Description: The Smithsonian Folklife Festival will be held from June 30 to July 4 and July 7 to 11, 2011 on the National Mall. Read more about the history of the Folklife Festival here. At the Smithsonian Folklife Festival this year, the Peace Corps is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. On March 1, 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed an Executive Order authorizing the Peace Corps to
Description: The National Museum of American History, known as the National Museum of History and Technology until 1980, was established in 1957 to house the growing US National Museum’s collections on the social, cultural, scientific, and technological history of the United States. The new museum opened in January of 1964.History of the National Museum of American HistoryAdditional
Description: Vicarious research is one of the great joys of the reference desk at the Smithsonian Institution Archives. From our front-row (well, only-row) seat outside the reading room, we catch tantalizing glimpses of our patrons’ manifold research topics.The reference team fields thousands of questions per year.