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• 
  Arizona
  Arizona (ⁱ/ɛrɪˈzoʊnə/; /ærɪˈzoʊnə/) (Navajo: Hoozdo Hahoodzo; O'odham: Alĭ ṣonak) is a state of the United States, located in the southwestern region of the country. Arizona is also part of the Western United States and of the Mountain West states. Arizona is the sixth most extensive and the 16th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. The second largest city is Tucson, followed in population by eight cities of the Phoenix metropolitan area: Mesa, Chandler, Glendale, Scottsdale, Gilbert, Tempe, Peoria, and Surprise.
  Arizona is the 48th state and last of the contiguous states to be admitted to the Union, and it achieved statehood on February 14, 1912. Arizona is noted for its desert climate in its southern half, where there are very hot summers and quite mild winters. The northern half of Arizona also features forests of pine, Douglas fir, and spruce trees, a very large, high plateau (the Colorado Plateau) and some mountain ranges—such as the San Francisco Mountains—as well as large, deep canyons, where there is much more moderate weather for three seasons of the year, plus significant snowfalls. There are ski resorts in the areas of Flagstaff and Alpine.
  
  wn.com/Arizona
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  Bloomsbury
  Coordinates: 51°31′34″N 0°07′04″W / 51.5262°N 0.1178°W / 51.5262; -0.1178
  Bloomsbury is an area of central London between Euston Road and Holborn, developed by the Russell family in the 17th and 18th centuries into a fashionable residential area. It is notable for its array of garden squares, literary connections (exemplified by the Bloomsbury Group) and numerous cultural, educational and healthcare institutions. While Bloomsbury was not the first area of London to have acquired a formal square, Bloomsbury Square, laid out in 1660 by Thomas Wriothesley, 4th Earl of Southampton as Southampton Square, was the first square to be named as such.
  Bloomsbury is home to the University of London's central bodies and departments, including the Senate House Library and School of Advanced Study, and several of its colleges, including University College London, Birkbeck, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the School of Pharmacy and the School of Oriental and African Studies. Numerous healthcare institutions are located in Bloomsbury, including the British Medical Association, Great Ormond Street Hospital, the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, University College Hospital and the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine. The British Museum and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art are also located in the area.
  
  wn.com/Bloomsbury
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  Enola Gay
  Enola Gay is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, mother of the pilot, then-Colonel (later Brigadier General) Paul Tibbets. On 6 August 1945, during the final stages of World War II, it became the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb as a weapon of war. The bomb, code-named "Little Boy", was targeted at the city of Hiroshima, Japan, and caused extensive destruction.
  The Enola Gay gained additional attention in 1995 when the cockpit and nose section of the aircraft were exhibited during the bombing's 50th anniversary at the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution in downtown Washington, D.C. The exhibit was changed due to a controversy over original historical script displayed with the aircraft. Since 2003, the entire restored B-29 has been on display at NASM's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.
  The Enola Gay (B-29-45-MO, AAF Serial Number 44-86292, Victor number 82) was built by the Glenn L. Martin Company (now Lockheed Martin) at its Bellevue, Nebraska, plant, at what is now known as Offutt Air Force Base, and was one of 15 B-29s with the "Silverplate" modifications necessary to deliver atomic weapons, which included an extensively modified bomb bay with pneumatic doors, special propellors, modified engines and the deletion of protective armor and gun turrets. Enola Gay was personally selected by Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., commander of the 509th Composite Group, on 9 May 1945, while still on the assembly line.
  
  wn.com/Enola_Gay
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  Harvard University
  Harvard University is an American private Ivy League research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation (officially The President and Fellows of Harvard College) chartered in the country. Harvard's history, influence, and wealth have made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world.
  Harvard was named after its first benefactor, John Harvard. Although never formally affiliated with a church, the college primarily trained Congregationalist and Unitarian clergy. Harvard's curriculum and students became secular throughout the 18th century and by the 19th century had emerged as the central cultural establishment among Boston elites. Following the American Civil War, President Charles W. Eliot's forty year tenure (1869–1909) transformed the college and affiliated professional schools into a centralized research university, and Harvard became a founding member of the Association of American Universities in 1900.James Bryant Conant led the university through the Great Depression and World War II and began to reform the curriculum and liberalize admissions after the war. The undergraduate college became coeducational after its 1977 merger with Radcliffe College. Drew Gilpin Faust was elected the 28th president in 2007 and is the first woman to lead the university. Harvard has the largest financial endowment of any academic institution in the world, standing at $32 billion as of September 2011.
  
