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"On August 2, 1990, at about 2 a.m. local time, Iraqi forces invade Kuwait, Iraq’s tiny, oil-rich neighbor. Kuwait’s defense forces were rapidly overwhelmed, and those that were not destroyed retreated to Saudi Arabia. The emir of Kuwait, his family, and other government leaders fled to Saudi Arabia, and within hours Kuwait City had been captured and the Iraqis had established a provincial government. By annexing Kuwait, Iraq gained control of 20 percent of the world’s oil reserves and, for the first time, a substantial coastline on the Persian Gulf. The same day, the United Nations Security Council unanimously denounced the invasion and demanded Iraq’s immediate withdrawal from Kuwait. On August 6, the Security Council imposed a worldwide ban on trade with Iraq.

On August 9, Operation Desert Shield, the American defense of Saudi Arabia, began as U.S. forces raced to the Persian Gulf. Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, meanwhile, built up his occupying army in Kuwait to about 300,000 troops. On November 29, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution authorizing the use of force against Iraq if it failed to withdraw by January 15, 1991. Hussein refused to withdraw his forces from Kuwait, which he had established as a province of Iraq, and some 700,000 allied troops, primarily American, gathered in the Middle East to enforce the deadline.

At 4:30 p.m. EST on January 16, 1991, Operation Desert Storm, the massive U.S.-led offensive against Iraq, began as the first fighter aircraft were launched from Saudi Arabia and off U.S. and British aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf. All evening, aircraft from the U.S.-led military coalition pounded targets in and around Baghdad as the world watched the events transpire on television footage transmitted live via satellite from Iraq. Operation Desert Storm was conducted by an international coalition under the supreme command of U.S. General Norman Schwarzkopf and featured forces from 32 nations, including Britain, Egypt, France, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.


During the next six weeks, the allied force engaged in an intensive air war against Iraq’s military and civil infrastructure and encountered little effective resistance from the Iraqi air force or air defenses. Iraqi ground forces were helpless during this stage of the war, and Hussein’s only significant retaliatory measure was the launching of SCUD missile attacks against Israel and Saudi Arabia. Saddam hoped that the missile attacks would provoke Israel to enter the conflict, thus dissolving Arab support of the war. At the request of the United States, however, Israel remained out of the war.

On February 24, a massive coalition ground offensive began, and Iraq’s outdated and poorly supplied armed forces were rapidly overwhelmed. By the end of the day, the Iraqi army had effectively folded, 10,000 of its troops were held as prisoners, and a U.S. air base had been established deep inside Iraq. After less than four days, Kuwait was liberated, and the majority of Iraq’s armed forces had either surrendered, retreated to Iraq, or been destroyed.

On February 28, U.S. President George Bush declared a cease-fire, and on April 3 the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 687, specifying conditions for a formal end to the conflict. According to the resolution, Bush’s cease-fire would become official, some sanctions would be lifted, but the ban on Iraqi oil sales would continue until Iraq destroyed its weapons of mass destruction under U.N. supervision. On April 6, Iraq accepted the resolution, and on April 11 the Security Council declared it in effect. During the next decade, Saddam Hussein frequently violated the terms of the peace agreement, prompting further allied air strikes and continuing U.N. sanctions.


In the Persian Gulf War, 148 American soldiers were killed and 457 wounded. The other allied nations suffered about 100 deaths combined during Operation Desert Storm. There are no official figures for the number of Iraqi casualties, but it is believed that at least 25,000 soldiers were killed and more than 75,000 were wounded, making it one of the most one-sided military conflicts in history. It is estimated that 100,000 Iraqi civilians died from wounds or from lack of adequate water, food, and medical supplies directly attributable to the Persian Gulf War. In the ensuing years, more than one million Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the subsequent U.N. sanction"
 
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"On August 3, 1958, the U.S. nuclear submarine Nautilus accomplishes the first undersea voyage to the geographic North Pole. The world’s first nuclear submarine, the Nautilus dived at Point Barrow, Alaska, and traveled nearly 1,000 miles under the Arctic ice cap to reach the top of the world. It then steamed on to Iceland, pioneering a new and shorter route from the Pacific to the Atlantic and Europe.

