From the moment they arrived at the concentration camp, Jews and other Holocaust victims were treated like animals, and only a lucky group survived the experience.

The story of how Thaddeus Lowe reinvented reconnaissance at the encouragement of President Lincoln.

See how researchers at Smithsonian's National Zoo are trying to glean insight into elephant foraging behavior and more.

ARTICLE: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/civil-war-veterans-come-alive-in-audio-and-video-recordings-97841665/ In this exclusive clip from the 1930s, Confederate veterans step up to the mic and let out their version of the fearsome rallying cry.

Part of the visual album of Joan Baez' "Whistle Down the Wind," this cover of Joe Henry's "Civil War" was directed by New York University's Deborah Willis

Human remains discovered at Wharram Percy are about to be examined by an expert, in a bid to determine what happened. Is it a medieval murder mystery—or something far more sinister?

Credit: Cade Martin / © & ™ Lucasfilm Ltd

Four hundred years ago, escaped slaves formed the village of Palenque. The town’s younger generations have reconnected with their African roots through cultural traditions handed down from their ancestors (Kenneth Fletcher/SmithsonianMag.com). Read more at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/colombia-dispatches.html

Edwin Bearss lends a dynamic personality and a booming voice to teaching the history of the Civil War in northern Virginia (Meredith Bragg)

In the years before digital cameras, the process of getting shots from the field to the printers was incredibly complicated and dangerous. Video by Adam Grossman | Good Dog Media

Smithsonian magazine commissioned Drew Gardner for a project that connects Black Americans today to their lost ancestry. Read about Gardner’s project and process, as well as more details about the subjects of this incredible series here: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/descendants-black-civil-war-heroes-wear-heritage-pride-180983397/ Video produced by Sierra Theobald. Special thanks to Drew Gardner Additional credits: Emma MacBeath, WikiTree US Black Heritage project; Ottawa Goodman, research and coordinator; Sam Dole, Penumbra Foundation; Elizabeth Zuck, set design; Calvin Osbourne, props and costume; Angela Huff, hair and make up; Diego Huerta, Lexia Krebs, behind-the-scenes filming; background prints by Fujifilm USA

Mathew Brady is known for his Civil War photography and groundbreaking work in the field. Read more about the Civil War at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Civil-War-History.html.

Watch this exclusive clip from the upcoming Ric Burns documentary about the "Green Book"

Watch how the artist directs his team so when a photograph is taken, Bolin is completely camouflaged by his surroundings

Five categories (People, Arts, Nature, Travel and Mobile) and a grand prize of $2,000.

Over the years, the mail has been delivered by train, donkey, bus, truck and even rocket (Produced by: Boaz Frankel )

Margaret Wertheim talks about how math and climate change inspired her to start the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef project. Read more at: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/how-to-crochet-a-coral-reef-69064479/

The grandson of Gen. George S. Patton shares his family's home movies

The musicians of the Union and Confederate armies provided strong memories of the homes left behind for the battlefield.

The shy and timid Tasmanian devil gained its reputation for fierceness in part from its ferocious-looking yawn when cornered or frightened

The answer…and why you should care

A clip from the father of video art's 1969 piece

OK Go, Damian Kulash Jr. and Trish Sie | Smithsonian Magazine’s 2016 American Ingenuity Award Winners for Visual Arts Specializing in the whimsical and unexpected, these artistic dynamos have collaborated on some of the most arresting music videos ever made. This year’s “Upside Down & Inside Out” showcases the OK Go band members in a gravity-defying gambol shot aboard a Russian jetliner flying parabolas to induce periods of weightlessness. (“Here It Goes Again,” a treadmill ballet released in 2006, won a Grammy Award for best short-form video.) OK Go, formed in Chicago in 1998 and now based in Los Angeles, features Tim Nordwind (bass), Andy Ross (guitar), Dan Konopka (drums) and Damian Kulash Jr. (vocals and guitar). “Upside Down & Inside Out” is the fourth video that Kulash has co-directed with Sie, an acclaimed choreographer and film director who is also his sister. Read more about their work: http://smithmag.co/HZ8vzr | #IngenuityAwards And more about the American Ingenuity Awards: http://smithmag.co/77xPqy

Chris Melissinos, guest curator of an exhibit about video games at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, explains what makes the genre an art form

Read more at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/In-Search-of-the-Mysterious-Narwhal.html Staff writer Abigail Tucker relates her experiences reporting from the small Arctic village of narwhal hunters.