  wn.com/Harvard_University
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  Jefferson Pier
  Jefferson Pier, Jefferson Stone, or the Jefferson Pier Stone, in Washington, D.C., marks the second prime meridian of the United States even though it was never officially recognized, either by presidential proclamation or by a resolution or act of Congress. The stone is on the National Mall almost due south of the center of the White House and the midline of 16th Street, NW, about due west of the center of the United States Capitol building, almost due north of the center of the Jefferson Memorial and 391 ft (119 m) WNW of the center of the Washington Monument.
  The monument is a 2.25-foot (0.7 m) X 2.25-foot (0.7 m), 3-foot (0.9 m) tall granitic monolith with crossing longitudinal and latitudinal lines engraved on its upper surface and with a defaced inscription engraved on its west face that states:
  Position of Jefferson
  Pier erected Dec. 18, 1804.
  Recovered and Re-erected
  Dec. 2, 1889.
  XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
  District of Columbia
  The chiseled-out fifth line reportedly once incorrectly stated: "BEING THE CENTRE POINT OF THE".
  
  wn.com/Jefferson_Pier
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  Maryland
  Maryland (ⁱ/ˈmɛrɨlənd/) is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east. Maryland was the seventh state to ratify the United States Constitution, and three nicknames for it (the Old Line State, the Free State, and the Chesapeake Bay State) are occasionally used. Maryland is the 9th smallest state by area, but the 19th most populous and the 5th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The state's most populated city is Baltimore. Its capital is Annapolis. It was named after Queen Henrietta Maria.
  Maryland has an area of 12,406.68 square miles (32,133.2 km²) and is comparable in overall area with the European country of Belgium (11,787 square miles (30,530 km²)). It is the 42nd largest/9th smallest state, and is closest in size to Hawaii (10,930.98 square miles (28,311.1 km²)), the next smallest state. The next largest state, Maryland's neighbor West Virginia, is almost twice the size of Maryland (24,229.76 square miles (62,754.8 km²)).
  
  wn.com/Maryland
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  Massachusetts
  Massachusetts (ⁱ/ˌmæsəˈtʃuːsɨts/), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. Massachusetts is the 7th least extensive, but the 14th most populous and the 3rd most densely populated of the 50 United States. The state features two separate metropolitan areas – the eastern Boston metropolitan area and the western Springfield metropolitan area. Approximately two thirds of the state's population lives in Greater Boston, most of which is either urban or suburban. Western Massachusetts features one urban area – the Knowledge Corridor along the Connecticut River – and a mix of college towns and rural areas. Massachusetts is the most populous of the six New England states and has the US's sixth highest GDP per capita.
  
  wn.com/Massachusetts
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  New York City
  New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. The city is referred to as New York City or The City of New York to distinguish it from the State of New York, of which it is a part. As a global power city, New York exerts a significant impact upon commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment. The home of the United Nations Headquarters, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has been described as the cultural capital of the world.
  Located on one of the world's largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, each of which comprises a state county. The five boroughs—The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island—were consolidated into a single city in 1898. With a Census-estimated 2011 population of 8,244,910 distributed over a land area of just 305 square miles (790 km²), New York is the most densely populated major city in the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. The New York City Metropolitan Area's population is the United States' largest, with 18.9 million people distributed over 6,720 square miles (17,400 km²), and is also part of the most populous combined statistical area in the United States, containing 22.1 million people as of the 2010 Census.
  
