Exhibitions related to History

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Hull of a wooden ship being carried by one large balloon and many smaller balloons filled with people on the deck and dressed in 19th formal clothing.

Fantastic Worlds


Travel with us to the surface of the moon, the center of the earth, and the depths of the ocean — to the fantastic worlds of fiction inspired by 19th-century discovery and invention. Now open at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC.
From Smithson to Smithsonian- The Birth of an Institution

From Smithson to Smithsonian: The Birth of an Institution


This exhibition highlights the life of James Smithson, the English scientist who bequeathed his fortune to the United States to establish an institution "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge." The exhibition tells of the retrieval of the bequest from Great Britain, and describes the controversy this bequest provoked in the United States, up until the 1846 founding of the Smithsonian Institution.
image of a three-masted ship sailing through icy seas

United States Exploring Expedition