Description: [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="376" caption="Painters sitting boards on top of wooden scaffolding, painting the ceiling of a wing of the new United States National Museum, now the National Museum of Natural History, building soon after it was finished being built, 1912, Richard Rathbun, Photographic print, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 532, Box 104,
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: [view in Spanish] Smithsonian scientists have a long history of collaborative research in the Caribbean. In 1914 a Smithsonian expedition traveled to western Cuba and the Colorados reefs to study land and marine geology, flora, and fauna. John Brooks Henderson, a member of the Smithsonian's Board of Regents, had collected marine mollusks in southern Florida and wanted a