  wn.com/New_York_City
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  Pacific Ocean
  The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.
  At 165.2 million square kilometres (64.1 million square miles) in area, this largest division of the World Ocean – and, in turn, the hydrosphere – covers about 46% of the Earth's water surface and about one-third of its total surface area, making it larger than all of the Earth's land area combined. The equator subdivides it into the North Pacific Ocean and South Pacific Ocean, with two exceptions: the Galápagos and Gilbert Islands, while straddling the equator, are deemed wholly within the South Pacific. The Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific is the deepest point in the world, reaching a depth of 10,911 metres (35,797 ft).
  The eastern Pacific Ocean was first sighted by Europeans early in the 16th century. Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama in 1513 and named it Mar del Sur (South Sea). The ocean's current name was given by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish expedition of world circumnavigation in 1521, who encountered favourable winds as he reached the ocean and called it Mar Pacifico in Portuguese, meaning "peaceful sea".
  
  wn.com/Pacific_Ocean
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  Panama
  Panama (ⁱ/ˈpænəmɑː/ PAN-ə-mah; Spanish: Panamá), officially the Republic of Panama (Spanish: República de Panamá [reˈpuβlika ðe panaˈma]), is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The capital is Panama City. Explored and settled by the Spanish in the 16th century, Panama broke with Spain in 1821 and joined a union of Nueva Granada, Ecuador, and Venezuela, named the Republic of Gran Colombia.When Gran Colombia the dissolved in 1831, Panama and Nueva Granada remained joined. Nueva Granada later became the Republic of Colombia.
  With the backing of the United States, Panama seceded from Colombia in 1903, allowing the Panama Canal to be built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between 1904 and 1914. In 1977, an agreement was signed for the complete transfer of the Canal from the United States to Panama by the end of the century.
  
  wn.com/Panama
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  Peace Monument
  The Peace Monument, also known as the Naval Monument or Civil War Sailors Monument, stands on the grounds of the United States Capitol in Peace Circle at First Street, N.W., and Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. The 44 foot (13.4 m) high white marble memorial was erected in 1877-1878 to commemorate the naval deaths at sea during the American Civil War. Today it stands as part of a three-part sculptural group including the James A. Garfield Monument and the Ulysses S. Grant Memorial.
  At the top of the monument, facing west, stand two classically robed female figures. Grief holds her covered face against the shoulder of History and weeps in mourning. History holds a stylus and a tablet that was inscribed "They died that their country might live." Below Grief and History, another life-size classical female figure represents Victory, holding high a laurel wreath and carrying an oak branch, signifying strength. Below her are the infant Mars, the god of war, and the infant Neptune, god of the sea. The shaft of the monument is decorated with wreaths, ribbons, and scallop shells.
  
  wn.com/Peace_Monument
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  Pentagon Memorial
  The Pentagon Memorial, located just southwest of The Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, is a permanent outdoor memorial to the 184 men and women who lost their lives as victims of the attack, killed both in the building and on American Airlines Flight 77 in the September 11, 2001 attacks.
  Designed by Julie Beckman and Keith Kaseman of the architectural firm of Kaseman Beckman Advanced Strategies with engineers Buro Happold, the memorial opened to the public on September 11, 2008.
  In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, an impromptu memorial was set up on a hill at the Navy Annex, overlooking the Pentagon. People came to pay respects and place tributes. One month after the attacks, 25,000 people attended a memorial service at the Pentagon for employees and family members; speakers included President George W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Bush remarked, "The wound to this building will not be forgotten, but it will be repaired. Brick by brick, we will quickly rebuild the Pentagon." The American flag that hung on the Pentagon, near the damaged section, was lowered during the service.
  
  wn.com/Pentagon_Memorial
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  Rainbow Pool
  The Rainbow Pool was a reflecting pool located in Washington D.C.. It was replaced by the National World War II Memorial, which also features a reflecting pool located in roughly the same spot as the Rainbow Pool.
  Coordinates: 38°53′21.83″N 77°2′25.87″W / 38.8893972°N 77.0405194°W / 38.8893972; -77.0405194
  
