Objects and stories

Explore our collection beyond the museum floor and find out the fascinating histories behind even the smallest objects.

Objects and Stories aims to give you better access to this world-class Museum through our ever-expanding digital resources. Search for over 250,000 objects and archives in Collection Online, take a look at our curator's highlights below, and discover unique and compelling stories—from objects that have changed our world to the intriguing personal histories that lie behind them.

New stories

The space race to the Moon

War and medicine

Find out more with about military medicine in three stories about war and medicine.

Hospitals

Read more stories about the history of hospitals and the practice of hospital medicine.

Incredible chemistry

Playing with science: A brief history of the chemistry set

How have scientists and educators prepared children to be scientists over the centuries? Five objects in our collection hold some revealing clues.

Lots of small spindles of brightly coloured yarns

The colourful chemistry of artificial dyes

How did an accidental chemical discovery colour our world?

An detail of the Periodic Display at the Science Museum showing a row of jars each containing a different element

Developing a modern periodic table: From spirals to the stars

The periodic table is one of the most iconic images in science—but it's only one among many visual ways to classify the elements.

Transatlantic journeys

Crop of Grappling the abandoned cable, 1866. Lithograph after Robert Dudley

How perseverance laid the first transatlantic telegraph cable

In 1858 a new transatlantic telegraph cable shrank the world, dramatically changing the way we communicate.

Titanic, Marconi and the wireless telegraph

The dramatic rescue of over 700 survivors from the Titanic disaster was made possible by wireless telegraphy.

Robeson sings: the first transatlantic telephone cable

Discover how a concert by singer Paul Robeson tested the possibilities of the new transatlantic telephone cable.

Keeping time, telling time

An early railway timetable, 1844, with reference to London time

Standardising time: Railways and the electric telegraph

Discover how new communications technology solved a timekeeping problem.

Telling the time with the Sun

Explore the deep connections between the Earth’s motion around the Sun, and our concept of time.

Explore by topic

Surgery

What did it take to make surgery the safe, reliable treatment that we now take for granted?

Computing

Explore some of the key moments that have shaped our computerised modern world.

Satellites

Getting directions, watching television, monitoring the weather—our lives have been fundamentally changed by thousands of satellites in orbit around Earth.

Telephone

From the first crackly telephone call to the ‘smart’ devices, how technology affects the ways we interact.

Robots

Explore the 500-year story of humanoid robots and the scientific quest to understand what it means to be human.

Wireless communication

How has wireless telegraphy shaped the modern world?

Mathematics

With stories spanning the centuries, discover how mathematics connects to every aspect of our lives.

More ways to explore our collection

SMG Journal

The Journal presents the global research community with peer-reviewed papers relevant to the work of the Science Museum Group.

Science and Society Picture Library

Over a million images and footage from the Science Museum Group.

Brought to Life: exploring the history of medicine

Browse thousands of images and stories from our medicine collection and follow the fascinating story of medicine.

Dana Research Centre and Library

Consult 6,000 books and journals covering museum studies and the history and biography of science technology and medicine.