Go room by room in this deep look at the interior of the White House

Take a virtual tour through the White House interior

This immersive 360° tour from the White House Historical Association lets you explore key rooms and see historical details not visible during in-person visits.

Before the current East Wing ballroom project, only two White House renovations in the past 100 years cost more than $10M.

Most White House renovations have cost no more than $10M

The storied residence of the US president has undergone many overhauls in its day, from rooftop fixes to bowling alley and pool installations. The majority of the renovation projects came in under $10M. President Trump's 2025 expansion of the West Wing, primarily funded by private donations, will cost more than $200M.

Compare the size of presidential residences around the globe

This video shows 3D renderings of official residences from the modest White House to sprawling estates like France's Élysée Palace and Russia's Kremlin, revealing contrasts in scale, architecture, and symbolism across nations.

Edith Roosevelt's White House redesign created the modern West Wing

In 1902, first lady Edith Roosevelt oversaw a significant renovation that separated the family residence from official offices. Architect Charles McKim added the West Wing to house the president's staff—establishing the modern layout still used today.

Explore the extensive security in and around the White House

The White House is one of the most secure buildings in the world. Protected by the Secret Service, it features armed patrols, rooftop snipers, barriers, and sensors—layered defenses designed to deter intrusion.

Go inside the Washington Monument

This video tour of the Washington Monument explores its interior, construction delays, political battles, memorial stones, earthquake damage, and later modernization—showing how symbolism, engineering, and 19th-century politics shaped the nation's tallest monument.

See how the White House is 'flipped' in a matter of hours on Inauguration Day

On Inauguration Day, the outgoing family departs after a morning farewell, and residence staff rapidly pack and move their belongings out while preparing rooms for the incoming first family—transforming the White House within hours before they arrive that afternoon.

The White House design was chosen through a national competition

In 1792, President George Washington launched a public contest to design the new executive mansion. Irish-born architect James Hoban's neoclassical plan won the contest. His design was inspired by Dublin's Leinster House, which houses Ireland's parliament.

Go behind the scenes of Air Force One

ABC News takes viewers inside Air Force One, revealing how the president's plane operates as a secure command center in the sky. Explore the logistics and coordination that go into every presidential flight.

The hidden hallway behind Mount Rushmore and why it’s unfinished

Mount Rushmore was designed to be more than a massive monument to US presidents, and its ambitious plans were part of the reason why. This fascinating video explores its backstory, creation, and the hidden tunnel behind President Lincoln's head.

Go behind the scenes of the 2012 State of the Union Address

This video showcases the speechwriting process behind Barack Obama's 2012 State of the Union, highlighting how writers shaped themes, refined language, and coordinated closely with the president in the lead-up to the address.

The White House Situation Room was created in 1961

In 1961, John F. Kennedy approved the establishment of the White House Situation Room—a secure crisis-management center in the West Wing basement—following the intelligence failures of the Bay of Pigs invasion and the growing tensions of the Cold War.

The 'chief usher' manages the White House and a staff of roughly 100 people

Tracing back to 19th-century household roles, the chief usher is now the White House's general manager—overseeing renovations, maintenance, food service, budgets, and employees who run the daily operations of the complex.

The architecture of the Met

Curious how the Met came to occupy its incredible campus? This video, which was produced in association with the exhibition “Making The Met, 1970-2020,” tracks the history of the museum through the evolution of its architecture. From its temporary location in a private residence to its intended home in Central Park, the building now reflects the many different eras of design, including Victorian Gothic and Modernism, that have influenced its facade through the years.

Inside the architecture of Pyongyang's Kim dynasty

Since the bombings during the Korean War wiped out much of Pyongyang in the 1950s, three leaders of the Kim dynasty of North Korea have remade the ancient capital from the bottom-up, designing workers monuments, vast streets, and collectivized living spaces. Take a look inside the reclusive city with this architectural analysis accompanied by photographs.

The architect who made the most of a tiny New York apartment

This short documentary explores the 350-square-foot apartment of Ben Riskin, a New York resident looking to make the most of his new home through hidden storage and ingenious design.

Watch a time-lapse of the construction of a data center

After the external structure of a data center is built, cooling systems are installed, followed by interior offices and other rooms. Before installing racks of servers and other equipment, floors are raised beneath where they will be installed to create space for cold fluid to be pumped into the hardware and to facilitate cable management.