The USS Nautilus was constructed under the direction of U.S. Navy Captain Hyman G. Rickover, a brilliant Russian-born engineer who joined the U.S. atomic program in 1946. In 1947, he was put in charge of the navy’s nuclear-propulsion program and began work on an atomic submarine. Regarded as a fanatic by his detractors, Rickover succeeded in developing and delivering the world’s first nuclear submarine years ahead of schedule. In 1952, the Nautilus’ keel was laid by President Harry S. Truman, and on January 21, 1954, first lady Mamie Eisenhower broke a bottle of champagne across its bow as it was launched into the Thames River at Groton, Connecticut. Commissioned on September 30, 1954, it first ran under nuclear power on the morning of January 17, 1955.

Much larger than the diesel-electric submarines that preceded it, the Nautilus stretched 319 feet and displaced 3,180 tons. It could remain submerged for almost unlimited periods because its atomic engine needed no air and only a very small quantity of nuclear fuel. The uranium-powered nuclear reactor produced steam that drove propulsion turbines, allowing the Nautilus to travel underwater at speeds in excess of 20 knots.

In its early years of service, the USS Nautilus broke numerous submarine travel records and on July 23, 1958, departed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on “Operation Northwest Passage”—the first crossing of the North Pole by submarine. There were 116 men aboard for this historic voyage, including Commander William R. Anderson, 111 officers and crew, and four civilian scientists. The Nautilus steamed north through the Bering Strait and did not surface until it reached Point Barrow, Alaska, in the Beaufort Sea, though it did send its periscope up once off the Diomedes Islands, between Alaska and Siberia, to check for radar bearings. On August 1, the submarine left the north coast of Alaska and dove under the Arctic ice cap.

The submarine traveled at a depth of about 500 feet, and the ice cap above varied in thickness from 10 to 50 feet, with the midnight sun of the Arctic shining in varying degrees through the blue ice. At 11:15 p.m. EDT on August 3, 1958, Commander Anderson announced to his crew: “For the world, our country, and the Navy—the North Pole.” The Nautilus passed under the geographic North Pole without pausing. The submarine next surfaced in the Greenland Sea between Spitzbergen and Greenland on August 5. Two days later, it ended its historic journey at Iceland. For the command during the historic journey, President Dwight D. Eisenhower decorated Anderson with the Legion of Merit.

After a career spanning 25 years and almost 500,000 miles steamed, the Nautilus was decommissioned on March 3, 1980. Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1982, the world’s first nuclear submarine went on exhibit in 1986 as the Historic Ship Nautilus at the Submarine Force Museum in Groton, Connecticut."
 
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Acting on tip from a Dutch informer, the Nazi Gestapo captures 15-year-old Jewish diarist Anne Frank and her family in a sealed-off area of an Amsterdam warehouse August 4, 1944. The Franks had taken shelter there in 1942 out of fear of deportation to a Nazi concentration camp. They occupied the small space with another Jewish family and a single Jewish man, and were aided by Christian friends, who brought them food and supplies. Anne spent much of her time in the so-called “secret annex” working on her diary. The diary survived the war, overlooked by the Gestapo that discovered the hiding place, but Anne and nearly all of the others perished in the Nazi death camps.

Annelies Marie Frank was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, on June 12, 1929. She was the second daughter of Otto Frank and Edith Frank-Hollander, both of Jewish families that had lived in Germany for centuries. With the rise of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in 1933, Otto moved his family to Amsterdam to escape the escalating Nazi persecution of Jews. In Holland, he ran a successful spice and jam business. Anne attended a Montessori school with other middle-class Dutch children, but with the German invasion of the Netherlands in 1940 she was forced to transfer to a Jewish school. In 1942, Otto began arranging a hiding place in an annex of his warehouse on the Prinsengracht Canal in Amsterdam.

