Jeweler Harry Winston donated the famous Hope Diamond—the largest-known deep blue diamond in the world—to the Smithsonian Institution in 1958. It arrived in a plain brown package by registered mail, insured for one million dollars. Surrounded by 16 white pear-shaped and cushion-cut diamonds and hanging from a chain with 45 diamonds, the rare gem attracts 6 million visitors a year to the Natural History Museum.

The Hope Diamond

Beirut city skyline in the early 2000s

Beirut Rises from the Ashes

After surviving a civil war, the city is once again a mecca for artists, a landscape covered with architecture and a wonderland of discoveries

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The End of the Road

In Idaho’s Clearwater National Forest, old logging roads that ruin streams are getting the axe

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Good-bye, Rhode Island

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Inexplicable Moments

Strange things happen at this wacky crossroads of the hopelessly alien-addled in the Nevada desert

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Yalta: Witness to History

When the Big Three —Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin —convened at this fabled Crimean seaside resort in 1945, the whole world was watching

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Quicksand? Don’t Sink, Just “Dance” Across It

Fort Jefferson is no longer in use as a military facility and is currently part of the Dry Tortugas National Park.

A Jewel in the Dry Tortugas

Barren, birdy and beautiful, Florida’s remote Fort Jefferson has tales, terns and not much fresh water

Big Sur

Big Sur

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IMAX Takes Us Undersea in the Galápagos

Filmmakers shooting a new 3-D IMAX movie discover tragedy and technical challenges amid moments of breathtaking beauty

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Walking the Grizzlies’ Road, Yellowstone to the Yukon

Trekking 2,000 miles across rugged wilderness, biologist Karsten Heuer has braved bears and avalanches on behalf of a bold conservation initiative

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IMAX Takes Us Undersea in the Galapagos

Filmmakers shooting a new 3-D IMAX movie discover tragedy and technical challenges amid moments of breathtaking beauty

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The Resurrection of the Stones

Rising stark against the night sky, spectral ruins recall the wealth and power of Britain’s once-great monasteries

Cyprus Lives in Love and Strife

Despite ethnic tensions, today’s tourists can’t resist the past and present of this ancient Mediterranean crossroads

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Renovating Washington’s Monument, Designer-Style

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High & Dry

On the loose in the punishing terrain of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument

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The Ups and Downs of Highway 1

California’s coast road offers a beautiful drive—but it keeps falling apart

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Yankee Go Home — and Take Me with You!

More than 50 years after independence, Filipinos still chafe—and cheer—at the lingering legacies of U.S. colonialism

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Good Days at Black Rock

A once quiet desert in Nevada has become a center for supersonic cars, rockets with big plans and one of the most freewheeling festivals anywhere

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In Arizona, It’s an All-Night Party for the Stars

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