom Fighters Became William H. Johnson’s Life’s Work