Smithsonian articles from January 2005

Smithsonian archives from January 2005

James Boswell's Scotland: the author of the Life of Samuel Johnson spent much of his own life trying to escape the country of his birth.
January 1, 2005... LATE ON A SUNNY AFTERNOON last summer, I visited a deserted churchyard in Auchinleck, a drab little village surrounded by pastureland in Scotland's western district of East Ayrshire. Many of the weathered gravestones were broken or tilted. Two...

Cabin fever: as Muscovites get rich on oil, dachas--the rustic country houses that nourish the Russian soul--get gaudy.
January 1, 2005... Turn off the rublyevsky highway 12 miles west of Moscow, negotiate two unmarked lanes, say the right name at the unmarked gate and a guard with a Kalashnikov will wave you expressionlessly through. Eight freshly built houses are nestled among...

Ahead of its time? Founded by a freed slave, an Illinois town was a rare example of biracial cooperation before the Civil War.(Digs)
January 1, 2005... In rural pike county, Illinois, a solitary highway marker surrounded by mown grass, potted flowers and a small American flag stands by a little-traveled road. "SITE OF NEW PHILADELPHIA," it reads. Beyond the marker stretch cornfields, trees and...

Turning 35: it all began with a brief, but fateful, conversation.(Editor's Note)
January 1, 2005... Happy new year to you and, if I may, Happy Anniversary to us. Thirty-five years ago Smithsonian was preparing to debut, in April 1970, as a magazine dedicated to reflecting the interests, ideals and high standards of the Smithsonian...

Coming home: to a war-weary nation, a U.S. POW's return from captivity in Vietnam in 1973 looked like the happiest of reunions.(Indelible Images)
January 1, 2005... Sitting in the back seat of a station wagon on the tarmac at Travis Air Force Base, in California, clad in her favorite fuchsia miniskirt, 15-year-old Lorrie Stirm felt that she was in a dream. It was March 17, 1973, and it had been six long...

Rethinking Jamestown: America's first permanent colonists have long been considered lazy and incompetent. But new evidence suggests that it was a prolonged drought--not indolence--that almost did them in.
January 1, 2005... To the english voyagers who waded ashore at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay on a balmy April day in 1607, the lush Virginia landscape must have seemed like a garden paradise after four and a half months at sea. One ebullient adventurer later...

Lonely Luna.(Letters: readers respond to the November issue)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2005... The delightful "Whale of a Tale," about Luna, the lone orca in British Columbia's Nootka Sound, ended on a distressing note. Luna now has the worst of both worlds. He has no orca family and has been essentially shunned by his human companions....

What's in a name?(Letters: readers respond to the November issue)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2005... I found it appalling that, when we are engaged in a "war" that has questionable motives, the Smithsonian chose to name an exhibit on American wars "The Price of Freedom." Reading the list of wars represented ("Around the Mall"), I see a number...

Casting stones.(Letters: readers respond to the November issue)(Letter to the Editor)
January 1, 2005... Richard Covington's "Mighty Macedonian" offered a straightforward history of Alexander the Great, in contrast to Oliver Stone's new film, which apparently implies that Alexander was sexually attracted to his mother, killed his father and was...

In memoriam.(Letters: readers respond to the November issue)
January 1, 2005... In memoriam: Indah, the 24-year-old female orangutan whose move from the Smithsonian's National Zoo to the Great Ape Trust near Des Moines was reported in our December issue, died on November 11. Veterinarians euthanized Indah after her...

Dangerous liaisons: severe cold and fraternizing with the Mandan keep Meriwether Lewis' doctoring in demand.(Lewis And Clark)(Excerpt)
January 1, 2005... As the harsh winter wore on, the men and women of the corps spent more and more time with their Mandan Indian neighbors. Relationships sprang up--with resulting complications. When originally published, notes Gary Moulton, editor of the Lewis...

Caught in the act! Ancient Sea Life evolves: over millions of years, delicate crinoids developed spikes and armor that thwarted hungry predators.(Around the mall: scenes and sightings from the Smithsonian museums and beyond)
January 1, 2005... Most visitors to the "Life in Ancient Seas" hall at the National Museum of Natural History amble right past the modest glass display case full of fossilized crinoids, cousins of starfish and sand dollars. But scientists say the ancient...

