The Smithsonian Institution Archives makes thousands of historic images of the exhibits, events, and happenings at the Smithsonian available online and, as the year comes to a close, we thought this would be a good time to take a look at some of the year’s most popular Smithsonian History images.  You can search the History of the Smithsonian catalog at siris.si.edu to find your own favorites. Though we have images from the 1840s to the 21^st century, from zoology to technology to history, there’s a clear theme to this year’s favorites.