Smithsonian articles from November 2004

Smithsonian archives from November 2004

Whale of a tale: when Luna, a people-loving orca, chose Vancouver Island's Nootka Sound for his home, he set in motion a drama of leviathan proportions.
November 1, 2004... It was a story about an animal, and then it wasn't. It was just a story about a lonely whale, at first. Then it got completely out of hand. The story began in June 2001 when a baby male orca went missing from the waters near the San Juan...

Walking America: twenty-six-year-old Aaron Huey took his dog, his camera and an open mind on a journey from California to New York. Along the way he learned a lot about his country--and himself.
November 1, 2004... I saw in their eyes something I was to see over and over in every part of the nation--a burning desire to go, to move, to get under way, anyplace, away from any Here.--John Steinbeck, Travels With Charley: In Search of America, 1962 in...

Americans at War: a new exhibition explores the personal dimensions of war: valor and resolve--but also sacrifice and loss.(From the Secretary)
November 1, 2004... Time and again throughout the nation's history, Americans have paid the price of going to war. America and its founding values were born of conflict, and wars subsequently helped to set the physical boundaries of the nation. More important, for...

Tet: who won? A North Vietnamese battlefield defeat that led to victory, the Tet Offensive still triggers debate nearly four decades later.(Presence Of Mind)
November 1, 2004... Shortly before 3 a.m. on January 31, 1968, a squad of Vietcong guerrillas blasted a hole in the outer wall of the U.S. Embassy compound in Saigon, gunned down two American military policemen who tried to stop them, and laid siege to the lightly...

Twin Science: researchers make an annual pilgrimage to Twinsburg, Ohio, to study inherited traits.(Phenomena & Curiosities)
November 1, 2004... In 1819, shortly after Moses and Aaron Wilcox arrived in the tiny town of Millsville, Ohio, the identical twins struck a deal with town officials: rename the town Twinsburg in their honor, and they would donate six acres of land for a public...

Art that goes boom: fireworks, exploding balloons, skywriting: Cai Guo-Qiang's sizzling works defy gravity and expectations.(People File)
November 1, 2004... On a gritty street in downtown New York City, a bright red door gives way to another world--the elegant, serene studio of Chinese-born artist Cai Guo-Qiang (pronounced sigh gwo chang). Since moving to the United States in 1995, the 46-year-old...

People's choice: with the advent of mechanized vote counting in the 1890s, a ballot could be tallied in minutes--not hours or days.(The Object At Hand)
November 1, 2004... Like most americans, I still remember my first vote in a presidential election. I think I won't mention the candidates, though rest assured Warren G. Harding was not one of them. Much time and many votes have passed since then, but the memory...

What lies beneath: a vast world of streets and piazzas, aqueducts and catacombs--rich in history and full of surprises--is drawing more and more visitors to the subterranean reaches of Naples, Italy.
November 1, 2004... Some years ago, out for a stroll in an old quarter of Naples, I suddenly began to feel woozy. The ground beneath me buckled, and the corner of a nearby palazzo slumped beneath the sidewalk like the prow of a foundering ship. Alarmed but...

This month in history: November anniversaries--momentous or merely memorable.
November 1, 2004... 150 YEARS AGO: Leader of the Band Composer and conductor John Philip Sousa is born November 6, 1854, in Washington, D.C. The son of a Marine Corps Band trombonist, Sousa joins the group himself at 13, taking its lead in 1880. Crowned the...

Landing party: a Vietnam-era helicopter takes center stage in a major exhibition on U.S. wars.(Around the mall: scenes and sightings from the Smithsonian Museums and beyond)
November 1, 2004... On September 18, 1966, forty miles northeast of Saigon, U.S. Army captain James Newman piloted a Bell UH-1 Huey helicopter low and fast along a creek bed in a bid to take much-needed supplies to an embattled infantry unit. Pvt. First Class Ed...

America's wars.(Around the mall: scenes and sightings from the Smithsonian Museums and beyond)
November 1, 2004... 1750 French and Indian War (1754-1763): Indians allied with France attacked colonial settlements as Britain and France vied for North American lands. Britain won; English would be spoken in the future U.S. Revolutionary War...

Honoring courage.(Around the mall: scenes and sightings from the Smithsonian Museums and beyond)(Purple Heart)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... General Washington created it but didn't call it the Purple Heart "Whenever any singularly meritorious action is performed," Gen. George Washington ordered in August 1782, "the author of it shall be permitted to wear on his facings, over...

Not legal tender: a defunct bill and certificate are remnants of Saddam's reign.(Around the mall: scenes and sightings from the Smithsonian Museums and beyond)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... Two of the items from Iraq in the new exhibit on U.S. wars aren't worth the paper they're printed on--if you don't count the price they may fetch at auction. One is the dinar, which, like all Iraqi currency under Saddam Hussein, displayed...

