News
Enjoy articles from Time and Smithsonian from the last 30 days.
Groundbreaking New Center Unveils World's Largest Collection of Inuit Art
More than 20,000 works from artists across the Canadian Arctic are on display at Qaumajuq, a new museum-within-a-museum at the Winnipeg Art Gallery
Eight in Ten Americans are Concerned About Partisanship. Here’s How ‘The Unum Test’ Can Reunite America
Healing our divided nation is the defining challenge of our time. Nothing less than the success of the American experiment is at stake. Our problems won’t be solved with a single election or a new president. Hyper-partisanship has poisoned our politics to such an extent that it compromised our response to the COVID-19 pandemic, fueled…
Drawing on Their Escapes From the Nazis, These Artists Became Celebrated Cartoonists
A groundbreaking female comic book artist, a MAD magazine star and a counterfeiter-turned-illustrator share the floor in an exhibit in New York City
Blue States Are Failing Their Students by Not Reopening Schools. Here’s How They Got It So Wrong
More than a year into the pandemic, the majority of K-12 students in blue states are still not attending school in person full-time. The failure to resume the normal rhythm of schooling in historically progressive states amounts to the most significant failure of public policy in a generation. What began as needed and understandable caution…
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Why We Should Be Spending More on Space Travel
It’s part of our very essence
Justine Bateman’s Aging Face and Why She Doesn’t Think It Needs ‘Fixing’
The actor and director’s new book is a bid to liberate older women from endless cosmetic upkeep.
What Happens Next in the Rising Violence Between Ukraine and Russia
After a lull in fighting since last July, the last few weeks have seen an outbreak of violence along the ceasefire line separating the breakaway regions of eastern Ukraine with the rest of the country… prompting Moscow to start massing troops along Ukraine’s border. Is it a prelude to war? Not likely. Here’s what happens…
Five Things to Know About the Gardner Museum Heist—the Biggest Art Theft in Modern History
In 1990, two thieves made off with a $500 million cache of art by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas and more. Three decades later, the works remain missing
A Surprising Opinion From Justice Thomas May Signal an Ominous Shift on Free Speech
A curious thing happened at the Supreme Court a few days ago. One of the justices, Clarence Thomas, broke from his traditional judicial role and weighed in on a matter of public policy. He tried to put his thumb on the scales of a political dispute and floated legislative ideas that would profoundly and negatively…
Celebrate National Library Week With Bibliophilic Backgrounds for Your Virtual Meetings
Smithsonian Libraries and Archives offers book lovers these nine stylish backdrops
How the Arts Have Inspired Social Change
Americans have a long tradition of inspiring and elevating movements for change using benefit concerts, song and other artistic traditions
How the Pressure of the Model Minority Myth Restricts Our Imagination—and Our Freedom
Ambition saturates my earliest memories. I was a parody of the so-called “model” minority. As a pre-teen, I scribbled journal entries about my Ivy League dreams. In high school, whenever I visited Boston for debate tournaments, I made a pilgrimage to touch the famous “lucky” foot of the John Harvard statue on which, I later…
Vandals Deface 'Irreplaceable' Native American Rock Carvings in Georgia
The unknown criminals painted the 1,000-year-old petroglyphs in bright colors and scratched their surfaces beyond recognition
What I Wish I’d Done Before I Lost My Daughter and Mother
Sometimes when my daughter Caitlin was growing up, images and ideas would sneak into my head before I could squeeze them away. What a headstone might say. The Freddie Mercury music that would accompany a heartbreakingly beautiful video of her life at a memorial service. When she reached adulthood and her quality of life began…
Revolutions Are Built on Hope. That’s Why I Believe Myanmar’s Protesters Will Succeed
Something I rarely talk about is that to be Burmese is to be afraid. It’s a low-level, visceral feeling most of the time, but sometimes it can be overwhelming. Because all the worst things you can imagine that could happen to you or your loved ones have happened, to you or to people you know,…
Virtual Tour Restores Baalbek's Stunning Roman Temples to Their Former Glory
The free online experience allows users to toggle between views of the ancient Lebanese city today and as it appeared in 215 A.D.
The Holocaust Began Not With Concentration Camps, But With Hateful Rhetoric. That Part of the Story Cannot Be Forgotten
We need to ensure that future generations learn not only what happened during the Holocaust but also how and why
Why the Stories of Jewish Women Who Fought the Nazis Remained Hidden for So Long
“The courier girls were not seen as classically heroic since they didn’t engage in combat, and because men largely wrote the few histories of Jewish resistance.”
