James Smithson by Hattie Elizabeth Burdette, 1872 NPG. In many ways it is James Smithson's science that … proved the crucial key to his story. Chemistry was the cutting-edge field of Smithson's ...

James Smithson’s Family Squabble. The newly recovered 1787 Hungerford Deed, detailing the contentious fight over property and prestige, can now be viewed in a new virtual exhibition.

Dennis Rader, the so-called "BTK" (bind, torture, kill) killer, pleaded guilty to 10 slayings in the Wichita, Kan., area. He ...

Although Smithson’s papers and his vast mineral collection were all destroyed by fire in 1865, the story of his life and work has been largely recovered in the recent biography, The Lost World of ...

The Smithsonian Institution was established with funds from James Smithson (1765–1829), a British scientist who left his estate to the United States to found “at Washington, under the name of the ...

James Smithson never set foot in America during his lifetime. It’s a mystery why the gentleman-scientist, who died in 1829, decided to leave $500,000 to a country he’d never visited.

James Thomas "Tommy" Smithson Sr. died Wednesday at his Cayce Springs Road home, where law enforcement went on a manhunt to search for his James "Jamie" Thomas Smithson Jr. in relation to his death.

James Thomas "Tommy" Smithson Sr. died June 19 at his Cayce Springs Road home, prompting a Williamson County Sheriff's Office manhunt for his son, James Thomas Smithson Jr., ...

He was born in France and died in Italy. James Smithson had a vision to create the Smithsonian Museum in D. C. So what would he think today, 20 museums and galleries and of course the National Zoo ...

The Stranger and the Statesman: James Smithson, John Quincy Adams, and the Making of America’s Greatest Museum: the Smithsonian By Nina Burleigh HarperCollins, 298 pages, $24.95 The Smithsonian ...

The world’s largest museum complex, the Smithsonian Institution, was founded on this day in history, Aug. 10, 1846, after English scientist James Smithson made a generous gift.

Smithsonian Research Associate Heather Ewing talked about the life of English scientist James Smithson, the founding donor of the Smithsonian Institution. She described how Smithson's ...