Meet the Beetles!
Beetles make up a quarter of all known animal life on Earth. A QUARTER! Beetles are everywhere, doing almost everything. From eating flesh o...
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Government & Organizations
Sidedoor
More than 154 million treasures fill the Smithsonian’s vaults, but where public view ends, Sidedoor begins. With the help of biologists, artists, historians, archaeologists, zookeepers and a...
Episodes
20 of 259 episodes
The Baby Elephant and The Elixir of Poo
When baby Asian elephant Linh Mai was born at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, her mother rejected her. Then things got worse. Linh Mai could...
It's Season 13!
Season 13 of Sidedoor is almost here! Follow us behind the scenes at the National Zoo to meet the new baby elephant, Linh Mai. We open the v...
The Accidental Rise of Botox
One of the deadliest poisons known to man is now used to treat wrinkles, migraines, and even, maybe, depression. How did that happen? This i...
The Art of Slowing Down
What happens when we slow down enough to really experience art? We visit a museum to discover how slow looking at art can cultivate awe, emp...
A Nature Lover Confronts Her Fear of Spiders
How do you stop being so afraid? Tracy Twombly had such a strong phobia of spiders, it was messing with her life — stressing her out while s...
America, Meet America
For more than two decades, the StoryCorps silver Airstream trailer has crisscrossed the country, recording the stories of everyday Americans...
The Gunboat Philadelphia
In 1935, a diver searching Lake Champlain found something extraordinary: a nearly intact warship from the American Revolution. It was the Gu...
The Missing Bison
In the 1880s, a conservator at the Smithsonian set out for Montana to capture an American bison before the dwindling species vanished foreve...
American Aspirations: A Nation in Pursuit
Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III has spent a lifetime thinking about how history gets told. Before becoming the head of the Smithso...
U.S. History in 100 Objects (with Roman Mars)
A screw. A stuffed possum. A shoe-sizing device. What could any of these objects possibly tell us about the history of the United States? Wh...
How Can You Forget Me
Everyone thought ghosts lived in the basement of Stockton, California's old Daguhoy Lodge. So, nobody went down there. But when one man refu...
High Art, Low Ride
How did a car with chopped suspension and hydraulics become a symbol of pride and self-expression for an entire community? We'll cruise back...
The People in the Pictures
At the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, archivists are working with Native communities to correct the historical record...
May the 4th Be With You
A long time ago, in movie theaters not far away, Star Wars: A New Hope revolutionized American entertainment. In honor of May the 4th, we ex...
Broad Stripes, Bright Stars, and White Lies
As we approach the nation's 250th birthday, we are looking back at some of the most important moments in American history. One of those mome...
Tapir Caper
When a Smithsonian archaeology intern opened a dusty box of bones in a Panamanian warehouse, she didn't expect to find a mystery, let alone...
Made in America
What does it look like for something to be made in America? Through the photography of Christopher Payne, we journey across the past, presen...
Dark Matter, Bright Mind: How Vera Rubin Saw the Unseen
Something dark and invisible makes up as much as 90 to 95 percent of the universe—and it took a little girl staring out a bedroom window at...
Chinatown Murder Case
A string of unsolved murders in San Francisco's Chinatown in the 1970s led police to the door of a young Korean immigrant named Chol Soo Lee...