  
  
  wn.com/Rainbow_Pool
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  The Extra Mile
  The Extra Mile - Points of Light Volunteer Pathway is a national monument installed in the sidewalks of Washington D.C.. The markers form a one-mile walking path through an area bounded by Pennsylvania Avenue, 15th Street, G Street, and 11th Street, NW.^{[broken citation]} The honorees of the monument are people who "through their caring and personal sacrifice, reached out to others, building their dreams into movements that helped people across America and throughout the world". Each honoree has a custom-made bronze medallion installed along the path. It currently has 20 such monuments, but there are plans to extend it down to 11th Street and back up F Street so it forms a mile-long pathway of 70 medallions. The monument was dedicated on October 14, 2005 in a ceremony attended by George H.W. Bush and Laura Bush.
  Their medallions will be installed in additional ceremonies:
  Coordinates: 38°53′44″N 77°02′01″W / 38.8955°N 77.0336°W / 38.8955; -77.0336
  
  wn.com/The_Extra_Mile
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  The Three Soldiers
  The Three Soldiers (also known as The Three Servicemen) is a bronze statue, on the Washington, DC National Mall commemorating the Vietnam War. It was created and designed to complement the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, by adding a more traditional component to the Memorial.
  This well-known sculpture by U.S. artist and sculptor Frederick Hart portrays three young U.S. fighting men, completely dressed and outfitted in uniforms and equipment used by U.S. infantrymen in the Vietnam War. While the military attire is meant to be symbolic and general in nature, the personal combat equipment displayed is actually quite specific in representing the figures as serving in either the U.S. Army, or U.S. Marine Corps.
  Of the three fighting men, the lead figure (in the middle) represents a Marine, as he wears a Type M-1955 body armor vest, which was worn exclusively by Marines in Vietnam. He is armed only with a Colt M1911A1 .45 caliber automatic pistol, which is carried in a Government Issue (GI) M-1916 leather pistol holster, positioned on the right hip. The M-1916 holster is attached to an M-1956 GI pistol belt, and a small GI .45 pistol magazine pouch is carried on the belt's left front. The M-1911A1 .45 caliber pistol was used by Marine enlisted, NCO, and officer ranks, so its depiction is consistent with a Marine of any rank. The Marine wears no shirt, and his body armor vest serves as his only upper-body clothing. His remaining combat attire consists of Tropical Combat Trousers, and Tropical ("jungle") Combat Boots; he wears no headgear. Like his comrades, he carries a pair of plastic GI 1-quart canteens, carried in two M-1956 canteen covers that are attached to his pistol belt, and situated at the rear center hip.
  
  wn.com/The_Three_Soldiers
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  United States
  The United States of America (commonly abbreviated to the United States, the U.S., the USA, America, and the States) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west, across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Pacific and Caribbean.
  At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km²) and with over 312 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and the third largest by both land area and population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The U.S. economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2011 GDP of $15.1 trillion (22% of nominal global GDP and over 19% of global GDP at purchasing-power parity). Per capita income is the world's sixth-highest.
  
  wn.com/United_States
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  Virginia
  Virginia (ⁱ/vərˈdʒɪnjə/), officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state located in the South Atlantic region of the United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, which provide habitat for much of its flora and fauna. The capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond; Virginia Beach is the most populous city and Fairfax County the most populous political subdivision. The Commonwealth's population is over eight million.
  The area's history begins with several indigenous groups, including the Powhatan. In 1607 the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent New World English colony. Slave labor and the land acquired from displaced Native American tribes each played a significant role in the colony's early politics and plantation economy. Virginia was one of the 13 Colonies in the American Revolution and joined the Confederacy in the American Civil War, during which Richmond was made the Confederate capital and Virginia's northwestern counties separated to form the state of West Virginia. Although the Commonwealth was under conservative single-party rule for nearly a century following Reconstruction, both major national parties are competitive in modern Virginia.
  
