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10/13/2026

Some of history’s most extraordinary stories begin with an ordinary object.📦

When they were finally opened, these steamer trunks turned out to be time capsules of Filipino American history.
 
Inside: letters, suits, keepsakes, and the stories of the farmworkers who helped build a community that still thrives today. Learn more about this story with our Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center.

Nourishing a baby Asian elephant takes serious science. 🐘🍼 Step inside the Smithsonian’s National Zoo kitchen, where cus...
10/09/2026

Nourishing a baby Asian elephant takes serious science. 🐘🍼 Step inside the Smithsonian’s National Zoo kitchen, where custom milk replacement is precision-mixed daily!

On the season premiere of , host Lizzie Peabody joins Robbie Clark, Curator of Elephants, to get inside calf Linh Mai’s intricate daily routine. Then, Lizzie steps into the nutrition lab for a hands-on lesson to whisk up formula and handle feeding duty!

Plus, Lizzie syncs up with Clinical Nutritionist Erin Kendrick and Microbial Ecologist Sally Bornbusch to dive into the cutting-edge science of helping Linh Mai’s gut microbiome. 🧬✨

Turn your sound UP for every slurp and trumpet! 🔊

Stream the full episode now! 🎧
https://www.si.edu/sidedoor/baby-elephant-and-elixir-poo

Margaret Hamilton, who helped the Apollo 11 astronauts reach the Moon, has died at age 90. As a leading computer scienti...
10/07/2026

Margaret Hamilton, who helped the Apollo 11 astronauts reach the Moon, has died at age 90. As a leading computer scientist at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, she was critical to the six successful lunar landings between 1969 and 1972.

Responsible for the Apollo flight software design, Hamilton and her team developed the guidance and navigation system for the spacecraft and wrote the code that brought astronauts into space and safely back home again. Every decision was documented. Every line of code explained.

Our National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution is home to several of Hamilton's papers, including a selection of the listings of the Apollo Guidance Computer source code, shown in this iconic photograph: https://s.si.edu/4yCbUEf 🚀🌙

“Grandmother of Juneteenth” Opal Lee turns 100 years old today. A retired teacher and counselor, she grew up celebratin...
10/07/2026

“Grandmother of Juneteenth” Opal Lee turns 100 years old today.


A retired teacher and counselor, she grew up celebrating Juneteenth in Texas and led the push to establish it as a federal holiday. Juneteenth marks the day when the Union Army arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced it would enforce the Emancipation Proclamation, two-and-a-half years after it was issued by President Lincoln.

At 89 years old, Lee led her first "Opal's Walk 2 D.C." march in 2016. These two-and-a-half-mile walks (the distance symbolizing the period of delayed liberation) inspired similar events across the U.S.

Sedrick Huckaby’s portrait of Lee depicts her sitting in a chair in her dining room. The coffee mug symbolizes the viewer’s “seat at the table” and invites us to join Lee in conversation. In 2024, she visited her portrait at our National Portrait Gallery, where she posed for a photo with the artist.

🖼️ : “Opal Lee” by Sedrick Huckaby, 2023. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Acquired through the generosity of Sasha and Edward P. Bass

📸: Photos courtesy of AB Corson Photography
National Portrait Gallery USA

10/06/2026

This colorful tapestry designed by artist Papa Ibra Tall is being unrolled behind the scenes at our National Museum of African Art as it’s prepared to go out for a loan show. While this Senegalese artist spent much of his early career studying in France, he returned to Senegal in 1960 to co-found the École Nationale des Beaux Arts in Dakar with fellow artists Iba N’Diaye and Pierre Lods. Five years later, Papa Ibra Tall founded Manufacture Sénégalaise des Arts Décoratifs which was dedicated to the creation of tapestry.

This tapestry, “Poete aux Mains Magiques” was created in 1969 and is an example of Ibra Tall’s dedication to Pan-African design.

10/05/2026

What do weather forecasting, communication tubes, and Abraham Lincoln all have in common? They all left their mark on the Smithsonian Castle.

As the Smithsonian Castle on the National Mall in Washington, DC undergoes a major, multi-year renovation, we’re uncovering three fascinating stories hidden inside the Smithsonian’s most iconic building.

10/02/2026

Design is everywhere. From handmade nails reimagined as a necklace to a chandelier made of broken porcelain plates, curator Emily Orr points out some of the extraordinary objects in ’s exhibition, “Design Across Time: Exploring the Smithsonian’s Design Collection.”

