Description: African American communities have celebrated Juneteenth for more than 150 years. When did the Smithsonian begin hosting programs to commemorate the nation’s second independence day?
Description: On this day in 1850, a young man was killed in the Castle, the first of four deaths to occur within its walls. William H. Page was working in the building, which was still under construction at the time, when he fell to his death.
Description: Handwriting is a personal passion of mine, despite it having become something of a lost art. Today, when most people think of handwriting at all, it is as a greatly individual method of writing recognizable characters, regardless of the writing system, but in the past, when you could make a living as a scribe, there were highly standardized styles.
Description: Spencer F. Baird and George Brown Goode used their diverse, and sometimes quirky, contacts from the U.S. Fish Commission to fill exhibit cabinets in the U.S. National Museum.
Description: A brief biographical sketch of Dr. Gabriele Rabel, Austrian born phyisist, biologist, philosopher, author, and stringer for Science Service in the 1930’s.