The Smithsonian was first funded by a man who never visited the US

The tallest tsunami in recorded history was 524 meters (1,720 feet) high—taller than the Empire State Building—and occurred in Lituya Bay, Alaska, in 1958 after an earthquake dislodged a rockface into the water.

Watch footage from the moments the Titanic wreck was discovered by a joint US-French research team in 1985.

There are up to 100 trillion microbes in the gut, and maintaining the relative balance in this ecosystem is important for our health.

The collapse of gas bubbles in the joint synovial fluid causes 'cracking' knuckles.

Robert Smalls escaped slavery by piloting a stolen Confederate ship to freedom, then became an influential Black political leader during Reconstruction.

You may be better at spotting a lie when listening to a speaker's voice inflections rather than watching for facial and body cues.

Apeirophobia is the fear of everlasting life and may stem from the human brain's inability to conceptualize the concept of anything happening beyond what it can project out, such as the concept of an infinite life.

Computer scientists first started trying to optimize dating using computers in the 1950s.

Explore 3D models of some of the most dangerous viruses, allowing us to understand these and other pathogens in new ways.

Joan Didion interviewed The Grateful Dead in 1967, before they became music icons.

Find out how important you are to AI tools when they generate text responses with this tool, which estimates the weights of people's names.

Watch what would happen if you literally had all the money in the world.

Explore the 2025 Uber Lost & Found Index to find out the weirdest items that passengers left behind in Ubers last year, from ten live lobsters to a mannequin head with human hair.

See where your state ranked in an analysis of the best public school systems in the US.

Streaming service Netflix's sound logo 'Tudum' was designed as a key sonic differentiator.

Examine this captivating animation 'building' a human—illustrating the roughly 40 weeks of fetal development.

Experience 14 billion years of important moments in world history with this scrollable interactive timeline.

See a breakdown of how some of the most common food items are traded across the globe, including the key trade relationships for each item.

Between 2002 and 2012, at least 12 people were killed in the Philippines in incidents related to off-key karaoke singing of Frank Sinatra's 'My Way.'

Abraham Lincoln had to sneak into Washington, DC, in disguise for his 1861 inauguration after a detective uncovered a plot to assassinate him in Baltimore.

'Bibliotherapy' is of increasing interest as a way to improve mental health and help navigate complex life situations—with people immersing themselves in the experiences of fictional characters or nonfiction and self-help books to find relief and gain personal insights.

Relax to a livestream of brown bears chilling in Katmai National Park in Alaska.

Fecal transplants can help treat infections by transplanting healthy gut bacteria from a donor into a patient's gastrointestinal tract using samples of human waste, which are turned into a liquid mixture and often delivered via a colonoscopy procedure.

Sea stars are invertebrates—they lack a backbone—and while most exhibit pentametric radial symmetry due to having five arms radiating from a central disk, some can possess more than 40.

'Golden blood' is the rarest blood type in the world—fewer than 50 people are known to have it.

Give your memories a place to live and explore the personal stories left by strangers, tied to specific locations, in this interactive map of the world.

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

Watch President John F. Kennedy's speech on going to the moon

Pregnancy makes someone more attractive to the mosquito species that transmits malaria.

The US has discontinued a variety of different currency denominations over the years—including a $100K bill.

Watch a visualization of what it would look like to move along Earth's surface as fast as the International Space Station, or about 23 times the speed of sound.

The final shots of the Civil War were fired in the Arctic over 2 months after the South's surrender.

Hear 50 years of iconic hip-hop samples, the genre's foundational looped tracks.

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital

As part of the up to 15 pounds of seafood they consume daily, sea otters eat urchins that feed on kelp forests—sources of shelter and food to over 800 species—thereby making the marine mammal a keystone species.

The US jobs projected to shrink the fastest over the next decade include typists and word processors.

On planets in systems with two stars, such as the fictional Tatooine from 'Star Wars,' observers would see overlapping rainbows and double rainbows.

If a source of music traveled past someone at twice the speed of sound, assuming sufficiently sensitive hearing and powerful equipment, they would hear the music backward.

Explore an interactive forecast of the future of the universe, from the return of Halley's Comet to the last light in the cosmos.

Explore an interactive timeline of Earth's 4.5-billion-year history to visualize shifting landmasses and oceans, view the locations of significant asteroid impacts, and learn about major geological and biological events.