Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="267" caption="S. Dillon Ripley (1913-2001) formal portrait as a child wearing a sailor suit, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Ripley served as the eighth Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution from 1964 to 1984, 1918, by Louis Fabian Bachrach, Photographic print, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 7008, Accession 93-105, Box 28;
Description: On January 24, 1925, for the first time in over a century, a total solar eclipse would be visible across the northern part of the United States. How scientists used a dirigible to observe the phenomenon.
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="430" caption="Civil Works Administration Project workers construct a trail to the Bird House in the National Zoological Park in March 1934, The Bird House appears in background, Depression era programs allowed the Zoo to build and renovate many facilities, 1934, by E. Hardy, Photographic print, Smithsonian Institution Archives Record,
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="442" caption="Grace Rogers Cooper, former curator in the Division of Textiles, receiving a thirty year certificate at her farewell party from Brooke Hindle, director of the National Museum of History and Technology (NMHT), now the National Museum of American History (NMAH), 1976, Alfred Harrell, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="432" caption="Rasmussen (left) and his two Inuit campanions, Arnarulunguak and Miteq, visit Washington, D.C. Born in Greenland of a Danish missionary father and an Inuit mother, Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen, 1879-1933, was a Danish arctic explorer and ethnologist, 1924, by Leo Hansen, Photographic print, Smithsonian Institution
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="425" caption="Image of Merle Crisler Foshag and her husband William F. Foshag, Curator in the U.S. National Museum's Department of Geology, The two are standing amid flowers, while on Foshag's scientific expedition to Tepoztlán, Mexico, 1929, by Unidentified photographer, Photographic print, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="425" caption="The package containing the Hope Diamond is presented to Smithsonian Secretary Dr. Leonard Carmichael, The donor, Harry Winston, shipped the diamond through the regular United States Postal Service via first-class mail; the postage cost him $2.44, plus $142.85 for $1 million dollars worth of insurance, November 10, 1958,
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="430" caption="Vice President Nelson Rockefeller and Secretary S. Dillon Ripley greet Queen Elizabeth II outside the Smithsonian Institution Building (SIB) or "Castle," July 8, 1976, during her visit to the United States to commemorate the Bicentennial of the American Revolution, 1976, by James Wallace, Black and white photographic
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="350" caption="A passenger pigeon Martha (named after Martha Washington), the last survivor of an American species that numbered in the millions prior to the 1880's, died in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914, Her body was donated to the Smithsonian Institution and brought to the United States National Museum, now the National Museum of Natural