A virtual tour of Philadelphia’s American Revolution Museum

Watch Ken Burns' documentary series on the American Revolution

In "The American Revolution," filmmaker Ken Burns presents the conflict as both a global war and a civil war, telling its story through the lives of soldiers, civilians, enslaved people, Native nations, and international allies.

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

Americans touring the Louvre were inspired to create their own grand museums

The one-time royal residence was first transformed into a public museum in 1793 amid the French Revolution. Americans visiting in the early 1800s were both turned off by the aristocratic grandeur and compelled by the open access to the public. James Fenimore Cooper, the author of "The Last of the Mohicans," apparently came and measured the length of galleries.

The Americans abandoned Philadelphia to the British in 1777

While George Washington's army was encamped in Valley Forge, the British took over the capital of Philadelphia (and the colonies, at the time), including Ben Franklin's house. It wouldn't last long. This is one of a series of podcast episodes exploring the war's battles.

Pictures of paintings: a virtual art museum

If you can't get to the art museum, maybe try bringing the art museum to you. This independent project presents photographs of select classic, public-domain paintings in an interactive format so you can get the full museum effect from home. Note:...

Take a tour of the Museum of Natural History

Opened in 1910 on the Mall, the National Museum of Natural History is among the Smithsonian's oldest museums. Its scientists steward more than 148 million objects and specimens—making it the largest natural history collection on Earth.

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.

See 10 of the artifacts on display at the Smithsonian's America at 250 exhibition

From Thomas Jefferson's portable writing desk to a first-generation iPod, the National Museum of American History is showcasing 250 objects across all three floors to mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

The Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum: a virtual tour

The Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum houses the largest collection of Egyptian artifacts on exhibit in western North America. Located in San Jose, California, the museum is home to over 4,000 artifacts, including four mummified individuals. The institute was founded by the centuries-old mystical Rosicrucian brotherhood, a group which claims special awareness of ancient wisdom. Take a 3D tour, complete with descriptions of some its most famous pieces.

Explore the French palace royals fled from during the 1789 revolution

This virtual reality tour lets viewers explore the Palace of Versailles, which King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette were forced to flee during the French Revolution. Versailles was later made a public establishment by order of King...

Wish you could experience life on the Western Front of WWI?

Virtual reality offers a new perspective on World War I in this nearly 14-minute video. National WWI Museum and Memorial Public Program Specialist James Taub demonstrates the War Remains VR experience side by side with what he sees through the headset. A grim and detailed simulation of trench warfare combined with Taub's observations and insights.

The American War of Independence included over 1,500 military engagements

Several hundred of these were major battles like Yorktown, Saratoga, and Bunker’s Hill. This interactive map shows the locations of key locations of the conflict, highlighting major factors in each battle and their outcome.

Hear the untold colonial backstories of the British Museum’s most famous artifacts

This podcast from VICE’s Unfiltered History Tour visits the British Museum’s prized objects through accounts from experts and communities from which they were taken.

Search this digital archive of 19th-century "panoramic" maps of US and Canadian cities

The panoramic map was a popular cartographic form used to depict U.S. and Canadian cities and towns during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. You can peruse a gallery of almost 2,000 of them in this digital archive from the Library...

Tour this virtual museum of important events and letters from the Vietnam War

The Vietnam War lasted about 20 years, killed millions, and ended with half of a divided country engulfing the other. What else do you know about it? Learn more in this virtual exhibit, which includes videos, text blurbs, and audio clips; covers important events from the war; and features handwritten letters from those involved.

Emanuel Leutze's painting 'Washington Crossing the Delaware' is one of the defining images of the Revolutionary War

The scene depicts George Washington leading Continental forces across the icy Delaware River on Christmas Day, 1776, enabling a surprise attack on British-paid mercenary troops at Trenton. This risky maneuver revived the revolution after months of defeat.

View a collection of digital museum resources about the Apollo program

Created by the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, this collection includes detailed biographies of astronauts and scientists who worked on the program and interactive features on the technologies that made it possible.

