Vanessa Armstrong

Those beaked, bespectacled masks have been around for centuries. But were they ever actually used by doctors?

Almost two decades in the making, the institution centers on art that shapes our everyday lives and reveals the craft behind it

Department stores used to be full of pneumatic tubes, all thanks to one guy.

He also thought that "swarms" of life came to our planet from outer space

Companies are testing satellites made to beam space solar power to Earth

For over a century, people have imagined how reflecting the sun’s rays can help — or harm — the world

Lucy Worsley's PBS series highlights the emotional fallout of the conflict, with a focus on the British perspective

I interviewed directors Erik Ewers and Christopher Loren Ewers about the PBS series executive produced by Ken Burns and Don Henley

The odd, ethereal instrument pops up on shows like Severance and Starfleet Academy.

Ahead of the PBS production's premiere, the legendary filmmaker and co-director Sarah Botstein share insights on their research process and the surprising, long-overlooked stories featured in the six-part series

The 1898 Wilmington massacre left dozens of Black North Carolinians dead. Conspirators also forced the city's multiracial government to resign at gunpoint

"Spectropia" demystified the techniques used by mediums who claimed they could speak to the dead, revealing the "absurd follies of Spiritualism"

Carrying on a family tradition, she brought her singular act, full of illusion and humor, to Black audiences in the segregated South and on up to Philadelphia.

Pneumatic tubes were supposed to revolutionize the world but have fallen by the wayside. Except in hospitals.

A new limited series starring Michael Douglas as Benjamin Franklin revisits the founding father's years as the American ambassador to France

A new series dramatizes Edwin Stanton's hunt for John Wilkes Booth and his co-conspirators in the aftermath of the president’s 1865 assassination

Powered by compressed air, the system transported millions of letters between 1897 and 1953

Rare footage of the woman magician's act captures her magnetic stage presence and range of tricks

One blueprint gave California two totally different landmarks.