Well-researched stories from Smithsonian Magazine, Public Books, and other great publications that bridge the gap between news and scholarship.

On September 27, 1822, the French philologist announced that he’d decrypted the key that would unlock Egypt’s ancient past.

In order to invent a legendary hero of the Wild West, John Adams shook himself free from his life as shoemaker in Massachusetts.

Regulated dress promoted unity with the organization and distanced members, especially women, from both secular life and conventional Protestantism.

The peoples of Middle Earth weren’t just a product of Tolkien’s creative mind; they were shaped by the anti-Jewish culture that surrounded him.

Wilbur and Orville Wright may not have been “first in flight,” but they were first in taking care of their nieces and nephews on the weekends.

Long-playing records ushered in the era of the soundtrack, but they also made room for something else—the concept album.

A hundred years after the cosmopolitan city burnt to the ground, the truth about who started the fire and why remains a point of contention.

In country that followed a time-keeping system with variable hours, the fixed-hour clock of the Europeans had only symbolic value.

For pioneering journalist Bessie Beatty, women’s suffrage and the plight of labor were linked inextricably.