Smithsonian Institution

Due to the government shutdown, Smithsonian museums are temporarily closed beginning on Sunday, Oct. 12, along with our research centers and the National Zoo. We will update our operating status as soon as the situation is resolved. We do not plan to update social media other than to inform you of changes to our operating status. While our doors are closed, Smithsonian digital resources continue to be available at si.edu 📷: National Museum of the American Indian

The next time you see a whirlwind of tiny birds overhead, they could be chimney swifts. These small, “cigar-shaped” birds almost exclusively nest inside chimneys across the eastern U.S. Chimney swifts substitute chimneys for the old-growth trees they once relied upon. Each year, they migrate thousands of miles between North and South America, a remarkable journey for such small birds. While a single pair will nest per chimney, hundreds and even thousands of birds gather in communal roosts as they prepare to migrate. In the past 50 years, chimney swift populations have declined by more than 50%, largely due to the lack of suitable nesting habitat. As more chimneys are capped or lined with metal flues, these birds are losing their nesting spaces. Chimney swifts are also valuable members of our ecosystems, helping to keep insect populations in check by eating thousands of flying insects each day. Researchers from Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute’s Virginia Working Landscapes program are studying chimney swift in collaboration with local chimney sweeps to better understand how homeowners and communities can help protect these birds. Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute Videos by Katy Perrault Video Description: Four scenes of birds including close up clips of small brown birds, a whirlwind of small brown birds flying above a building, a small brown bird emerging from a red brick chimney, and an illustration of the interior of a brick chimney. The illustration shows where a bird’s nest would be located within a chimney. Text on screen: Swift nest with eggs, Illustration by Nick Garnhart.

Dare you not to smile! Joy is palpable in these 1940s photographs of Washington, D.C. kids by photographer Frank Jackson. A boy and his pup wear matching soft smiles, a Navy soldier stands proudly with his little brothers, and two besties giggle as they share one pair of roller skates. Jackson was a Rennaissance man. In addition to co-owning a photography studio, he had a 40-year career in the bindery section of the Government Printing Office. Upon retiring from government service, Jackson volunteered to teach photography at D.C.’s Kingman Boys and Girls Club. With all his spare time, Jackson also created crossword puzzles for the Washington Post for 25 years. Jackson was born and raised in the nation’s capital, where he attended Dunbar High School and Miner Teachers College. A resident of Anacostia for nearly seven decades, his work in the collections of our Smithsonian's Anacostia Community Museum offers a glimpse into a bustling, close-knit neighborhood. #AmericanArchivesMonth #DCHistory

John Lennon: Beatles superstar, award-winning songwriter, burgeoning philatelist. 📬 As a boy in Liverpool, England, Lennon was gifted this stamp album by his older cousin. Already showing an aptitude for the arts, he sketched a beard, mustache, and a pipe on the likenesses of a couple of famous monarchs on the album's title page. Lennon, who was born #OnThisDay in 1940, continued to collect and trade stamps for several years. Head to the link in our bio to flip through each page of the musician’s childhood stamp album in the collections of our National Postal Museum. Collections Acquisition Fund purchase

From the desk of Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III: The Smithsonian's collections, programs, and exhibitions help capture, preserve, and share the story of America through its brilliant mosaic of communities. Recently published in USA TODAY, "Our Shared Community: Capturing America's Stories with the Smithsonian" is an activity guide created by our talented educators and colleagues across the nation through our Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service | Smithsonian Affiliations. Now, the guide is available online. https://lnkd.in/epicWaMX With this Smithsonian Education guide, you can explore your own community and many others through games, videos, or virtual exhibition tours. I hope this activity guide helps you better understand your neighborhood, your hometown, and our shared community.

