From the Collections

Lisa Kathleen Graddy and Jon Grinspan, curators with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History

How Do Smithsonian Curators Decide What to Collect at the Political Conventions?

For Smithsonian’s Lisa Kathleen Graddy and Jon Grinspan, it’s trying to guess what people of the future will want to know about 2016

Still Life With Spirit and Xitle by Jimmie Durham, 2007, goes on view at the Hirshhorn Museum.

Meet the Man Who Dropped a Boulder on a Chrysler

Ex-pat rebel sculptor Jimmie Durham's funny work is celebrated in the capital of the country he left

A 3D view of the console of the Apollo 11 "Columbia" command module.

Cool Finds

Explore the Apollo 11 Command Module in 3D

For the first time, you can peek inside the craft that enabled “one giant leap for mankind”

Ballast from the first historically documented ship carrying enslaved Africans that wrecked off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa in December 1794.

Breaking Ground

Few Artifacts of the Transatlantic Slave Trade Still Exist. These Iron Blocks Help Tell That Gut-Wrenching Story

A profound symbol of the horrific conditions aboard a slave ship is the ballast used as a counterweight for human cargo

NOW co-founder Muriel Fox says: “There’s still a need for a women’s movement. We can’t do it as individuals, each of us working for our own interests. We get much further if we work together."

The NOW Button Takes Us Back When Women's Equality Was a Novelty

At the half-century mark, for the National Organization for Women it is still personal—and political

A 1959 exhibition of the first video game "Tennis For Two," designed physicist William Higinbotham at Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1958.

The Innovative Spirit fy17

The Pioneers of Video Game Technology Are About to Become the Stuff of History

The American History Museum's Lemelson Center will record 20 oral histories from early video game innovators

A prototype gene gun developed by Dennis McCabe and Brian Martinell in 1986 delivered new genetic material into the cells of plants.

Age of Humans

How Roundup Ready Soybeans Rocked the Food Economy

This 1980s-era “gene gun” fired the shot heard around the world

For the first time in 32 years, the Smithsonian's National Zoo’s celebrated the arrival of a sea lion pup.

Proud Sea Lion Mom Shows Off Her New Pup in These Adorable Pictures From the Zoo

Calli, the 11-year-old sea lion gave birth on June 26; mother and pup are bonding and doing well

Museum collections can help public health officials identify new diseases, learn their origins, and determine how to best stop them.

Museum Director Calls for Increased Funding for Scientific Collections to Save Lives

Infectious disease researchers should be using museum collections to fight newly discovered pathogens

Likely made from a cow’s horn, this Revolutionary War era gunpowder holder belonged to patriot fighter Prince Simbo.

Breaking Ground

The Revolutionary War Patriot Who Carried This Gunpowder Horn Was Fighting for Freedom—Just Not His Own

Simbo, an African-American patriot, fought for his country's liberty and freedom even as a large population remained enslaved

This Is Martha, the World's Last Known Passenger Pigeon

Martha, was the last passenger pigeon to ever fly

One of the two balloons that will be used for tethered flights Saturday at the Udvar-Hazy Center was made especially for the museum and donated recently by Adams Balloons LLC.

A Recently Acquired Hot-Air Balloon Reminds a Smithsonian Curator of Another Tale of Ballooning Adventure

At the Udvar-Hazy Center this weekend, see the Smithsonian’s new modern hot-air balloon

Female Batang and male Kyle mated in January and today, via a Facebook broadcast ultrasound, a pregnancy was confirmed.

With Her Ultrasound Broadcast on Facebook, the Zoo's Orangutan Is Confirmed Pregnant

The female named Batang should deliver her new infant in mid-September

The restored Pullman Palace passenger car, which ran along the Southern Railway route during the "Jim Crow" era of the 20th century, serves as a signature artifact in the new museum.

Breaking Ground

This Segregated Railway Car Offers a Visceral Reminder of the Jim Crow Era

Subtle and not-so-subtle reminders of a time when local and state laws forced racial segration

Front and back of the letter written by Charles Darwin to Ferdinand Vandeveer Hayden on May 2, 1875

A Letter Written by Charles Darwin, Twice Stolen, Returns to the Smithsonian

After being snatched by an intern in the mid 1970s, the missive written by the scientist returns to Washington

This first-person account by B.C. Franklin is titled "The Tulsa Race Riot and Three of Its Victims." It was recovered from a storage area in 2015 and donated to the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Breaking Ground

A Long-Lost Manuscript Contains a Searing Eyewitness Account of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921

An Oklahoma lawyer details the attack by hundreds of whites on the thriving black neighborhood where hundreds died 95 years ago

Louis Armstrong's historic trumpet was a "great playing" instrument, says Wynton Marsalis, after his performance last Fall at the Smithsonian.

Breaking Ground

To Really Appreciate Louis Armstrong's Trumpet, You Gotta Play it. Just Ask Wynton Marsalis

It’s not always the white-glove treatment; some artifacts live on through performance

Blair's Snow White Hair Beautifier

Old Cosmetics Made New Again Through the Art of Digitization

Arsenic Complexion Wafers? A whole new world of yesteryear cosmetics just got a refresh

This Powerful Stokely Carmichael Portrait Never Made It to the Cover of Time Magazine

The artwork, by famed artist Jacob Lawrence, captured the turning point in the Civil Rights Movement

The Biodiversity Heritage Library has the digitized version of the University of Toronto’s Fisher Library’s copy of Evelyn’s work

Celebrate National Salad Month with Rare and Historic Books that Include Your Favorite Leafy Greens

A Smithsonian librarian journeys through history and time on a quest to explore salads throughout antiquity

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