| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| July 1, 1836 | United States Congress passes an act authorizing the President to appoint an agent to prosecute the claim of the United States to the legacy bequeathed by James Smithson (Stat., V, 64). The act establishes that any and all money received as a result of the legacy shall be applied to the purpose of founding and endowing at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge. |
| July 1, 1955 |  Under an agreement with Harvard University, the headquarters of the
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory is moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Fred Lawrence
Whipple, chair of the Department of Astronomy, Harvard University, is appointed director. |
| July 1, 1965 | The Chesapeake Bay Center for Environmental Studies (CBCES) is established to conduct research programs which include studies of estuarine ecology. The center on 700 acres of land is located seven miles south of Annapolis, Maryland, on property called Java Farm bequeathed to the Smithsonian Institution in 1962 by Robert Lee Forest. CBCES is an administrative unit of the Office of Ecology. The office is headed by Helmut K. Buechner, formerly professor of zoology, Washington State University. |
| July 1, 1967 |  The first Festival of American Folklife is held on the National Mall and
runs from July 1-4, 1967. The festivals are intended to present American and foreign
craftsmen and musicians and dancers. Festival features include basket
weavers, pottery, makers, woodworkers, carvers, doll makers, needleworkers, tale tellers,
boat builders, and folk singers, dancers, and musicians. |
| July 1, 1968 |  On July 1, 1968, the Smithsonian Institution takes over the Cooper Union
Museum in New York City, and changes its name to the Cooper-Hewitt Museum of Design. The
change of name honors the founders, who were the granddaughters of Peter Cooper and the
daughters of Abram S. Hewitt. |
| July 1, 1976 |  The National Air and Space Museum opens on the Mall. The ribbon-cutting
is accomplished by an electrical impulse that originated in the Viking spacecraft then
nearing Mars, burning the ribbon. The ceremony is attended by Michael Collins, director
of the Museum, President Gerald Ford, Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, Chancellor Warren
Burger, Secretary S. Dillon Ripley, and many others. |
| July 1, 1983 | The Chesapeake Bay Center for Environmental Studies merges with the Radiation Biology Laboratory to form the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC). |
| July 2, 1955 | The National Air Museum (NAM), now the National Air and Space Museum, receives the "Old Miss." The Curtiss Robin airplane took off from Meridian, Mississippi, on 4 July 1935, with Al and Fred Key, and refueled in mid-air from another airplane, staying aloft for 27 days and 5-1/2 hours. It came to the NAM on the twentieth anniversary of the flight, which ultimately lasted 653-1/2 hours. |
| July 3, 1965 |  Armed Forces History Hall opens in the Museum of History and Technology,
now the National Museum of American History. It features the 55-foot gun-boat,
"Philadelphia," which was recovered from the waters of Lake Champlain virtually
intact. This is the oldest and most complete artifact associated with the naval history of
the Revolution. Among the exhibits relating to the Army were George Washington's
headquarters tent and General Sheridan's horse, Winchester. The section on the Army was
set up under the supervision of Edgar Howell, curator of military history. |
| July 4, 1977 |  The Smithsonian Metro Station formally opens on the Mall at 12th Street.