  wn.com/Virginia
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  White House
  The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical style. It has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams. When Thomas Jefferson moved into the house in 1801, he (with architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe) expanded the building outward, creating two colonnades that were meant to conceal stables and storage.
  In 1814, during the War of 1812, the mansion was set ablaze by the British Army in the Burning of Washington, destroying the interior and charring much of the exterior. Reconstruction began almost immediately, and President James Monroe moved into the partially reconstructed house in October 1817. Construction continued with the addition of the South Portico in 1824 and the North in 1829. Because of crowding within the executive mansion itself, President Theodore Roosevelt had all work offices relocated to the newly constructed West Wing in 1901. Eight years later, President William Howard Taft expanded the West Wing and created the first Oval Office which was eventually moved as the section was expanded. The third-floor attic was converted to living quarters in 1927 by augmenting the existing hip roof with long shed dormers. A newly constructed East Wing was used as a reception area for social events; Jefferson's colonnades connected the new wings. East Wing alterations were completed in 1946, creating additional office space. By 1948, the house's load-bearing exterior walls and internal wood beams were found to be close to failure. Under Harry S. Truman, the interior rooms were completely dismantled and a new internal load-bearing steel frame constructed inside the walls. Once this work was completed, the interior rooms were rebuilt.
  
  wn.com/White_House

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  Alexander Wetmore
  Frank Alexander Wetmore (June 18, 1886 – December 7, 1978) was an American ornithologist and avian paleontologist. He was the sixth Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
  Wetmore studied at the University of Kansas. He later studied at George Washington University, receiving his masters degree and doctorate.
  Wetmore began federal service in 1910, working for the Biological Survey of the Department of Agriculture.
  In 1915, he researched the use of lead shot in causing death in waterfowl. His paleontological research led to his work on the fossil birds Palaeochenoides mioceanus and Nesotrochis debooyi.
  In 1924, Wetmore joined the Smithsonian Institution as the superintendent of the National Zoological Park in Washington. In 1925, Wetmore was appointed assistant secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, becoming secretary between 1945 and 1952. In 1939 he was elected a Corresponding Member of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists Union
  He wrote A Systematic Classification for the Birds of the World (1930, revised in 1951 and 1960). This Wetmore Order received widespread acceptance, remaining popular until the end of the twentieth century.
  
  wn.com/Alexander_Wetmore
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  Andrew Jackson
  Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was the seventh President of the United States (1829–1837). Based in frontier Tennessee, Jackson was a politician and army general who defeated the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend (1814), and the British at the Battle of New Orleans (1815). A polarizing figure who dominated the Second Party System in the 1820s and 1830s, as president he destroyed the national bank and relocated most Indian tribes from the Southeast to west of the Mississippi River. His enthusiastic followers created the modern Democratic Party. The 1830–1850 period later became known as the era of Jacksonian democracy.
  Jackson was nicknamed "Old Hickory" because of his toughness and aggressive personality; he fought in duels, some fatal to his opponents. He was a rich slaveholder, who appealed to the common men of the United States, and fought politically against what he denounced as a closed, undemocratic aristocracy. He expanded the spoils system during his presidency to strengthen his political base.
  
  wn.com/Andrew_Jackson
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  Charles Lang Freer
  Charles Lang Freer (February 25, 1854 – October 25, 1919) was an American railroad-car manufacturer from Detroit, Michigan, who gave to the United States his art collections and funds for a building to house them. The Freer Gallery of Art founded by him is part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
  Freer was born in Kingston, New York, in 1854 or 1856. As a teen, rather than finish high school, he went to work as a business clerk for a business. There, he was noticed by Frank J. Hecker, the manager of a local railroad, who hired Freer as a bookkeeper. In the 1870s, a group of investors from Detroit decided to build a rail line in Logansport, Indiana; they hired Hecker to manage the project. Hecker brought the younger Freer along.
  Although the project was eventually merged out of existence, the investors were happy with Hecker and Freer, and invited the two to Detroit. In 1885, using their own capital and that of investors, Hecker and Freer formed the Peninsular Car Company to build rail cars. The investment made both wealthy, as Peninsular became Detroit's second largest car manufacturer, merging to become the Michigan-Peninsular Car Company in 1892. At the time, Michigan-Peninsular Car was Michigan's largest manufacturer. It merged again into American Car and Foundry in 1899.
  
