Smithsonian Blog Posts

May 18, 2015

Sextant, Compass, and GPS

Did you know the Galapagos Islands belong to Ecuador… and Ecuador has the equator running smack through it? Yup, Zero Latitude. What better place to feed your fascination with the whole idea of aligning stars, managing agriculture, calculating time and distance, and navigating directions? Imagine hanging out right where the center of the world is,…

February 5, 2012

An Ancient Story from China

This is a well-known story among China, The origin of the Chinese New Year itself is centuries old, it can be traced back to Xia Dynasty, which is around 4,000 years ago.

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