Higher Education Has a Tax Problem and It’s Hurting Local Communities
On March 30, 2020, toward the beginning of the global COVID-19 pandemic, New Haven citizens stormed the city’s Zoom budget meeting to vent their outrage at Yale University’s continued strain on city finances. Residents specifically pointed to Yale’s vast and tax-exempt property holdings compared to the deficit-ridden New Haven public schools hungry for property-tax dollars.…
Why It Took Decades for LGBTQ Stories to Be Included in Holocaust History
“For the queer survivors of Nazi oppression, 1945 did not bring about any kind of liberation”
Newly Discovered Gainsborough Portrait Reveals Likeness of Overlooked Composer
The acclaimed British artist’s painting of Czech musician Antonín Kammel may be worth upward of $1.3 million
Follow Dante's Footsteps Through Italy
For the 700th anniversary of the poet’s death, visit his birthplace, churches and tomb
How We Define Violent Crime in America Shapes Who Gets Punished for It—And Who Doesn’t
The recent, horrific mass shootings in Atlanta and Boulder came in the wake of nationwide spikes in the rates of homicides and domestic assaults, trends that had already prompted calls in many states for renewed law enforcement efforts on “violent crime.” Maryland legislators, for example, have proposed clamping down on parole for “violent offenders.” Local…
This Artemisia Gentileschi Painting Spent Centuries Hidden From Public View
The 17th-century portrait of Lucretia is set to go on view at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles
How a Pandemic Puppy Saved My Grieving Family
For years, whenever our children asked us if we could get a dog, my husband and I had some vague and only slightly encouraging go-to responses, such as, “Someday?” and “Maybe when you’re old enough to help.” Then came 2020, the year of our pandemic dread. Sometime between my mother’s live-streamed funeral in the spring…
Listen to the First Song Ever Recorded on This Ancient, Harp-Like Instrument
Tharun Sekar, a luthier based in southern India, has painstakingly recreated the long-lost yazh
From Books Bound in Human Skin to Occult Texts, These Are Literature's Most Macabre, Surprising and Curious Creations
A new tome takes readers into collector Edward Brooke-Hitching’s “madman’s library”
How a Stint in Hamburg Helped Catapult the Beatles to Superstardom
A trove of letters and photographs associated with the band’s time in Germany is set to go up for auction next month
Did Shakespeare Base His Masterpieces on Works by an Obscure Elizabethan Playwright?
The new book “North by Shakespeare” examines the link between the Bard of Avon and Sir Thomas North
Facebook Says It Supports Internet Regulation. Here’s an Ambitious Proposal That Might Actually Make a Difference
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is telling everyone who will listen that it is time to regulate the internet. But do Facebook and other platform companies support meaningful oversight or simply a regulatory Potemkin Village? Zuckerberg’s efforts began with a 2019 op-ed in the Washington Post, “The Internet needs new rules.” The article proposed…
One-Third of U.S. Troops Opted Out of the COVID-19 Vaccine. Here’s Why That Is Dangerous for National Security
A senior Marine Corps officer asked us recently, “Does Congress think the entire military is infested with extremists?” One of us is a proud Marine veteran and the other has spent her life developing national security policy, so it was embarrassing and upsetting for both of us to see veterans and active-duty forces among the…
Hear a 16th-Century Concert Recreated by a 'Musical Time Machine'
Researchers modeled the acoustics of Linlithgow Palace in Scotland to transport listeners back to a 1512 performance
The U.S. Has Had ‘Vaccine Passports’ Before—And They Worked
The benefits of such a system can extend far beyond the venues into which such a passport would grant admission, argues historian Jordan E. Taylor
Why These Five Women Changemakers in American Art Deserve Reconsideration
A rising scholar of equality issues in American Art dives into the Smithsonian collections to find dynamic stories for her upcoming webcomic series
The Thorny Politics of Presidential Portraiture
In a new podcast, the National Portrait Gallery reveals that a portrait is being commissioned of the former president
The Week Brazil Went Off the Rails
In the midst of a global pandemic, it’s difficult to determine which country is faring the absolute worst. But any short list at this point must include Brazil. On Monday, embattled Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro made the decision to upend his cabinet, replacing six ministers. Some of the departures weren’t surprising, like far-right Foreign Affairs…
What I’ll Cherish About That Embarrassing Work-From-Home Wardrobe
And other lessons we should all take with us from pandemic life
America Can’t Wait for Legislators to Rein in Big Tech. The Biden Administration Must Focus on Antitrust
President Biden faces challenges greater than any president since FDR. The country is struggling with a deadly pandemic that has shaken the economy and exposed its structural flaws. His political opponents refuse to engage with those challenges, choosing instead to focus their efforts on undermining democracy. Powerful business interests in technology, health care, finance, energy,…
What is the Point of Celebrating Easter During a Pandemic?
This time last year the talk was all about what we will have learned when the COVID-19 pandemic subsides, and allowing normal life to resume. People, it was suggested, would become more caring, more sensitive, perhaps more green. I see no sign of those utopian dreams today. The only game in town I see coming…
Saying You Support Trans Rights Isn’t Enough. Here’s How to Prove It
Growing up, my best friend wore extensions in his hair, blue braids swinging down to his hips. He wore short leather skirts and platform boots. He bought me a fishnet top when I was 14 (a long-sleeved shirt I hid for years from my religious family). We used to walk home from the mall together…