  wn.com/Charles_Lang_Freer
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  Cristián Samper
  Cristián T. Samper Kutschbach (born September 25, 1965) is a Colombian-American biologist and Director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History. He was acting secretary of the Smithsonian from 2007 to 2008, the first Latin American to hold the position.
  Samper was born on September 25, 1965 in San José, Costa Rica, the youngest child of Armando Samper Gnecco, an Agronomist and Economist from Colombia, and Jean Kutschbach, an American from New York State. He was raised in Colombia, the country of his father, Armando Samper, from one year of age. His other siblings were Marta, Belén, and Mario.
  Samper graduated in 1987 from the University of the Andes in Bogotá, Colombia, with a B.Sc. in Biology. He then moved to the United States to attend Harvard University, where he graduated in 1989 with a M.Sc., and received his Ph.D. in Biology in 1992 with his dissertation Natural disturbance and plant establishment in an Andean cloud forest.
  Back in Colombia, he participated and collaborated with the creation of the Colombian Ministry of Environment in 1993, and was successful in conceiving the Alexander von Humboldt Biological Resources Research Institute, a public funded research institute of which he became its first Director from 1995 to 2001. In 1999 he was appointed Chairman of the Subsidiary Body of Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, a post he held until 2001. He was Deputy Director and staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama.
  
  wn.com/Cristián_Samper
• Ira Michael Heyman
  Ira Michael Heyman (May 30, 1930 – November 19, 2011) was an Emeritus Professor of Law and of City and Regional Planning, and was Chancellor of University of California, Berkeley, and Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
  Heyman was born in 1930 in New York City. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1951. After serving as a U.S. Marine Corps officer during the Korean War, he entered Yale University Law School, where he became editor of the Yale Law Journal. He graduated in 1956, and from 1958 to 1959 he served as a law clerk for Chief Justice Earl Warren.
  He joined the law faculty at Berkeley in 1959, and he became Vice Chancellor in 1974. He was named Berkeley's sixth Chancellor and served in that capacity from 1980 to 1990. He returned to teaching law after leaving the Chancellorship. He was Counselor to the Secretary and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy at the U.S. Department of Interior, from 1993 to 1994; and Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution from 1994 to 2000. At Dartmouth he joined Theta Chi. During his Berkeley years he became a member of the Bohemian Grove, at which his closest associates included Caspar Weinberger.
  
  wn.com/Ira_Michael_Heyman
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  James Smithson
  James Smithson, FRS, M.A. (ca. 1765 – 27 June 1829) was a British chemist and mineralogist. He was the founding donor of the Smithsonian Institution.
  Smithson was was the illegitimate child of the 1st Duke of Northumberland, and was born, James Lewis Macie, in secret in Paris. Eventually he was naturalized in England and he attended college, studying chemistry and mineralogy. At age twenty-two he changed his name to James Smithson, his father's surname. Smithson traveled extensively throughout Europe publishing papers about his findings. Considered an amateur in his field, Smithson maintained an inheritance he acquired from his mother and other relatives. He was never married and had no children, therefore, when he wrote his will he left his estate to his nephew, or his nephew's family if his nephew died before Smithson. If his nephew was to die without a family, Smithson would donate his estate to the founding of an educational institution in Washington, D.C., in the United States. His nephew died and was unable to claim to be the recipient of his estate, therefore, Smithson became the founding donor of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. He never visited the United States.
  
  wn.com/James_Smithson
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  John Quincy Adams
  John Quincy Adams ⁱ/ˈkwɪnzi/ (July 11, 1767 – February 23, 1848) was the sixth President of the United States (1825–1829). He served as an American diplomat, Senator, and Congressional representative. He was a member of the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and later Anti-Masonic and Whig parties. Adams was the son of former President John Adams and Abigail Adams. As a diplomat, Adams played an important role in negotiating many international treaties, most notably the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812. As Secretary of State, he negotiated with the United Kingdom over America's northern border with Canada, negotiated with Spain the annexation of Florida, and authored the Monroe Doctrine. Historians agree he was one of the greatest diplomats and secretaries of state in American history.
  As president, he sought to modernize the American economy and promoted education. Adams enacted a part of his agenda and paid off much of the national debt. He was stymied by a Congress controlled by his enemies, and his lack of patronage networks helped politicians eager to undercut him. He lost his 1828 bid for re-election to Andrew Jackson. In doing so, he became the first President since his father to serve a single term.
  
