Reexamine the Thanksgiving story through this interactive game

The Wampanoag, explained

Explore Thanksgiving beyond the familiar Pilgrim narrative and learn about the Wampanoag Nation. Trace how early cooperation gave way to disease, conflict, and loss—and how Wampanoag traditions and perspectives continue to shape the understanding of the holiday today.

Explore early Thanksgiving documents, from recipes to early proclamations

History buffs will love this trove of original documents related to the Pilgrims and Thanksgiving, including 18th-century recipes, one of Sarah Josepha Hale’s appeals to President Lincoln to establish the national holiday, and a copy of Abraham Lincoln’s original 1863 Thanksgiving Day Proclamation. You can also find illustrations and photos of historical Thanksgiving celebrations over the years.

Run your own social media Trust & Safety team with this eye-opening game

Ever wondered what really goes on behind the scenes at a popular social media company trying to keep users, businesses, and workers safe? Now you can try out your own ideas for moderation and management with this fun and informative game designed to...

Test your gerrymandering skills with this interactive game

This simulation demonstrates how packing and cracking alter election outcomes. See how shifting district lines can change representation—regardless of the overall makeup of the electorate.

A dive into some of the country's stranger Thanksgivings

How did a raccoon intended for the Thanksgiving dinner table end up a beloved presidential pet? History teacher Sharon McMahon’s podcast "Here’s Where It Gets Interesting" takes an episode to delve into some of the more unusual Thanksgivings at the White House, including the Great Cranberry Scare of 1959 and the story of Calvin Coolidge and his "first raccoon," Rebecca.

Rewrite 1930s Germany with this alternative history game of politics

You are at the head of the Social Democratic Party in Germany in 1928 and must use parliamentary politics, the media, and more to oppose the ascendant National Socialists. This text-based, narrative simulation becomes a lesson in the complexities of political history.

Experience games that explore Nobel Prize-winning work

Inspired by the educators who set laureates on their path, the Nobel Foundation has created a library of interactive activities for the general public. These allow users to make groundbreaking discoveries, showing that such work is accessible to all.

Thanksgiving's connection to football began in 1876

It all started with a match between Princeton and Yale in 1876, attended by fewer than 1,000 fans. That competition spawned an annual tradition attracting millions of viewers across college and professional teams.

Play an interactive game to explore and learn about Hubble images

Aboard the fictional USS Hubble, users can choose their own adventure to investigate the solar system, our galaxy, and the universe beyond. Each option directs users to a real image accompanied by relevant information and additional media elements, such as a time-lapse of the moon Phobos orbiting Mars.

Play the role of a student in a game where you try to navigate college and remain debt-free, selecting different income levels, high school experience, race, ethnicity, and more.

Video games are helping to preserve cultural heritage sites, further archaeological study

When Carmen Sandiego swept onto the video game scene in 1985, the deluxe version of the game included historic photographs from National Geographic and music from the Smithsonian. Read this article to learn about the overlap between gaming and ancient architecture.

Finding the way home through flavor

In the fall of 1996, 9-year-old Alvin Chang rushed into his family's kitchen to find his grandmother making his absolute favorite dish: kimchi. This interactive story follows Chang's yearslong attempt to recreate the flavor from his childhood home.

Get the inside story of the duck hunt that birthed the Federal Reserve

Pseudo-duck hunters, private train cars in Hoboken, and a thrilling work week over Thanksgiving 1910—all and more are featured in the wild story of how a group of fed-up bankers and lawmakers tried to create an enduring central bank for the US. Records of the meeting managed to remain hidden for decades.

Track Santa and his industrious elves

Starting in December, you can follow along with Santa’s trek across the globe. Spend time on the map, play games, and even translate your holiday messages into other languages.

Learn how the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade comes together each year

The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is essentially a huge theatrical production spanning several long blocks in New York City rather than a stage. Naturally, organizing it is a complicated process. This podcast episode explains how the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade comes together each year.

Take a multimedia journey through the thirteen days that nearly ended the world

In October 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the US and Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war. This interactive archive from the JFK Library reconstructs those tense days through documents, photos, and secretly recorded conversations from the Kennedy White House.