Using archived ethnographic research, Linda Yamane is bringing back the language of the Ohlone, a Northern California tribe. Read more at http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/american-indian-heritage.html

David Burnett on His Experience Jumping Out of a Plane With D-Day Vets

As a part of a television broadcast, world travelers Hal and Halla Linker toured the Afghan countryside in 1973, years before the Soviets invaded and the Taliban took control of the Buddhist site

Watch a selection from the Smithsonian Institution's submission for the UNESCO Memory of the World Register of historic artifacts

Photographer Drew Gardner has a passion for history. His long-term project, “The Descendants,” (https://www.drewgardner.com/descendants)  wherein he recreates famous portraits of historical figures featuring their direct offspring, is his most visible expression of this interest. But like a lot of people who study history, Gardner has in recent years begun to contemplate more deeply the question of whose stories have been judged worthy of preservation, and whose have been allowed to fade into obscurity. That was how he decided to shift his specific focus to locating and photographing Black American descendants of Civil War veterans. You can take a look at Gardner’s photographs and read magazine editor Jennie Rothenberg Gritz’s exploration of their meaning here (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/descendants-black-civil-war-heroes-wear-heritage-pride-180983397/) . On the latest episode of the Smithsonian podcast “There’s More to That,” (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/podcast)  I speak with Janisse Flowers and her 9-year-son, Neikoye, who are descended from the Civil War drummer boy David Miles Moore Jr. After some reflection, Janisse and her husband decided to grant Gardner’s request to photograph Neikoye dressed in a replica of Moore’s Union Army uniform. Both Janisse and Neikoye share their surprise over how this experience made them more conscious of their heritage. I’m also joined by Gardner himself, who describes the challenges—and, he hopes, the potential benefits—of asking Black Americans to revisit one of the most painful chapters of America’s history by (almost) literally stepping into their ancestors’ shoes. You can learn more about Drew and his work at his website (https://www.drewgardner.com/) . Find prior episodes of our show here (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/podcast/) . There’s More to That is a production of Smithsonian magazine and PRX Productions. From the magazine, our team is Chris Klimek, Debra Rosenberg and Brian Wolly. From PRX, our team is Jessica Miller, Adriana Rosas Rivera, Genevieve Sponsler, Terence Bernardo, and Edwin Ochoa. The Executive Producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales. Fact-checking by Stephanie Abramson. Episode artwork by Emily Lankiewicz. Music by APM Music.

More on the unsuccessful plot to kill Lincoln: http://j.mp/VnSZ9g During his inauguration tour in 1861, the president's life was threatened in the city of Baltimore.

A pirogue's eye view of the inlet at the edge of Harper. Some of the first groups of freed American slaves landed on the shores of West Africa near here. (Credit: Clair MacDougall)

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

Clues into the disappearance of the ancient Picts lie in the tiny Scottish village of Aberlemno: 1,700-year-old Pictish stones, marked with some very unusual carvings.

“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

Archaeologists unearthed a series of mudbrick rooms filled with religious tributes, soldiers' personal effects, engraved weaponry and animal bones

Kleptoparasitism, in which a bird harasses another to steal its food, might introduce avian flu to the continent, currently the only one without the severe H5N1 strain

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

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 “beloved” rodent named Cinnamon was spotted this week with help from drones. She has been wandering and eating grass after escaping her zoo enclosure last Friday

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

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

Two members of Just Stop Oil staged the original demonstration in late 2022. Group members say the harsh penalties will not deter their efforts

The world’s slowest mammal is at risk of extinction by the end of the century due to their low metabolic rate and climate change

While expectations are high for some special sightings, experts warn that comets are notoriously fickle and unpredictable

Experts say that the trove of silver currency is official treasure and includes coins from England and Ireland