Metro General Manager Theodore Lutz presents Charles Blitzer with a farecard for inclusion
in the transportation collection of the National Museum of History and Technology, now the National Museum of American
History. On June 17 there is a guided tour for SI staffers,
attended by 685 people. |
| July 5, 1850 | The Board of Regents approves Secretary Joseph Henry's nomination of Spencer Fullerton Baird as Assistant Secretary in the Department of Natural History to take charge of the Museum as "Keeper of the Cabinet" and to assist with publications. Baird, a naturalist, previously taught at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. The initial salary for his position is $1,500 per annum. |
| July 6, 1983 | French folk music is presented at the National Museum of American Art in conjunction with its exhibition "Americans in Brittany and Normandy: 1860-1910." Additional public programs include a discussion of the artists represented, a French puppet show, and a performance by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century-style clowns. |
| July 7, 1791 | James Smithson's first scientific paper entitled, "An Account of Some Chemical Experiments on Tabasheer," is read before the Royal Society of London and published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, volume LXXXI, part 2, p. 368. The paper details his many experiments on this substance found in bamboo. It is signed James Lewis Macie, the name he used until c. 1800. |
| July 7, 1869 | The West Range of the Smithsonian Institution Building, in addition to the main halls, is assigned to the use of the United States National Museum. |
| July 8, 1976 |  Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain arrives at the Smithsonian Institution as part of her
six-day official Bicentennial of the American Revolution visit to the United States. |
| July 9, 1977 | "Raices y Visiones - Roots and Visions," a bilingual show, opens at the National Collection of Fine Arts, now the National Museum of American Art, with paintings, prints, and sculpture by artists of the American Hispanic communities. |
| July 9, 1994 |  "The Smithsonian's America: An Exhibition on American History and
Culture" opens at the American Festival Japan '94 at the Nippon Convention Center in
Chiba, Japan. It will go through August 31. The exhibit focuses on American history,
culture and the cultural diversity of the United States. The exhibition contains more then
300 objects from the National Museum of American History and the National Air and Space
Museum and occupies 60,000 square feet, one-third of the Festival exhibition space. |
| July 10, 1980 | The Naos Seawater System is inaugurated by Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Director Dr. Ira Rubinoff, Panamanian President Dr. Aristides J. Royo Ruiz, Acting Smithsonian Secretary Phillip S. Hughes, and the Archbishop of Panama. The Naos Seawater System is a system of large tanks supplied with running seawater at the Pacific marine laboratory on Naos Island. This facility will permit a much greater variety of experimental work with marine organisms. |
| July 11, 1906 |  The National Gallery of Art, now the National Museum of American Art,
achieves official status as part of the Smithsonian Institution. This occurs when the
Supreme Court of the District of Columbia decrees that the pictures, miniatures, and other
articles bequeathed by Harriet Lane Johnston should become the property of the National
Art Gallery. Johnston's will left the collection to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, unless
the United States government established a National Gallery of Art. The Smithsonian,
therefore, formally establishes the National Gallery of Art to receive the collection. As
a result of this decree, the collection, consisting of 31 pieces, is delivered to the
Smithsonian Institution on August 3, 1906. |
| July 12, 1988 | The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden opens "Russian And Soviet Paintings, 1900-1930: Selections from the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, and the State Russian Museum, Leningrad." This is the first American exhibition of early twentieth-century works by Russian and Soviet artists drawn exclusively from the two most important museums in the Soviet Union specializing in works from that period. |
| July 13, 1992 | The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute receives a three-year grant for $75,000 from Citibank Corporation for support of a training program at the new Mpala Research Center in Kenya which was established on February 24, 1992. |
| July 14, 1916 | A watchman at the National Zoological Park reports sighting an alligator in Rock Creek on July 14. "The Head Keeper, with several assistants, turned out promptly and after a rather lively chase through the water an alligator about 3 feet long was captured and transferred to the tank where others of his kind are kept." |
| July 14, 1977 | "Palaces for the People," an exhibit on one hundred years of resort and motel architecture in America, opens at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum. |
| July 15, 1981 | The Thomas M. Evans Gallery, designed to display special Smithsonian exhibits and important traveling loan exhibitions, opens in the National Museum of Natural History. The formal designation is made at a dinner held July 14, 1981, immediately prior to the opening of the gallery's first exhibit, "5,000 Years of Korean Art." The Gallery is named for a New York philanthropist whose contribution made the construction possible. |
| July 16, 1918 |  The National History Building, United States National Museum, is closed to
the public, and the ground floor and two exhibit floors, 138,600 square feet of space, are
used by the Bureau of War Risk Insurance. The museum reopens to the public after the end of World War I, in April 1919. |
| July 16, 1946 |  The Canal Zone Biological Area in Panama is put under Smithsonian
Institution administration by President Harry S. Truman. The tropical research station,
located on Barro Colorado Island and reserved for scientific purposes in 1923, had been
set aside by United States Congress in 1940 as a preserve administered by a board on which