  wn.com/John_Quincy_Adams
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  Joseph Henry
  Joseph Henry (December 17, 1797 – May 13, 1878) was an American scientist who served as the first Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, as well as a founding member of the National Institute for the Promotion of Science, a precursor of the Smithsonian Institution. During his lifetime, he was highly regarded. While building electromagnets, Henry discovered the electromagnetic phenomenon of self-inductance. He also discovered mutual inductance independently of Michael Faraday, though Faraday was the first to publish his results. The SI unit of inductance, the henry, is named in his honor. Henry's work on the electromagnetic relay was the basis of the electrical telegraph, invented by Samuel Morse and Charles Wheatstone separately.
  Henry was born in Albany, New York to Scottish immigrants Ann Alexander Henry and William Henry. His parents were poor, and Henry's father died while he was still young. For the rest of his childhood, Henry lived with his grandmother in Galway, New York. He attended a school which would later be named the "Joseph Henry Elementary School" in his honor. After school, he worked at a general store, and at the age of thirteen became an apprentice watchmaker and silversmith. Joseph's first love was theater and he came close to becoming a professional actor. His interest in science was sparked at the age of sixteen by a book of lectures on scientific topics titled Popular Lectures on Experimental Philosophy. In 1819 he entered The Albany Academy, where he was given free tuition. He was so poor, even with free tuition, that he had to support himself with teaching and private tutoring positions. He intended to go into the field of medicine, but in 1824 he was appointed an assistant engineer for the survey of the State road being constructed between the Hudson River and Lake Erie. From then on, he was inspired to a career in either civil or mechanical engineering.
  
  wn.com/Joseph_Henry
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  Leonard Carmichael
  Leonard Carmichael (November 9, 1898 – September 16, 1973) was a U.S. educator and psychologist. In addition, he became the seventh secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in 1953.
  Carmichael, the son of a physician and a teacher, was born in 1898, in Germantown, Pennsylvania. He received his BS degree from Tufts University in 1924, and his PhD from Harvard University in 1924. He was a brother in the Theta Delta Chi fraternity during his time at Tufts. He became an instructor at Princeton University's Department of Psychology in 1924 and was appointed to assistant professor in 1926. For fourteen years, Carmichael taught at Brown University, focusing on an experimental psychology with primates. After being part of the Brown University faculty from 1927 to 1936, he left for the Univ. of Rochester. He was appointed president of Tufts University in 1938, serving until his departure for the Smithsonian in 1953.
  Carmichael served as the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution from 1953 to 1964. He was the first Secretary to be hired from outside the Institution, rather than promoted from within. During Carmichael’s tenure, the National Portrait Gallery was created, and the Patent Office Building was acquired for the American Art and Portrait Galleries. New wings were added to the National Museum of Natural History, Hope Diamond was donated by Harry Winston, and the Fénykövi elephant was unveiled in the rotunda of the Natural History Museum. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory was revitalized and moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1957, when Sputnik was launched, the observatory was the only US lab capable of tracking the Soviet satellite. After the death of a visitor at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park, Carmichael sought additional funding for major improvements to meet safety regulations. The Friends of the National Zoo was created and a Master Plan for zoo improvement was formulated and initiated.
  