Song catcher.(From The Attic)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... SONG CATCHER In February 1916 Frances Densmore, noted for the recordings she made of Native American song for the Smithsonian's Bureau of American Ethnology, was photographed outside the Castle building with Mountain Chief, 68, a celebrated...

This month in history: January anniversaries--momentous or merely memorable.
January 1, 2005... 90 YEARS AGO: GLOWING SUCCESS French inventor Georges Claude patents an electrified, neon-filled luminescent tube on January 19, 1915, and neon signs soon light up the night. After marketing them first in France, in 1923 Claude begins...

Freeze frame: beginning in the 1880s, amateur photographer Wilson A. Bentley revealed the hidden structure of falling flakes.(The Object At Hand)(Biography)
January 1, 2005... At this time of year, children across the northern latitudes are learning an astonishing fact they will remember all their lives. They will pass it on to their children, who will pass it on to their children, on and on as long as there are...

Return of a virtuoso: following a debilitating stroke, the incomparable jazz pianist Oscar Peterson had to start over.(Biography)
January 1, 2005... He was playing "Blues Etude" when it happened. It was the first show of the night at New York City's Blue Note club. May 1993. Oscar Peterson, then 67 and one of the greatest jazz pianists ever, found his left hand flubbing the boogie-woogie...

"I do solemnly swear ...".(Photo Finish)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... On January 20, for the 64th time in history, an American president will take the oath of office. 1. George Washington 2. John Adams 3. Thomas Jefferson 4. James Madison 5. James Monroe 6. John Quincy Adams 7. Andrew Jackson 8. Martin Van...

A pistol-packing American scientist puts his life on the line to reduce "the most serious threat to African wildlife"--the illegal hunting of animals for food--and to stop the carnage.(David Greer)
January 1, 2005... The dense treetop canopy plunges day into night as we enter the rain forest. We are about 300 miles north of the Equator, in the Central African Republic, and the jungle vibrates with the haunting shrieks of insects as we clamber over fallen...

Tiny treasures: from mosquitoes to mementos, the smallest items in the Smithsonian's collections can be the most useful.(From the Secretary)
January 1, 2005... Great things come in small packages. What's true of gifts we give and receive is also true of the Smithsonian's vast collections. Some of the smallest, easiest-to-overlook objects--an insect, say, or a button issued during a presidential...

Washington takes charge: confronting the British in Boston in 1775, Gen. George Washington honed the personal qualities that would carry the day in war and sustain the new nation in peace.(Biography)
January 1, 2005... Although there was no way George Washington could have known it at the time, when Philadelphia's Continental Congress appointed him military commander in June 1775, he was about to oversee the longest declared war in American history. He was 43...

Rennie Davis: member of the Chicago Seven.(Where Are They Now?)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... on january 26, Rennie Davis takes the stand as one of the Chicago Seven, a group of activists charged with conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention, and calls Judge Julius J. Hoffman a stooge of Mayor Richard Daley, earning...

On January 22, Pan Am's Young America leaves New York City for London carrying 332 passengers--the first commercial trip for a "jumbo jet.".(In The News)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... On January 22, Pan Am's Young America leaves New York City for London carrying 332 passengers--the first commercial trip for a "jumbo jet." More than 1,000 fly today.

Biafra's 32-month struggle to secede from Nigeria.(In The News)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Biafra's 32-month struggle to secede from Nigeria, which results in nearly two million deaths from war or starvation, ends in surrender January 13.

Muammar al-Qaddafi, a 27-year-old colonel, becomes Libya's prime minister January 16.(In The News)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... Muammar al-Qaddafi, a 27-year-old colonel, becomes Libya's prime minister January 16, after leading a bloodless military coup in Tripoli four and a half months earlier.

Top-grossing films of 1970.(The List)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2005... 1. Airport 2. M*A*S*H 3. Patton 4. Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice 5. Woodstock 6. Hello, Dolly! 7. Cactus Flower 8. Catch-22 9. On Her Majesty's Secret Service 10. The Reivers

Comings & goings.(January 1970: the year we were born: a look back at the world in Smithsonian Magazine's first year)(Brief Article)(Biography)
January 1, 2005... BORN: Minnie Driver, actress, January 31 DIED: Pavel Belyayev, cosmonaut, January 10