the Smithsonian had participated. It is later renamed Smithsonian Tropical Research
Institute. |
| July 17, 1838 | Richard Rush sails from London on 17 July 1838 on the packet ship, the Mediator, bound for New York City. He is transporting the proceeds of James Smithson's estate, which he has converted into gold sovereigns, and Smithson's personal effects, including his library, mineral collection, and scientific notes. |
| July 17, 1985 |  The three American astronauts (Vance Brand, Donald "Deke"
Slayton and Thomas Stafford) and the two Soviet cosmonauts (Valeriy Kubasov, Aleksey
Leonov) gather at the National Air and Space Museum on the 10th anniversary of the
Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. |
| July 18, 1896 | Paintings, engravings, and other art works, deposited in the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1874 and later, are returned to the Smithsonian Institution at the request of the Regents. |
| July 19, 1978 | "Isis," a sculpture by Mark di Suvero, is dedicated at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. The work was commissioned and donated by the Institute of Scrap Iron and Steel (ISIS) to commemorate its 50th anniversary. The sculpture was assembled by di Suvero in his California studio-yard especially for the Hirshhorn, dismantled in June and shipped by truck to Washington. It was reassembled at the Hirshhorn by di Suvero in ten days. |
| July 20, 1977 | "Summer Sculpture '77," the first outdoor contemporary sculpture show on loan to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden opens. |
| July 20, 1979 | President Jimmy Carter signs a bill (P.L. 96-36) authorizing the appropriation of $500,000 for planning of the South Quadrangle Project. The Quadrangle will be located behind the Smithsonian Institution Building "Castle," and will be a center for African, Near Eastern and Asian cultures. |
| July 21, 1983 | The National Zoological Park's Giant Panda Ling-Ling's gives birth to the first Giant Panda born in the United States. While the male cub died approximately three hours after its birth, this significant birth of an endangered mammal species renews the Zoo's hope of future successful births. |
| July 22, 1981 | "Perfect in Her Place: Women at Work in Industrial America" opens at the National Museum of American History. The exhibition includes photographs, engravings, and artifacts showing American women at work from the early 19th century to the present. |
| July 23, 1923 | A Siberian tiger is born at the National Zoological Park. |
| July 24, 1981 | President Reagan visits the National Museum of American Art to view the exhibition "George Catlin: The Artists and the American Indian." He is greeted by John Jameson, assistant secretary for administration, Harry Lowe, acting director, and curator William Truettner. |
| July 25, 1984 |  Eight United States-born golden lion tamarins are released into the wilds
of Brazil's Poco das Antas Biological Preserve by the National Zoological Park. Fifteen animals had been sent to Brazil in
November 1983 as part of a reintroduction program, and nine of them had been introduced to
a half-way cage located in the wilds on May 2, 1984. |
| July 26, 1968 | The United States Congress appropriates $2,000,000 in construction funds and contract authority in the amount of $14,197,000 to construct the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. |
| July 27, 1862 | The charter of the National Institute (1840-1862) expires, and in accordance with its act of incorporation, the remainder of its library and museum is delivered by the Secretary of the Interior to the Smithsonian Institution. Before the organization of the Smithsonian, the National Institute held the personal effects of James Smithson with a view to its gaining control of the Smithson bequest. The transfer also includes the collections of John Varden's museum, including art works. |
| July 28, 1835 | Aaron Vail, Charge d'Affaires of the United States in London, writes to Secretary of State John Forsyth, to inform him that an Englishman named James Smithson has left a bequest to the people of the United States to found in Washington an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge. Vail was notified by Smithson's solicitors, Messrs. Clarke, Fynmore & Fladgate. |
| July 28, 1996 |  The oldest sculptures ever found in the Near East go on display at the
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in the exhibition "Preserving Ancient Statues From
Jordan." The exhibition includes two humanlike figures and three double-headed busts
from 6500 B.C., and three faces modeled on human skulls from 7000 B.C. The sculptures are
nearly life-size and are made of lime plaster. The sculptures were found in 1974 near
Amman, Jordan, and were transported to Washington, D.C., in 1985 where they were analyzed
and reconstructed. |
| July 29, 1977 | "Arthur Wesley Dow (1857-1922)" opens at the National Collection of Fine Arts, now the National Museum of American Art. Dow was an influential art educator around the turn of the century. |
| July 30, 1983 | "M*A*S*H: Binding Up the Wounds" opens at the National Museum of American History with selected sets and objects from the award winning television series and photographs from actual Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals in Korea and Vietnam. Response to the exhibit necessitated the unprecedented implementation of a free admission pass procedure at the Smithsonian. |
| July 30, 1993 |  The National Postal Museum opens to the public July 30, 1993. The new
museum houses and displays the national philatelic and postal history collection which is
the largest and most comprehensive of its kind in the world. The museum has five exhibit
galleries, a Discovery Center, and a Library Research Center. |
| July 31, 1958 | The newly modernized Hall of Gems and Minerals in the Natural History Building is dedicated by Secretary Leonard Carmichael. Mrs. William F. Foshag, wife of the late curator of geology, cuts the ribbon. One of the highlights of the hall is the Hope Diamond, spotlighted against a dark-red velvet in "a centrally located, specifically designed case." |
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