The Daybreak desk

Culture & Discovery

History, ideas, design, and discoveries beyond the headlines.

Enterprise’s real voyage was from spectacle to evidence

Fifty years after its public debut, the shuttle that never went to space remains a useful study in what a prototype is built to prove.

4 min read

Star Trek cast members and NASA officials stand in front of the shuttle Enterprise. — File photo · NASA / NASA editorial-use guidelines · Cropped

CultureAnalysis

The ordinary places that become a national memory

A Smithsonian exhibition opens Friday with photography from America’s Bicentennial surveys. The archive’s power lies in the details a celebration might overlook.

3 min read

CultureAnalysis

A stealth aircraft’s next mission is to be examined

The Smithsonian has announced an F-117 acquisition. Its passage from operational aircraft to museum object opens a different set of questions about the machine.

4 min read

CultureExplainer

The chair that was designed to travel

A coffee-house classic owes part of its success to what happened before anyone sat down.

4 min read

Bentwood chairs stand on exhibition platforms in Vienna; the dark chair at front right is a Thonet No. 14. — File photograph · Gryffindor / Wikimedia Commons / CC0 1.0 · Cropped