By 1953, six years after the Bell X-1 first went supersonic, that airplane and others were routinely flying at more than twice the speed of sound. On December 17, 1953the 50th anniversary of the Wright brothers first powered flight at Kitty HawkMajor Yeager sat down at the Pentagon for an informal press briefing to discuss his own Mach 2.43 flight in the X-1 five days earlier. Video: Department of Defense, Courtesy National Archives and Records Administration

Research in Tanzania shows that impalas follow baboons to sausage trees to share fruits and feel safer from predators. (Video courtesy Brooke Davis)

As the British marched towards the White House, the first lady ordered a portrait of George Washington to be saved

In one fateful night, John Brown brought the country closer to Civil War (Video: Meredith Bragg). Read more at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Day-of-Reckoning.html

Feeling blue? Try watching this one-minute video. Our Ask Smithsonian host, Eric Schulze, explains how colors affect our moods.

Forensic anthropologist Doug Owsley discusses the skeletal specimens in a new exhibit at the Natural History Museum (Meredith Bragg). Read more at: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/meet-the-scientist-who-reads-bones-40315000/

Follow us to the very first Thanksgiving celebration, where the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag came together for a historic feast.

David Lynch | Smithsonian Magazine’s 2016 American Ingenuity Award Winner for Education As a filmmaker, Lynch has a reputation for creating dark, surreal movies such as Eraserhead, Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart as well as the TV show “Twin Peaks.” In the education world, he's becoming known for something very different: promoting inner peace. Over the past decade, the David Lynch Foundation has sponsored Transcendental Meditation classes for half a million children in places as far-flung as the Bronx, Detroit, Los Angeles, Congo and the West Bank. The program, called Quiet Time, is now at the center of one of the largest-ever studies of meditation for children—a 6,800-pupil research project conducted by the Crime Lab at the University of Chicago and designed to learn if meditation can help kids in highly stressful environments fare better at home and in school. Read more about Lynch’s work: http://smithmag.co/9sHhtm | #IngenuityAwards And more about the American Ingenuity Awards: http://smithmag.co/77xPqy

“Superman isn’t coming. It is a moment in our time when we must look to ourselves, and not take for granted or wait for something from the top to come down, but rather…pick up the torch, carry the torch, to find information and the truth…” – Erin Brockovich applauds Marc Edwards and LeeAnne Walters for their work exposing the Flint water crisis | Smithsonian Magazine American #IngenuityAwards Read more about Edwards and Walters’ work: http://smithmag.co/D4dIHy The Smithsonian has been celebrating innovation in American culture for more than 150 years, and following in this tradition, Smithsonian magazine presents the American Ingenuity Awards, honoring revolutionary breakthroughs in the arts and sciences, education and social progress. http://smithmag.co/R7hyRO

This video does not contain hidden messages that will make you want to watch more Smithsonian videos.

This stripy toe sock appears to have warmed the foot of a tot in the late antiquity period

In a 11-4 vote, the City Council decided to remove the 65-foot-tall monument from its location in the heart of the city

New DNA analysis adds to growing research indicating the famous Pacific island did not collapse from overuse of resources before the arrival of Europeans

Officials in Extremadura are hoping to attract digital nomads and tech workers in a bid to boost the region's shrinking population

Investigators discovered that the original print of "The Roaring Lion" had been sold to a buyer in Italy

Two Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority railcars were added to an artificial reef off the coast of Georgia to create more wildlife habitat

"Le Lyonnais" descended into the depths off the coast of Massachusetts after colliding with the "Adriatic," a sailing vessel that left the floundering steamship to fend for itself

The noisy-but-shy bird, known as the hoiho, has earned the most votes for a second time amid threats to its survival

Officials launched an investigation and recovered the $360,000 print less than a week after it vanished from Grove Gallery. Two men have been charged for the crime

"A Soldier's Journey," a 58-foot-long bronze artwork depicting vivid scenes from the war, was illuminated for the first time at a ceremony on September 13

A new paper analyzes three decades of fatalities around the world and predicts how "superbugs" will affect human health in the future

When the blaze in Moscow subsided on September 18, 1812, the French—who had traveled hundreds of miles into Russia—were left without vital resources as a brutal winter approached

The annual award ceremony featured costumes, songs and paper airplanes as scientists recognized comedic research across ten disciplines

The artist's cityscapes, once dismissed as too masculine, would later influence the floral artworks that became central to her iconic style

The discoveries include sharks, shorebirds, mammals and saber-toothed salmon, with the oldest remains dating to almost nine million years ago

The vertical sign stretched across three stories of the Manhattan hotel, which once welcomed the likes of Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Andy Warhol and Janis Joplin

Due to a drought in Eastern Europe, the scuttled German vessels are reemerging 80 years after they disappeared beneath the river's surface

A ring could explain a mysterious arrangement of impact craters near the equator and might even have caused an ice age, according to a new study

The energetic streams are together 23 million light-years in length—roughly as long as 140 Milky Way galaxies lined end to end

Scientists have created "a form of information immortality" meant to instruct future species on how to recreate humans. But who, or what, will find it?

The Horned Serpent Panel from southern Africa predates the first Western scientific description of the dicynodont, a large mammal ancestor with tusks, by at least a decade

A roughly 33-foot-long asteroid called 2024 PT5 will chart a horseshoe-like path around our planet

The Galeón Andalucía, which is now making its way to London, was designed to resemble the armed merchant vessels manufactured by Spain and Portugal between the 16th and 18th centuries

The so-called good-luck flag, which hung on an American veteran's wall for many years, returned home last month after nearly eight decades

The baby pygmy hippopotamus in a Thailand zoo has taken the internet by storm, and keepers hope she will help gain momentum for conservation efforts

The viewfinders are outfitted with special lenses that help people with red-green colorblindness distinguish between hues

More than 250 years after a teenage Mozart wrote "Serenade in C," a copy of the piece has surfaced in the collections of a German library

Unearthed last year, the remains could reveal new information on the extinct sea reptile, which crushed mollusks and shelled creatures with its large, round teeth

On this day in 1690, "Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick" attracted colonial officials' ire by repeating a scandalous rumor and condemning a British alliance with the Mohawk

The collaboration across species reveals a surprising social behavior of octopuses, researchers say

Researchers analyzed tiny fossils embedded in the limestone to determine the age and origins of the grave maker, which marked the final resting place of a prominent Jamestown colonist

An acoustic survey in 2018 and new analysis with A.I. suggest the sounds are vocalizations from the elusive Bryde’s whale

In 1858, the mountain was named for a Confederate general. Now, it will once again be known as "Kuwohi"

The mysterious missive was written by P.J. Féret, who conducted an archaeological dig at the same site in northern France in 1825

Using sound recordings, the team identified the largest known population of the night parrot, a secretive species known as the "Holy Grail of birdwatching"

A new “health check” for our planet sounds an alarm bell on rising ocean acidification, which is driven by carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere

Researchers recently identified James Fitzjames, a captain on the ill-fated HMS Erebus that went looking for the Northwest Passage in 1845

Scientists sent bioengineered heart tissue samples to the ISS to study how to keep astronauts safe during future long-term space travel

The Dutch seized the majority of the items in the aftermath of a brutal 1906 conflict that killed an estimated 1,000 Balinese