Chronicling U.S. wars.(Around the mall: scenes and sightings from the Smithsonian Museums and beyond)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... The Smithsonian Institution's first comprehensive look at military conflicts that have shaped U.S. history opens on Veterans Day, November 11, at the National Museum of American History. The permanent exhibition, which was conceived in February...

Setting boundaries: settling in for the long winter, Captain Clark spells out some ground rules.(Lewis and Clark)
November 1, 2004... One hundred seventy days into the expedition, the corps began constructing its winter quarters, near present-day Washburn, North Dakota. Neighboring Mandan Indians were frequent and welcome visitors; the soldiers went to dances and feasts in...

Antiwar patriot?(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2004... Norman Gelb's excellent article on Francis Scott Key was marred by an inexplicable headline, "Reluctant Patriot." The article contains absolutely nothing that would indicate any lack of patriotism by the author of "The Star-Spangled Banner."...

Endangered industries.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2004... Describing the demise of humpback whales in "Unexpected Antarctica," Paul Arthur Berkman is quoted as saying that from a population of 100,000 a century ago in Antarctica, they're down to fewer than 3,000, largely because of whale hunting. "The...

Indian visitors.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2004... The National Museum of the American Indian sounds wonderful, and we look forward to visiting it. However, I must take issue with a comment by one of the American Indians ("A Long Time Coming") that "the people of the United States finally...

Old chestnuts.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2004... I enjoyed "Chestnutty," on saving the mighty American chestnut tree. In the mountains of eastern West Virginia where I live, you can still see huge rotting chestnut stumps in the woods. My old farm, which once used the trees as reference points...

Advising the Hmong.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
November 1, 2004... In a photograph in "American Odyssey," about the Hmong people, there is an Army officer in a light-colored uniform standing with his hands on his hips watching Hmong soldiers train near the Vietnam-Laos border. He is my father, Linwood B....

Wish I'd thought of that: for better or worse, human ingenuity--if you can call it that--knows no bounds.(The Last Page)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... Last year, the U.S. Patent Office issued 189,597 patents. Sure, some went to scientists striving for the next miracle drug or a zippier microchip. But for every Jonas Salk working in a lab, tens of thousands of ordinary Joes and Janes are...

A new beginning.(Just Looking)(National Museum of the American Indian)(Brief Article)
November 1, 2004... Some 25,000 Native Americans wearing traditional regalia and representing more than 500 tribes came to Washington, D.C. for the September 21 opening of the National Museum of the American Indian. "The circle is complete," said Colorado senator...

Subway spy: Walker Evans' underground-breaking photographs resurface for the centennial of New York Cty's rapid transit system.(Indelible Images)
November 1, 2004... Many photographers have stalked humanity in the New York City subway system, which opened 100 years ago last month, but none would be more influential than Walker Evans, one of America's preeminent documentary photographers, who began his sly...

Close encounters: Northwest of Seattle, an overly friendly orca polarizes a community.(Editor's Note)
November 1, 2004... For much of Luna the orca's excellent adventure ("Whale of a Tale," p. 64), Mike Parfit and his wife, Suzanne, a photographer, were the only journalists actually out on Nootka Sound, 250 miles from Seattle on Canada's Pacific Coast. It was...

America's first immigrants: you were probably taught that the hemisphere's first people came from Siberia across a long-gone land bridge. Now a sea route looks increasingly likely, from Asia or even Europe.
November 1, 2004... About four miles from the tiny cattle town of Florence, Texas, a narrow dirt road winds across parched limestone, through juniper, prickly pear and stunted oaks, and drops down to a creek. A lush parkland of shade trees offers welcome relief...

Art deco: high style: the glamorous look marked skylines from New York to Shanghai and streamlined everything from film and fashion to jewelry and automobiles.
November 1, 2004... As a child in New York City in the 1930s, I grew up with Art Deco all around me. I never knew it was Art Deco; it was simply the world I lived in. The wondrous skyscrapers like the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building, Radio City...

Mighty Macedonian: Alexander the Great.
November 1, 2004... Taking measured steps around a lush garden terrace in ancient Egypt, Anthony Hopkins as the Macedonian general Ptolemy dictates his memoirs of helping Alexander the Great conquer the world. While he strolls beneath the palm trees of the ancient...

Cliffhanger: presidential candidates Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr were deadlocked in the House of Representatives with no majority for either. For seven days, as they maneuvered and schemed, the fate of the young republic hung in the ballots.(The Election Of 1800)
November 1, 2004... On the afternoon of September 23, 1800, Vice President Thomas Jefferson, from his Monticello home, wrote a letter to Benjamin Rush, the noted Philadelphia physician. One matter dominated Jefferson's thoughts: that year's presidential contest....