Tabla de contenidos para September / October 2025 en Smithsonian Magazine

IN 1957, FRANK KAMENY, a 32-year-old astronomer with the Army Map Service, was on a work trip to Hawaii and the West Coast when he was told to report back to Washington, D.C. for questioning. There, civil service investigators asked him to respond to reports that he was gay. “I don’t see how it’s relevant to any rational concern or business of the government,” Kameny, a World War II veteran, recalled answering. He was soon fired. The official cause cited was that he had falsified his job application, an official government document, by downplaying his arrest for “lewd” behavior with another man the previous year. (Kameny told the government he’d been arrested for “disorderly conduct,” a less grave sin in those days.) At the time, the government deemed gay Americans…

A NEW! STERLING SILVER POLISHED CHAIN BRACELET $299 Handcrafted in Italy, this heirloom-quality sterling silver bracelet features polished oval links and a substantial 20-gram weight. Approx. 7.5"L. 10001899 B NEW! AMETHYST CABOCHON DROP EARRING $109 Smooth, rounded amethyst cabochons lend their soft luster to these sterling silver drop earrings. A polished hinge detail brings gentle movement to the design. Approx. 1"L. 10001905 C NEW! AMETHYST AND WHITE TOPAZ HOOPS $179 With over 3 carats of faceted amethyst and white topaz gemstones, these sterling silver hoops make a meaningful gift, especially for February birthdays or anyone drawn to amethyst’s associations with focus, clarity, and balance. 1" diam. 10001902 D NEW! AMETHYST BEAD BRACELET $79 Slip on some sparkle with this stretch bracelet of faceted amethyst beads and a single sterling silver…

THE MAHABHARATA is the longest epic in recorded history, seven times the length of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey put together. Set some 5,000 years ago, the Sanskrit verses describe the events leading up to a massive war. The story is loaded with so many characters and subplots that one European scholar, writing in 1922, characterized the Mahabharata as “the most monstrous chaos: Alongside the main narrative, there were veritable jungles of smaller narratives, as well as countless and endless teachings.” The artist and former Pixar animator Sanjay Patel cuts through these verbal jungles with clear, powerful images. He grew up in San Bernardino, California, praying with his Indian immigrant parents every day. (His animated short about those childhood sessions was nominated for an Academy Award in 2016.) But the tradition…

CORMAC MCCARTHY, one of the greatest novelists America has ever produced and one of the most private, had been dead for 13 months when I arrived at his final residence outside Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was a stately old adobe house, two stories high with beam-ends jutting out of the exterior walls, set back from a country road in a valley below the mountains. First built in 1892, the house was expanded and modernized in the 1970s and extensively modified by McCarthy himself, who, it turns out, was a self-taught architect as well as a master of literary fiction. I was invited to the house by two McCarthy scholars who were embroiled in a herculean endeavor. Working unpaid, with help from other volunteer scholars and occasional graduate students, they…

Q: Where did the Big Bang take place? Is it now at the center of the universe? Frank Orienter | Rochester, New York THE TERM “Big Bang” might bring to mind an explosion from a central point, expanding outward in all directions. In fact, scientists think that the Big Bang did not happen at a single location in space. It occurred everywhere at once. This is a challenging concept to grasp, but Arthur Eddington offered an analogy in his 1933 book The Expanding Universe: Imagine all the galaxies in the universe as points on the surface of an empty balloon. As the balloon expands, the galaxies all move away from one another, but there is no single point on the surface that the galaxies are expanding away from. (Note that…

A VISIT TO Newcastle, England, in 1846 led to one of the most consequential friendships in the history of abolitionism. There, historians believe, Frederick Douglass, 28, met Julia Griffiths, a 35-year-old activist, who showed him around London. Griffiths (later known as Julia Griffiths Crofts upon marriage) would recall Douglass’ playful ease with her and her younger sister, Eliza, at a soirée in London the following March. After Eliza pinned a white carnation on Douglass’ coat, “naughty brother Frederick never rested til he knocked off the beautiful white petals, leaving only the green leaves.” Griffiths gained Douglass’ confidence by raising funds for his abolitionist work, and the pair developed a deep bond, becoming co-laborers in the cause of Black freedom and equality in the United States. Their 47-year-long correspondence, much of it…

DURING A TIGHT game in the fall of 1894, Paul Hubbard—quarterback for the Gallaudet University Bison, and known as “the Eel” for his canny maneuvers—made a simple move that changed sports forever: Concerned that his hand signs were tipping off his plans to the opposing defense, Hubbard summoned his offense and directed them to form a circle around him, creating what many consider the first football huddle. For the Bison, who have been fielding football teams since the 1880s, sight matters more than sound. Nestled in Northeast Washington, D.C., Gallaudet is the most famous and prestigious deaf university in the world. It’s been granting degrees since 1864. The Gallaudet student newspaper, the Buff and Blue, honored Hubbard in 1941 as the “daddy of huddle,” as did daily news-papers in Kansas,…

