Smithsonian articles from December 2005

Smithsonian archives from December 2005

Natural selection: in Darwin's Galapagos Islands, evolution is on display.(EDITOR'S NOTE)
December 1, 2005... WILD ANIMALS' usual wariness of human beings is not always evident in the Galapagos Islands, owing to the remarkable naivete of the creatures there. Frank Sulloway stood only about two feet away from the hawk below when he photographed it. "The...

Love to travel? Love to learn? Take the Smithsonian on your next trip.(ADVERTISEMENT)(Calendar)
December 1, 2005... U.S. JOURNEYS OPERA 101: LEARNING AND LOVING OPERA April 21-24, 2006 Enjoy Orchestra Prime seating at Puccini's dramatic Tosca and La Boheme and Donizetti's comedy Don Pasquale, dinner at the Met's Grand Tier restaurant, and...

A whale called Phoenix: a very large mammal will help tell an even weightier tale--about the ocean in this crowded, challenging century.(From the SECRETARY)(state-of-the-art Ocean Hall at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History)
December 1, 2005... A FEMALE WHALE named Phoenix, nearly 50 feet long, will be the focal point of a new state-of-the-art Ocean Hall at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History (NMNH). When it opens in September 2008, the 23,000-square-foot hall will be...

Alaska's oil debate.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2005... Readers respond to the October issue: THE DIFFERENT perspectives of the Gwich'in and Inupiat peoples on the issue of oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) are understandable ("ANWR: The Great Divide"). It's hard to...

Fewer bucks, more fawns.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2005... DEER HUNTING as it has been usually practiced has served to increase rather than decrease the white-tailed deer population ("Oh Deer!") at the expense of farmers, motorists, gardens and woodlands. This is because most hunters prefer to shoot...

Whose democracy?(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2005... I FIND IT IRONIC that Andrew Jackson is referred to as a "chieftain to the tribe" ("People's Choice"), since he signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, evicting the Five Civilized Tribes of Native Americans from their homes, livelihoods and...

Iceberg chasers.(LETTERS)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2005... THE PHOTOGRAPH headlined "They Shoot Icebergs, Don't They?" shows a man firing a gun at an iceberg off Newfoundland this past summer to gather ice for use by the Iceberg Vodka Corporation. Tour boat operators and tourists such as myself were up...

Helen Gurley Brown: editor of Cosmopolitan.(WHERE ARE THEY NOW?)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... NOT ONLY IS Helen Gurley Brown, editor of Cosmopolitan from 1965 to 1997, still widely known for her bestselling book, Sex and the Single Girl, and its sequel, Sex and the New Single Girl, published in 1970, but she insists that its...

One World Trade Center welcomes its first tenants December 16.(A LOOK BACK AT THE WORLD IN SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE'S FIRST YEAR)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... One World Trade Center welcomes its first tenants December 16. Businesses move onto the 10th and 11th floors while construction to complete the 110-story building continues. At its dedication in April 1973, Gov. Nelson Rockefeller calls the...

Fifteen Basque separatists go before a court-martial December 3 on charges of killing Meliton Manzanas, head of the political police in the Spanish province of Guipuzcoa on the French border.(IN THE NEWS)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Fifteen Basque separatists go before a court-martial December 3 on charges of killing Meliton Manzanas, head of the political police in the Spanish province of Guipuzcoa on the French border. Less than a month later, six of the separatists are...

Abolition Democracy.(IN THE NEWS)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... On December 22, activist and UCLA lecturer Angela Davis, 26, is booked on charges of murder, kidnapping and criminal conspiracy for her alleged involvement in an attempted escape by three convicts, including George Jackson, from the Marin...

1970 Nobel Prizes.(THE LIST)(Brief Article)
December 1, 2005... Luis Leioir, Chemistry Paul A. Samuelson, Economics Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Literature Norman Borlaug, Peace Hannes Alfven, Physics Louis Neel, Physics Julius Axelrod, Medicine Ulf von Euler, Medicine Sir Bernard Katz, Medicine

Comings & goings.(A LOOK BACK AT THE WORLD IN SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE'S FIRST YEAR)
December 1, 2005... BORN: DMX Rapper/actor, December 18 DIED: Rube Goldberg, 87 Cartoonist, December 7

New York Times.(A LOOK BACK AT THE WORLD IN SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE'S FIRST YEAR)
December 1, 2005... "I was never exactly sure that I understood what Mao meant." --NIKITA S. KHRUSHCHEV, IN REMINISCENCES ATTRIBUTED TO HIM BY LIFE MAGAZINE, IN THE DECEMBER 14 NEW YORK TIMES

The big picture: a well-planned single image tells the story of 20th-century transportation.(INDELIBLE IMAGES)(O. Winston Link photo)
December 1, 2005... ONE SUMMER NIGHT in 1956 in the coal-mining hamlet of Iaeger, West Virginia, a stranger walked up to Willie Allen at the drive-in. "Excuse me, sir," he said, "how would you and your date like to watch the movie from my convertible?" ...

Return of the jaguar? Novel camera traps have documented the elusive cat in Arizona, suggesting it may not be gone from the United States after all.(PHENOMENA & CURIOSITIES)
December 1, 2005... THE PAW PRINT, judging from the size of it, was left by a large cat just a day or two earlier. Emil McCain kneels over it in the sandy bottom of an Arizona canyon a mile from the U.S.-Mexico border. "This isn't a mountain lion track," McCain...

Christmas cards: when orbiting pranksters Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford launched into "Jingle Bells," Mission Control almost lost control.(THE OBJECT AT HAND)
December 1, 2005... AS A DISTANT WAR was intensifying and the city of New Orleans was slowly recovering from a hurricane's devastation, ten days before Christmas 1965, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration got an early holiday present: astronauts...

