The state champions of the 2002 National Geographic Bee were determined in contests across the United States last Friday. The 55 champions, representing every U.S. state and several territories, will gather in Washington, D.C. on May 21 and 22 to determine this year's national Bee champion—and who gets to win a college scholarship of $25,000.
As 700,000 visitors flock to see 3,750 cherry blossom trees blooming at the height of their glory, Washington, D.C., is having one of the best Cherry Blossom Festivals in the history of the event. Cherry blossoms came to the U.S. capital as a gift from Japan in 1912 to symbolize the friendship between the two countries. Ninety years later, many of the original trees are still flourishing—and giving pleasure to thousands of visitors.
Cooperstown, New York, has always been regarded as the home of America's national pastime: baseball. Now, for the first time, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is going on the road, taking about 500 artifacts of the game to ten U.S. cities over the next four years.
When did people first learn to extract the sublime pleasure known as chocolate from the bitter seeds of the cacao tree? No one knows for sure, but chocolate was used at least as early as the Aztecs, who made it into a spicy drink for royal and religious ceremonies. Chicago's Field Museum features an exhibition on one of the world's most popular delicacies.
Rabbits are natural-born hoppers, but domesticated rabbits in the United States spend 90 percent of their lives locked up in a cage. Now, adopting a novel sport that's become popular in Europe, a growing number of bunny owners are enrolling their rabbits in hopping competitions.
Ron Beckett and Jerry Conlogue, hosts of The Mummy Road Show, are scientists by trade and mummy detectives by choice. Their travels around the world to investigate mummy mysteries opens windows onto the past. National Geographic News asks them about the science of what they do and the adventures they encounter on the road.
A one-million-year-old partial skull found in Ethiopia adds new fuel to the human origins debate. The team that found the fossil say it supports the idea that a single human ancestor, Homo erectus, ranged across Europe, Asia, and Africa as long ago as 1.8 million years.
High atop a mountain peak in the Andes of southeastern Peru, a group of explorers has discovered the ruins of a large settlement they think was occupied by the Inca in an early period of their rise to power. Scholars say the finding could provide major insight into a period about which little is known.
Amid Maya ruins in the dense forest of northeastern Guatemala, an American archaeologist has found a remarkably well preserved mural from A.D. 100 that scholars say is one of the most significant Maya discoveries in decades.
The curtain of invisibility is being lifted for the women of Afghanistan, prompting a call for programs to revitalize education, provide livelihood skills, and improve health care. To help these efforts, the National Geographic Society is creating the Afghan Girls Fund.
How does the mind of a great scientist work? If you've ever wanted to know, here's your chance: The working notebooks of two-time Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling have gone online.
A lively new book recounts the story of William Sheppard, a U.S. missionary at the end of the 19th century who was known as the "Black Livingstone" for his adventures in the Congo. His reports helped expose atrocities against native Congolese by the colonial regime.
As Black History month comes to an end, the movie Hart's War is raking open a deep wound inflicted by the United States on its black soldiers during the Second World War, when American heroes who risked everything for their country had fewer rights than Nazi prisoners of war.