A BEST SELLER! MURANO STEMLESS WINE GLASSES SET OF 4 $109 Raise a toast to the masterful artisans of Murano, Italy, who craft this vivid glassware. Iconic Murano artworks are found in the Ceramics and Glass Collection of the National Museum of American History. 71781 B NEW! MURANO GLASS BOTTLE STOPPER $42 EACH Handcrafted by Italian artisans, these vibrant Murano glass bottle stoppers add the joyful color and spirit of Venice’s Carnevale to any gathering and make thoughtful gifts for the host. 4"L x 1.75" diam. 10001944 Blue, Orange, Green, Red C TREJO’S CANTINA BOOK $28 Danny Trejo returns with a celebration of Mexican hospitality and Hollywood culture in 100 recipes plus cocktails and non-alcoholic drinks. Danny’s tales of growing up in Los Angeles, full of food memories and culinary…

The baby orangutanswere trying to stall before bedtime. One reached out to grab a particularly long leaf through the bars of its cage, encouraging a human to play, then employed a classic toddler sabotage technique: needing to pee. Eventually, the orangutan relented, climbing up a jungle-gym-like structure in an otherwise empty, if messy, room. The floor was littered with sticks and pieces of wood. The baby orangutan settled into a small hammock and pulled a large leaf over its body as a blanket. In the wild, orangutans build new nests every night, weaving leaves and branches together and curling up in the tree canopy. But this was not the wild—not quite. This was the site of the world’s largest orangutan conservation organization, the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation, or BOSF, based…

THE RAPE OF THE Sabine Women, an episode in which Rome’s legendary founders forcibly abducted brides from a nearby community, has been a popular subject in painting and sculpture since the Renaissance—so popular, in fact, that we may miss the brutality of the original myth. “There’s almost this sense of familiarity-blindness to these stories,” says American artist Jesse Mockrin, who depicts the Sabine drama from the perspective of the women themselves in her large-scale 2024 painting The Descent, one of more than 12 new works on view in a solo exhibition opening at Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario in September. Riffing off 16th- and 17th-century Baroque artists like Caravaggio and Peter Paul Rubens, who brought new levels of technical virtuosity and theatrical flair to scenes from the Bible and mythology,…

A BEST SELLER! CLOISONNÉ BUTTERFLY MAGNETS SET OF 4 $39 Embellish any metal surface with this fanciful quartet of hand-enameled, uniquely patterned butterflies. Cloisonné is an art form originating in the Middle East and elevated in China. Copper or bronze objects are adorned with copper wire designs, which are then filled with enamel, fired in a kiln, and polished to a jewel-like shine. 3"W. 77042 B CLOISONNÉ HANDMADE ORNAMENTS Opulent cloisonné enamel and gold-plated accents bring these animal ornaments to life. Enjoy holiday bird watching with a fluttering hummingbird or imagine the soothing glide of a detailed koi fish. Have an elephant lover on your gift list? Traditional cloisonné techniques are beautifully represented on this new friend. Each is 3.5–4.5"L. 98281 Hummingbird $39 98284 Elephant $59 98285 Goldfish $49 C…

The morning temperature was pushing 90 degrees as I made my way on foot past the Howrah Railway Station in Kolkata, the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Following a guide, I wove through a crush of traders, civil servants and other commuters on the Howrah Bridge, a steel cantilever span over the Hooghly River. Down below, on a concrete platform extending into the river, the Mullick Ghat flower market was in full swing. Trucks from the countryside disgorged huge piles of roses, sunflowers and gladioli, and garlands of yellow and orange marigolds. Couriers placed the bundles on their heads and darted through a maze of wooden stalls as hundreds of customers haggled with shopkeepers over the prices of floral displays for weddings, cremations and religious festivals. This relentless…

Across 1 ___ joint, establishment that gave its name to a music player 5 Up there in years 8 “Would you knock ___?!” 10 One of roughly 20,000 in Cormac McCarthy’s personal collection 12 It connects to the Hooghly north of Kolkata 15 First syllable “we used to sing” in Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” 16 Sunbather’s goal 17 Ending with Japan and Taiwan 18 Mademoiselle was a pioneering one for women 20 In the past 22 ___ Tech (onetime for-profit school) 23 Tactic used intentionally by cranberry farmers to reduce labor 27 Police alert, for short 28 Critical hosp. area 29 Orangutans share 97 percent of theirs with humans 32 Historic encampment site that was briefly the American Colonies’ fourth-largest settlement 35 Vaping device, familiarly 36 One of more than 100 in the Empire State Building 37 Actress de…