Clear eyes (plus a cute nose), full engine, can't lose. SpaceShipOne sparked a new era of spaceflight when it became the first privately built and piloted vehicle to reach space in 2004. It made its final landing at our National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution 20 years ago this month. Launched from its White Knight mothership, the reusable rocket-powered SpaceShipOne made three record-setting spaceflights. On its final flight—which lasted 24 minutes—test pilot Brian Binnie ascended just beyond the atmosphere, arced through space (but not into orbit), then glided safely back to Earth. Binnie recalled that “the reentry was smooth as butter.” The success of SpaceShipOne inspired the creation of Virgin Galactic, a company founded to add private tourist flights to the existing world of commercial space. See it on view in the newly reopened Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall at our National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. #WorldSpaceWeek ✈️: 1-4: National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution 5-2: Smithsonian Libraries and Archives (SLA)

Teresa Carreño was nine years old when she played piano for President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. Among her selections was one of Lincoln’s favorites: “Listen to the Mockingbird.” 🎵 The year before she performed at the White House, Carreño and her family emigrated from Venezuela to the United States. Within the month, the young performer was hailed as a prodigy. Audiences marveled at a child who could not “reach the pedals with her toes” yet produced “miracles of music upon the pianoforte.” After making a splash in the U.S., Carreño continued her musical studies in Europe. Nicknamed the "Valkyrie of the piano," she made a successful transition from child star to popular adult performer, inspiring younger generations of pianists and composing dozens of her own works. The year before she died, Carreño returned to the White House—this time, to play for President Woodrow Wilson. 📸: “Teresa Carreño” by Mathew Brady Studio, c. 1862. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution (National Portrait Gallery); Frederick Hill Meserve Collection. #SmithsonianHHM

What the back of our fridge sees at midnight. These candids are courtesy of camera “traps”—motion-activated cameras that capture images of animals on the move. Deployed in all 50 states, these cameras track long-term trends in mammal populations in your communities as part of Snapshot USA, a nationwide wildlife monitoring project coordinated by our Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. With partners across the country, we’ve deployed cameras at more than 300 sites and collected over 1 million observations of wild mammals. These data sets are public and openly shared to support research, education, and conservation efforts. Dive into Snapshot USA and explore the ways the Smithsonian has connections to your community through our new #SmithsonianEdu educational activity guide. https://bit.ly/4o9Jg87

We all have that one cousin. 😜 Her personality pops through the screen. But for decades, her name remained a mystery. “Woman in costume” was how the photo was labeled. But our National Museum of the American Indian archivists were determined to learn the subject’s name and reclaim her story. From the catalog card, they knew she was Apsáalooke (Crow). They then set out to track down the photograph’s original envelope to see if that might include any more information. There it was: “Sarah Grandmother’s Knife, age 10.” The archivists then turned to genealogy and census records, in which they learned that Sarah was born in 1900 on the Apsáalooke (Crow) Reservation in Montana. She married John Gros Ventre and later Harry Don’t Mix, and she raised eight children. She died from cancer in 1957. Labels like “Indian man” or “Indian woman” were generic descriptions that reflect a time when Native peoples were wrongly viewed as a “vanishing race.” Today, the museum’s Archives Center collaborates with Native community members to restore these names and identities—work that will make it easier for descendants to find their ancestors in the historical record. This playful photograph of Sarah Grandmother's Knife is featured in the exhibition “InSight: Photos and Stories from the Archives,” at the museum’s Washington, DC location. Visitors will encounter a selection of images from the Archives Center that reveal everyday moments of joy and quiet reflection in Indigenous lives across the Western Hemisphere. #AmericanArchivesMonth

She’s a cub in a tub! 🐾 An endangered red panda cub was born at our Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute’s campus in Front Royal, Virginia, this summer. Keahi is a first-time mom. Protective and attentive, she helps her cub in and out of her nest box and “makes” her return inside when she feels it’s time for the cub to eat and rest. Father Rocket is doing well. Like typical red panda dads, he is not involved in rearing the cub whatsoever, so life hasn’t changed much for him. The Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute has been at the forefront of red panda conservation, with more than 100 surviving cubs born since 1962. #WorldAnimalDay