By design: over the past half century the small town of Columbus, Indiana, has turned itself into a showplace of modern architecture.(POINTS OF INTEREST)
December 1, 2005... COLUMBUS, INDIANA, has all the hallmarks of a picturesque Midwestern town--an imposing city hall, a library on a stately public square and pretty churches scattered around neighborhoods of neat bungalows and restored Victorians. But a closer...

The journey ends: the triumphant return of the Lewis and Clark expedition.(LEWIS AND CLARK)
December 1, 2005... AFTER REACHING the Pacific Ocean in November 1805, the corps established Fort Clatsop, near present-day Astoria, Oregon, as its winter quarters. Then, on March 23, 1806, the weary explorers headed for home and St. Louis. They retrieved their...

There comes a time: fifty years ago, the late Rosa Parks launched the Montgomery bus boycott, the subject of a new exhibition. At her side was a young lawyer, an unsung civil rights warrior.(SCENES AND SIGHTINGS FROM THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS AND BEYOND)
December 1, 2005... FRED GRAY is standing on the steps of the Holt Street Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Gray, 74, was the legal mind behind the Montgomery bus boycott, which began at the church 50 years ago this month after Rosa Parks refused to give up...

Simple gifts: a displaced New Orleans family contributes a powerful symbol of Katrina's destruction.(SCENES AND SIGHTINGS FROM THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS AND BEYOND)
December 1, 2005... FOR FIVE DAYS in September in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, National Museum of American History curator David Shayt and staff photographer Hugh Talman scoured Louisiana and Mississippi for artifacts from the devastating storm. In all, they...

Who's counting?(SCENES AND SIGHTINGS FROM THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS AND BEYOND)
December 1, 2005... 577 TVS ARE SET TO BLARE AWAY AT THE SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM, INCLUDING 336 IN THE 1995 WORK "ELECTRONIC SUPERHIGHWAY" (LEFT), BY KOREAN-BORN NAM JUNE PAIK, A FOUNDING FATHER OF VIDEO ART. STAY TUNED FOR THE SCHEDULED JULY 2006...

This month in history: December anniversaries--momentous or merely memorable.
December 1, 2005... 230 YEARS AGO: BANNER DAY On December 3, 1775, the flag of the 13 original Colonies is raised for the first time. Navy lieutenant John Paul Jones hoists the Continental Colors, also called the Grand Union Flag, aboard the warship Alfred...

Iraq's resilient minority: shaped by persecution, tribal strife and an unforgiving landscape, Iraq's Kurds have put their dream of independence on hold--for now.
December 1, 2005... IN THE SAVAGE HEAT of summer on the Mesopotamian plain, where the temperature regularly tops 110 degrees, Baghdadis crave the cool mountains and valleys of Kurdish Iraq, where the wild landscape climbs up to the rugged borders of Iran and...

The Canon EOS advantage: no tripod--no problem! Telephoto photography with image stabilization.
December 1, 2005... Maybe you've already made the step to a digital SLR for the creative control and superior image quality it gives you. Once you really start shooting however, you'll quickly find that you want even more creative control, and more options. That's...

The evolution of Charles Darwin: a creationist when he visited the Galapagos Islands, the great naturalist grasped the full significance of the unique wildlife he found there only well after he had returned to London.
December 1, 2005... FROM THE NINE TIMES I have made the 5,000-mile journey to the Galapagos Islands, to follow in Charles Darwin's footsteps, the most enduring impression I have gained is of life's fragility. The minute a person steps off any of the tourist trails...

Airborne archaeology: the view from above can yield insights on the ground.
December 1, 2005... ARCHAEOLOGISTS call it the Persian carpet effect. Imagine you're a mouse running across an elaborately decorated rug. The ground would merely be a blur of shapes and colors. You could spend your life going back and forth, studying an inch at a...

Stem cell pioneers: despite federal opposition to embryonic stem cell research, the promise of medical benefits, academic freedom and profits in California is luring scientists to the field.
December 1, 2005... AS IRVING WEISSMAN DRIVES PAST Cannery Row in Monterey, California, in a light rain, he waves an open palm like an impresario, showing off the picturesque bay and craggy coastline. "Spectacular," Weissman says as he pulls onto the grounds of...

West African gold: out of the ordinary; The inventive goldwork and royal regalia of Ghana's Akan people--on display in a new exhibition--are drawn, strikingly, from daily life.(Museum of Fine Arts, Boston )
December 1, 2005... THOMAS BOWDICH, a British envoy, was one of the first Europeans to venture into the interior of Africa's fabled Gold Coast. Entering the town of Kumasi, in what is now Ghana, in 1817, Bowdich was stunned to behold a local chieftain encrusted in...

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December 1, 2005... Travel 1. American Canadian Caribbean Line. Yacht-style exploration of historic waterways. Cruise America by smallship. Memorable camaraderie. Casual. Unique itineraries. www.accl-smallships.com 2. Clipper Cruise Line. Deluxe...

The Last Shot: the Incredible Story of the CSS Shenandoah and the True Conclusion of the Civil War.(Book Review)
December 1, 2005... THE LAST SHOT: THE INCREDIBLE STORY OF THE CSS SHENANDOAH AND THE TRUE CONCLUSION OF THE CIVIL WAR LYNN SCHOOLER ECCO / HARPERCOLLINS, $25.95 IN THE AUTUMN OF 1864, at the height of America's Civil War, the heavily armed...

Me and meriwether: the secret diary of William Clark.(THE LAST PAGE)(Diary entry)
December 1, 2005... JULY 4, 1804 -- To mark our first Fourth west of the Mississippi, Lewis directed me to powder the keelboat's cannon so he could fire it. I would have liked to shoot it too, but that's OK. Lewis is so much fun, and such a leader too. AUGUST...