A timeline of the Stamp Act crisis from the view of Colonial Williamsburg

Colonial Williamsburg's timeline situates the act within the local political culture of Virginia: colonists accustomed to taxing themselves through their own representatives in Williamsburg's House of Burgesses were outraged that Parliament could reach into their pockets from across the ocean. The timeline also covers Patrick Henry's proposed "Resolves," which prompted shouts of "treason" from his co-legislators, as well as commemorative objects (buttons, teapots) that followed the repeal.

The evolution of New York City

Originally founded as New Amsterdam, this interactive timeline lists out and provides deep dives on the major events that shaped New York City as it became America's foremost cultural and economic hub.

Explore the medieval world in this 14th-Century map

This virtual replica of a 14th-Century map allows viewers to see the medieval world through a Christian framework. Jerusalem is the center axle of the map, harkening back to the Bible's Old Testament, which states Jerusalem is the "centre of...

The massive gathering that rang in the first Earth Day

Earth Day was first celebrated in 1970 and helped inspire a significant nationwide environmental movement. In Philadelphia, the holiday was rung in with a gathering in the city’s Fairmount Park featuring musicians, speakers, and over 10,000 attendees. This video from CBS offers remarkable footage from the day and explains why Philadelphians were especially drawn to the environmental cause.

Take a tour of Charles Dickens' London

Much of Dickens' fiction concerns Victorian London and its people. This tour of the city, led by Dickens biographer Simon Callow, walks you through significant sites, like the place where Dickens' parents were married, the shoe-blacking factory where he worked as a boy, and the place where he created his first magazine.

The Rockefellers funded the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg

John D. Rockefeller Jr. and his wife spent millions of dollars restoring Colonial Williamsburg and turning it into the tourist attraction it is today. You can go back in time via video footage from before and after the restoration.

Kansas City is home to the first museum of barbecue

America is home to several kinds of barbecue, leading one Kansas City food writer to open the world's first museum dedicated to the cuisine. The Museum of BBQ tells the story of the food's evolution through interactive exhibits, a sauce immersion room, and even a barbecue-themed playground.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

See ten of the most amazing Mayan ruins

Hidden beneath the jungles of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, Maya temples, pyramids, and cities reveal the civilization’s vast construction ambitions. Decades of archaeology have uncovered these sites, which are explored in detail in this guided video tour of 10 significant ruins.

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.

The most haunted locations in the US

This TimeOut guide presents some of the most notorious places in the United States, profiling the creepy histories of Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, the Waverly Hills Sanitorium in Louisville, Kentucky, and the lingering effects of the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts.

The original copy of the Declaration of Independence is not a pristine document, and even features a smudged anonymous handprint in the bottom left corner.

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that was home to an estimated population of 200,000 to 400,000.

Explore our favorite visualization of the immense scale of space, from an astronaut to the size of the observable universe

Explore the archaeological treasures of Pompeii, the city buried under volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE.

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

Explore the history, structure, and species of Australia's Great Barrier Reef with this interactive journey narrated by Sir David Attenborough.

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

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

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

The American cockroach is actually from Africa, an apparent hitchhiker aboard ships carrying enslaved people, with evidence suggesting the bug may have arrived in the New World as early as the 1600s.

See these 16 pieces of art evoking phobias of snakes, flying, spiders, and more. 

Many legends about George Washington, including his supposed wooden teeth and the story of cutting down the cherry tree, lack evidence.

After 25 people used virtual reality headsets to practice flying with virtual wings—flapping their arms—their visual cortex responded to the wings almost as if they were real arms, treating them as body parts.

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

See how fireworks are made and learn how metals like magnesium and copper are responsible for different colors.

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO

See photos of Meteora, a mountainous site in central Greece, home to 14th-century monasteries perched atop soaring outcroppings.

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

View the ten deadliest tornadoes in US history.

Some researchers have labeled nomophobia, the fear of being without your phone, as 'the phobia of the 21st century.'