  wn.com/Leonard_Carmichael
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  Richard Rush
  Richard Rush (August 29, 1780 – July 30, 1859) was United States Attorney General under James Madison and United States Secretary of the Treasury under John Quincy Adams as well as John Quincy Adams running mate when he ran for re-election on the National Republican ticket in 1828. Rush also served as United States minister to England and France at various times.
  Rush was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was the second son (and third child) of Benjamin Rush (one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and a prominent physician) and Julia (Stockton) Rush. He entered the College of New Jersey (now known as Princeton University) at the age of 14, and graduated in 1797 as the youngest member of his class. He was admitted to the bar in 1800, when he was barely 20 years old, and studied law at the office of William Draper Lewis.
  Rush married Catherine Eliza Murray on August 29, 1809. They were the parents of ten children, of whom three sons and two daughters survived him.
  Rush enjoyed a cultivated childhood; during his life he was a statesman, diplomat, widely-praised orator and key figure in two Administrations (James Madison and John Quincy Adams), and carved a distinguished career in public affairs in his own right.
  
  wn.com/Richard_Rush
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  Sidney Dillon Ripley
  Sidney Dillon Ripley II (September 20, 1913 – March 12, 2001) was an American ornithologist and wildlife conservationist. He served as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution from 1964 to 1984.
  Ripley was born in New York City and studied at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. In 1936 he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) from Yale University. His great-grandfather, Sidney Dillon, was President of the Union Pacific Railroad.
  A visit to India at age 13, along with his sister, included a walking tour into Ladakh and western Tibet. This led to his lifelong interest in the birds of India. He decided that birds were more interesting than law, and he began studying zoology at Columbia University. As a part of his study, Ripley participated in the Denison-Crockett Expedition to New Guinea in 1937-1938 and the Vanderbilt Expedition to Sumatra in 1939. He later obtained a Ph.D. in zoology from Harvard University in 1943.
  During World War II, he served in the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency, and was in charge of American intelligence services in Southeast Asia. He trained many Indonesian spies, all of whom were killed during the war. An article in the August 26, 1950 New Yorker said that Ripley reversed the usual pattern, where spies posed as ornithologists in order to gain access to sensitive areas, and instead used his position as an intelligence officer to go birding in restricted areas. The government of Thailand gave him a national award for his support of the Thai underground during the war. While serving in the OSS he met his future wife Mary Livingston and her roommate Julia Child.
  
  wn.com/Sidney_Dillon_Ripley
• Subhankar Banerjee
  Subhankar Banerjee (born 1967) is an artist, educator and activist whose images of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and other Alaskan wild lands have captured international attention.
  Born in Berhampore, India, Banerjee received his bachelor's degree in engineering before moving to the United States, where he received master's degrees in physics and computer science. He worked in scientific fields for six years at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and Boeing in Seattle. In 2000 his childhood passion for art, coupled with a deep love and concern for the wilderness and disappearing indigenous cultures, caused him to leave his career in science and pursue art. Since then he has focused all his efforts on indigenous human rights and land conservation issues in the Arctic.
  In 2001 Banerjee began the first of two years of ground-breaking year-around field photography in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The photos he took were published in the book Seasons of Life and Land. Banerjee’s photographs of the Refuge were exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, and controversy erupted when his captions for the photos were altered and the exhibit was moved to a far corner of the museum. Senator Richard J. Durbin and others in Congress felt that the Smithsonian had been pressured, probably by Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, to remove the exhibit from the spotlight because Senator Barbara Boxer had held up Banerjee’s book during a Senate floor debate over oil drilling in the Refuge. The museum maintained the changes were made “for artistic reasons”. Since that exhibit Banerjee's work has catapulted to the top of many gallery and museum lists, and this and other work has been exhibited and collected by museums around the world.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Subhankar_Banerjee

Night At the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009)

Actors

• Ben Stiller
• Amy Adams
• Owen Wilson
• Hank Azaria
• Robin Williams
• Christopher Guest
• Alain Chabat
• Steve Coogan
• Ricky Gervais
• Bill Hader
• Jon Bernthal
• Patrick Gallagher
• Jake Cherry
• Rami Malek
• Mizuo Peck

Director

• Shawn Levy

• timeline:
• 2012
• 2011
• 2010
• 2009
• 2008
• 2007
• 2006
• 2005
• 2004
• 2003
• 2002
• 2001

• timeline:
• 2012
• 2011
• 2010
• 2009
• 2008
• 2007
• 2006
• 2005
• 2004
• 2003
• 2002
• 2001