Visualize ancient Rome in 3D with this aerial view

Researchers have compiled meticulous representations of ancient Rome in this video game-like depiction of the Eternal City from the air. For eight minutes, viewers can take in what Rome looked like two millennia ago, from the terracotta-topped homes to the Forum and Colosseum.

A guided tour of Studio 8H, the home of ‘SNL’

Fans of “Saturday Night Live” might be familiar with Studio 8H, which has only changed slightly over the show’s five decades. This video tour from Architectural Digest provides access you won’t find on the weekly broadcast, with cast members Heidi Gardner, Chloe Fineman, and Ego Nwodim walking you through makeup, dressing rooms, and more.

See who sat where at the US-China state dinner and why

This graphic maps the seating arrangements at the May 2026 dinner, showing how Chinese banquet etiquette shaped the placement of officials and executives from both delegations, along with details on the food served.

Engineer explains VR at five levels of complexity

While its possible to grab a virtual reality headset and hop into an immersive world with little effort, a significant amount of technical and biological science has gone into creating the effect of a 3D world. This video breaks down the technology in five layers of increasing complexity.

What it's like to work in an office designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright's SC Johnson Global Headquarters is an administrative building in Wisconsin that radically challenged common practices for creating a corporate office space. Built in 1939, the office remains functional today with a spacious central room for exchanging ideas.

Hear about the secret room where your rights are decided

A court designed to be the least powerful branch became one of the most influential institutions in history. 1440 Explores host Sony Kassam dives inside the Supreme Court of the United States, with help from Yale law professor Akhil Reed Amar, to uncover how it gained extraordinary authority, what really happens behind closed doors, and why its power has become one of the most fiercely contested questions in modern democracy.

Watch how the Space Shuttle launched

This 3D visualization illustrates the Space Shuttle launch, breaking down the roles of the solid rocket boosters, main engines, the crawler transporter, and the timing sequence that carried the vehicle from liftoff to orbit.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

Explore a typical layout of an emergency department

This architectural diagram illustrates the layout of an emergency area. It provides insights into a typical emergency room organizational system to provide context for patients as they flow from entry through triage into treatment.

Explore the animals that populate the depths of the ocean, from fish and coral in the first few hundred feet, all the way down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

Take a 3D tour of the Hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken by more than 1.5 million Muslims each year.

In 1963, a basement renovation in Turkey revealed a passageway to a hidden, multilevel underground city that once housed as many as 20,000 people

The idea for the Federal Reserve was conceived in secret in 1910—with bankers donning duck hunt gear for disguise while traveling to a remote country club on Georgia's Jekyll Island

Massive 3D printers have been used to build homes by stacking layers of 'concrete toothpaste,' a fire-resistant material that effectively insulates against outside noise.

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

According to the physics of black holes, our 4D reality may be a hologram—a projection of information coded on a 2D surface on the edge of the universe.

Visualize the path of every solar eclipse from 1900 to 2099 and see what each looks like when observed from different locations on Earth.

Explore an interactive map of battles from the American Revolution, along with detailed summaries of each engagement

Dorothy's famous entrance into Oz in 'The Wizard of Oz' relied on analog tricks, including a body double and sepia-toned paint, as much as it did on technology

Hear about the 250-year history of the United States Postal Service, complete with some of its strangest deliveries, important innovations, and the figures that made it an American institution.

Learn how your body is, scientifically, like a firework with its own slow, controlled burn.

This site reaches millions of visitors who are tired of AI chatbots and seeking human connection. Pretend to be an AI chatbot and ask questions, provide answers, and draw for people in real time.

US housing costs have risen by roughly 175% between 1991 and 2026—but a growing number of Gen Zers are becoming homeowners anyway. In 2025, 4% of homebuyers were Gen Z, up from 3% the year before.

Explore what it's like inside a patient isolation unit, used in situations such as treating a patient or suspected patient with Ebola.

Watch this video that uses Lego bricks to explain how venture capital works.

Alzheimer's can lead to brain shrinkage, with an average of around 2% of volume reduction per year

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

'Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,' a work by American painter Thomas Moran, inspired Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park.

Watch a 1934 short film starring jazz legend Cab Calloway, a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance's music scene

Use this tool to calculate the dollar value of your parental mental load, from meal planning to coordinating after-school care, then see resources that help generate solutions.

See how Budweiser's famous Clydesdales spend their days at Warm Springs Ranch, where roughly 70 to 80 of the beer brand's giant horses can be found at any given time.