Featured artworks:
🔨 Tone Vigeland, “Necklace made from hammered nails,” 1983.
♻️ nendo, “The Cabbage Chair,” 2008.
💊 Verena Sieber-Fuchs, “Vitamin Store necklace made from pill capsules,” ca. 1990.
🧡 T***s Zynsky, “Auifero II vessel,” 2023.
🍽️ Ingo Maurer, “Porca Miseria! hanging lamp made from broken dishes and flatware,” 2000.

When you and your bestie have the same great idea. ❤️ Born in Chile, photographer Camilo José Vergara moved to New Yor...
09/30/2026

When you and your bestie have the same great idea. ❤️

Born in Chile, photographer Camilo José Vergara moved to New York City as a young adult and quickly became fascinated with the changing neighborhoods around him.

In the 1970s, Vergara began documenting the built environment—construction projects, bodegas, public housing, churches, and more. He returned to the same sites over and over again, inviting viewers to reflect on the passage of time and witness a transforming city.

It was in these early years of his career that Vergara also began capturing the everyday experiences of city residents. The joyful moments and the mundane ones are palpable. A group of girls play with their Barbies on a stoop, a bride and her wedding party pile into a church, and two boys stop for a crisp sip of water at an open fire hydrant.



📷:

Camilo José Vergara, “Avenue C, Lower East Side, from the series Old New York,” 1970, inkjet print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist © 1970, Camilo José Vergara

Camilo José Vergara, “Girls with Barbies, East Harlem, from the series Old New York,” 1970, inkjet print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist © 1970, Camilo José Vergara

Camilo José Vergara, “Puerto Rican Wedding, East Harlem, from the series Old New York,” 1970, inkjet print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist © 1970, Camilo José Vergara

Camilo José Vergara, “Boy, Morrisania, South Bronx, from the series Old New York,” 1970, inkjet print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist © 1970, Camilo José Vergara

Camilo José Vergara, Lower East Side, Manhattan, from the series Old New York, 1970, inkjet print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the artist © 1970, Camilo José Vergara
Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Renwick Gallery

09/30/2026

Ranging from asbestos newspaper used for insulation to photos on glass broken into a gazillion little pieces, photograph and paper conservator Shannon Brogdon-Grantham fields some strange and unusual questions.

Along with her fellow colleagues at the Smithsonian's Museum Conservation Institute, Brogdon-Grantham helps Smithsonian museums and research centers figure out the best ways to store, protect, and display their collections.

From relying on the naked eye to performing microscopic analysis, Brogdon-Grantham identifies types of photography to situate the image, and its subject, in time and to determine the best ways to preserve them for future generations.

We’ll have what they’re having. For 23 years, these neighbors celebrated the Fourth of July together on North Curley Str...
09/29/2026

We’ll have what they’re having. For 23 years, these neighbors celebrated the Fourth of July together on North Curley Street in Baltimore. In 1978, photographer Joan Clark Netherwood landed the coveted invite.

For the U.S. Bicentennial in 1976, the National Endowment for the Arts funded 70 regional surveys to document both people and places across the country, from the Northeast to the Southwest. Netherwood was one of three women behind one such survey, the East Baltimore Documentary Photography Project, which recorded working-class families of Polish, Ukrainian, Italian, and Greek descent during a time of demographic change in the area.

Rather than observing from a distance, Netherwood built relationships with residents, earning access to their churches, backyards, and kitchen tables. The result: intimate glimpses into these tight knit communities. In this Fourth of July scene, for instance, viewers might almost feel like they’re belly laughing with this group at the backyard barbeque.

Viewers might feel like they’re getting showered with rice at Mr. and Mrs. Frenchy’s 50th wedding anniversary vow renewal, losing, likely horribly, at cards to 90-year old Elizabeth and her bestie, Leah, at the kitchen table, or belly laughing with this group at the barbeque.

Now on view at our Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Renwick Gallery “Much Here Is Beautiful: Photography Surveys of the U.S. Bicentennial” features 225 photographs, including those from the East Baltimore project, that place the Bicentennial images within the broader legacy of federal survey photography and its lasting impact on generations of artists.

📷:

Joan Clark Netherwood, “Fourth of July celebration, unit block of North Curley Street—a 23 year tradition,” 1978, gelatin silver print, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the National Endowment for the Arts, 1983.63.1005, © Estate of Joan Clark Netherwood. Photography of artwork by Naomi Langer

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