Meteorites that come from Mars help scientists understand the red planet’s interior.

In the late twentieth century, the image of the American quilt shifted from one of practicality and handicraft to a celebration of modernist abstraction.

The rich origins of an everyday word about everyday sound—and why we celebrate composer R. Murray Schafer on World Listening Day.

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

Chinese calligraphy is a personal art that draws on Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism as well as spiritual practices that date to the second century CE.

In March 1968, US President Lyndon B. Johnson announced he would neither seek nor accept the nomination of the Democratic Party. That wasn’t the whole truth.

On October 6, 1923, Iowa State tackle Jack Trice lined up for the second half of a college football game. No one’s sure what happened in that third quarter.

Take a look back at how others have survived—and thought about—the high heat of summer.

Roman ideas about witchcraft were often associated with distant regions, including India and the Kush kingdom in northeast Africa.

For many years, the Cassini probe to Saturn provided a stable research platform that scientists used to transform our understanding of the ringed planet.