Thousands of years ago, Indigenous peoples in the Andes assessed their climate, geography, and ecology and realized that, to provide better support for agriculture and herding, they needed to harness water. Their solution was to build hydraulic infrastructure, such as canals, terraces, reservoirs, and dams. Archaeologist Kevin Lane reveals the story of canals on the coast and in the Central Andes and explains how these old technologies are being repurposed today to deal with the effects of climate change.
Since its opening in 2002, the kitchen from Julia Child’s home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been a top destination for visitors to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, where it is on display. Drawing from her new book, Julia Child’s Kitchen, Paula Johnson, one of the original collectors and keepers of the iconic space, offers an intimate portrait of Child at home, recalls what it’s like to cook beside her, and reveals how this kitchen has influenced the ways we cook today.
Great shoots start with great locations—and Washington, D.C., offers plenty of unbeatable visual inspiration. Learn to capture this vibrant city and sharpen your way of thinking about shooting outdoors as you deploy a minimal amount of equipment and a lot of fresh perspective.
Explore the art and architecture of the Middle Ages through dazzling early Christian mosaics, sumptuous Carolingian illuminated manuscripts, sculpted Romanesque church facades, and soaring Gothic cathedrals. Art historian Judy Scott Feldman examines the art of the thousand-year period between classical antiquity and the Renaissance and its relationship to a diverse society infused with faith and spirituality. (World Art History Certificate core course, 1 credit)
Mary Todd Lincoln and Varina Banks Howell Davis experienced 19th-century political life at its highest levels. They shared similarities, as each was Southern-born, well-educated, a gifted conversationalist, and a mother of young children. Both had their fair share of critics during their husbands’ time in office, and neither woman was one to sit back quietly. Each survived her husband and sought to preserve his memory—and dealt with the numerous challenges in the war’s aftermath in her own way. Kelly Hancock of the American Civil War Museum in Richmond examines the reasons.
Actor Henry Winkler was diagnosed with dyslexia at the age of 31. Since then, he has written a series of lauded children’s books that offer a funny and realistic look at life for a child who struggles with dyslexia. For amplifying important discussions about dyslexia and other issues that touch American lives, Winkler will receive the John P. McGovern Award from Smithsonian Associates. The award presentation highlights an evening in which he discusses his career and his path to stardom and how the issues and causes for which he advocates connect to his roles as an actor, author, comedian, producer, and director.
The last decade has seen a resurgence of research into black holes and observations of their immediate surroundings. Astronomers have tracked the motion of stars around the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, made images of the glowing material falling toward the gargantuan black hole M87*, and detected chirps of gravitational waves emanating from merging black holes billions of light-years away. Astrophysicist Joshua Winn of Princeton University reviews the theory of black holes and these recent observational developments.
