Description: In 1925, seven George Washington University students volunteered to stay awake for sixty hours, and drove, danced, sang, and swam in an effort to remain alert.
Description: Listen to reenactments of two articles that were published in the 1936 Smithsonian Annual Report as broadcast during The World Is Yours episode “Smithsonian Annual Report of Scientific Progress.”
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="311" caption="Josef J. Fénykövi sent a series of images in February 1958 of a young (15-18 years old) bull elephant, captured in Angola a few days before the photographs were taken, to Dr. Remington Kellogg, director of the United States National Museum (USNM), to help the USNM taxidermists in their preparation of a model, on which to
Description: Barbeque. Doughboy. Free trade. Pumple-nose. Smugglers. Cortan. Crockadore. Chopsticks. William Dampier, the 17th century explorer turned privateer/pirate, is credited with introducing these words, and more than 1,000 others, into the English vernacular. He was the first explorer to circumnavigate the globe three times, and created the first detailed record of Australian Flora
Description: Before Uncle Beazley, the popular life-size model of a triceratops, made its way to its final destination at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, he stopped at a couple other destinations around the Institution.
Description: In August 1996, the Smithsonian marked its 150th anniversary with a huge birthday celebration on the National Mall. For its sesquicentennial, a term which this author constantly forgets no matter how many times she looks it up, the Institution threw itself a two-day birthday party, sprinkled with special exhibit tents, concerts, nineteen birthday cakes, a special website, and
Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="380" caption="James Smithson bronze bust, commissioned by Paul E. Garber, historian emeritus at the National Air and Space Museum, made by sculptor Felix de Weldon, who stands next to it, De Weldon worked from an examination of Smithson's skull performed by Dr. J. Lawrence Angel, curator of Physical Anthropology in the National Museum
Description: 100 years ago in August of 1914, the Panama Canal opened to commercial shipping. Smithsonian scientists knew the canal would create major environmental changes and have spent the last 100 years documenting them.
Description: Discusses the opening of an exhibit When Time and Duty Permit: Smithsonian Collecting in World War II and the correspondence files that will be displayed.