Read about a dating simulation game that helps prepare your income taxes

For the 2022 tax year, prank-playing creative studio MSCHF created a dating simulation game that helped taxpayers prepare their income taxes. In "Tax Heaven 3000," players interact with anime love interest Iris (it's like IRS), and run through a series of questions that complete their taxes. Iris also warns the player to stay away from tax-preparation companies like TurboTax.

The Butterball Turkey Talk-Line fields cooking questions from anxious holiday hosts

In 1981, public relations firm Talbot looked to promote one of its clients, Butterball Turkey, by starting a holiday hotline for customers to ask culinary questions. Forty years later, 50 experts still answer roughly 100,000 questions in November and December from people experiencing "turkey trauma."

Play 17th-century death roulette

Before modern science and medicine, death was much harder to escape. Using real mortality records from London's Dreadful Visitation–a collection of all the Bills of Mortality from 1665–this interactive game gives you an idea of what may have possibly killed you during the Great Plague. Grow your appreciation for life today as you stumble upon causes of death like “livergrown” and “drowned at St. Katharine’s by the Tower”.

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

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.

'Twenty-One' producers presented fabricated narratives as reality

Producers of “Twenty-One,” which featured two contestants competing from separate isolation booths, knew the quiz show format could use storytelling in the same way that any fictional program could. They found a perfect narrative in the matchup between Charles Van Doren, an all-American Columbia University instructor, and Herb Stempel, an arrogant Queens native. Stempel intentionally lost the game, pretending not to know the answer to a question about his favorite movie, “Marty.”

The story of Palestine through the eyes of its people

Issues of identity are crucial to understanding Israel-Palestine. This site weaves individual narratives with key historical moments and common Q&As around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Ordinary people share personal stories about surviving massacres, displacement, and military occupation. And young Palestinians from across the world reflect on their identity, life under occupation, exile, and future aspirations. Explore what it means to be Palestinian through this interactive site by Al Jazeera.

Historians debate whether 'Hamilton' is good for historical education

In this article, historians debate whether "Hamilton" deepens public engagement with US history or distorts it—examining accuracy and racial casting, and whether the musical's cultural impact outweighs its historical compromises.

A detailed interactive timeline of technology since 1500

Tech devices are heirs to a complex history of both technological invention and social history. What if you could visualize how radio, TVs, and other devices are connected to the past and each other? Trace the elaborate genealogies of your phone and computer with this interactive timeline showing tech inventions since 1500.

Car crashes are 34% more frequent on Black Friday compared to other November days

Black Friday anecdotes abound. Once, a mall dropped 500 gift certificates from the ceiling into a crowd of 2,000 Black Friday shoppers, who injured each other fighting for them. Another time, publishers of the game Cards Against Humanity convinced 11,000 shoppers to pay $5 for nothing.

Shakespeare’s storytelling uses intricate, intertwining narratives

According to one professor, readers return to Shakespeare’s plays, not for his storylines, but to learn how things unfold. In the process, they often use his plays to understand why humans act the way they do.

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

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

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.

Visualize how CRISPR-Cas9—a type of immune system used by single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses—targets and makes precise changes to a gene's DNA.

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

In 2009, the nation was gripped by the story of a missing young boy who was believed to be floating over Colorado in a homemade balloon, until it was revealed that he was at home the whole time.

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

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

Search a massive database of over 4 decades of clues from the TV quiz show 'Jeopardy!'

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

In 2018, 26-year-old missionary John Allen Chau was killed by tribesmen after attempting to reach and evangelize on India's isolated North Sentinel Island

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

Explore the known asteroids, comets, and spacecraft involved in asteroid studies within our solar system with 'Eyes on Asteroids,' a 3D visualization from NASA.

Listen to an in-depth conversation on the links between Parkinson's disease and herbicide exposure and the challenging pace of scientific investigation.

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

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, but became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

This poison ivy knowledge quiz—accompanied by photos of the plant's varied forms—may help you identify this common rash-inducing growth.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

Up to a million Girl Scouts sell about 200 million cookie boxes every spring, generating $800 million, largely because refusing a child is frowned upon

Explore a list of the 100 best novels of all time, compiled by some of the world's best living writers, including Salman Rushdie, Stephen King, and Jennifer Egan.

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