On her 13th birthday in 1942, Anne began a diary relating her everyday experiences, her relationship with her family and friends, and observations about the increasingly dangerous world around her. Less than a month later, Anne’s older sister, Margot, received a call-up notice to report to a Nazi “work camp.” Fearing deportation to a Nazi concentration camp, the Frank family took shelter in the secret annex the next day. One week later, they were joined by Otto Frank’s business partner and his family. In November, a Jewish dentist—the eighth occupant of the hiding place—joined the group.

For two years, Anne kept a diary about her life in hiding that is marked with poignancy, humor, and insight. The entrance to the secret annex was hidden by a hinged bookcase, and former employees of Otto and other Dutch friends delivered them food and supplies procured at high risk. Anne and the others lived in rooms with blacked-out windows, and never flushed the toilet during the day out of fear that their presence would be detected. In June 1944, Anne’s spirits were raised by the Allied landings at Normandy, and she was hopeful that the long-awaited liberation of Holland would soon begin.

On August 1, 1944, Anne made her last entry in her diary. Three days later, 25 months of seclusion ended with the arrival of the Nazi Gestapo. Anne and the others had been given away by an unknown informer, and they were arrested along with two of the Christians who had helped shelter them.

They were sent to a concentration camp in Holland, and in September, Anne and most of the others were shipped to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland. In the fall of 1944, with the Soviet liberation of Poland underway, Anne was moved with her sister Margot to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. Suffering under the deplorable conditions of the camp, the two sisters caught typhus and died in February 1945. The camp was liberated by the British less than two months later.

Otto Frank was the only one of the 10 to survive the Nazi death camps. After the war, he returned to Amsterdam via Russia, and was reunited with Miep Gies, one of his former employees who had helped shelter him. She handed him Anne’s diary, which she had found undisturbed after the Nazi raid.

In 1947, Anne’s diary was published by Otto in its original Dutch. An instant best-seller and eventually translated into more than 70 languages, The Diary of Anne Frank has served as a literary testament to the nearly six million Jews, including Anne herself, who were silenced in the Holocaust.

The Frank family’s hideaway at Prinsengracht 263 in Amsterdam opened as a museum in 1960. A new English translation of Anne’s diary in 1995 restored material that had been edited out of the original version, making the work nearly a third longer.


(For when your teenager think's he/she has it tough)
 
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www.businessinsider.com

Here's why the pilot of Enola Gay had no regrets about dropping the first atom bomb designed by Oppenheimer

On August 6, 1945, US bomber the Enola Gay launched the world's first nuclear attack, dropping an atom bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
www.businessinsider.com www.businessinsider.com
www.atomicheritage.org

Stimson on the Bomb - Nuclear Museum

From “The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb” by Henry StimsonIn recent months there has been much comment about the decision to use atomic bombs in attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This decision was one of the gravest made by our government in recent years, and…
www.atomicheritage.org www.atomicheritage.org

The Atomic Bomb and the End of World War II | National Security Archive

To mark the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, the National Security Archive is updating and reposting one of its most popular e-books of the past 25 years.
nsarchive.gwu.edu nsarchive.gwu.edu
www.providencejournal.com

FROM THE ARCHIVES: Should we have bombed Japan? For those who lived through World War II, the A-bomb was the super weapon that ended the killing; there was no arms race

Editors Note: This story was originally published on August 8th, 1982 They were a war generation. They knew the thump of mortars, the scream of rockets, the scorch of flamethrowers. They saw tanks f…
www.providencejournal.com
www.life.com

Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Photos From the Ruins, 1945

LIFE photographs -- resembling every war-battered panorama from Verdun to Vietnam -- made in September, 1945, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
www.life.com www.life.com
allthatsinteresting.com

37 Haunting Images Of Hiroshima In The Immediate Aftermath Of The Atomic Bomb

In an instant, 80,000 died, while generations after would carry the scars of the world's first atomic bombing.
allthatsinteresting.com allthatsinteresting.com
www.manhattanprojectvoices.org

General Paul Tibbets – Reflections on Hiroshima - Nuclear Museum

Tom Ryan: In the early morning of August 6, 1945, three B-29 bombers departed from Tinian Island in the Pacific Ocean. Six hours later, they changed the course of history. A single atomic bomb dropped from the Enola Gay exploded over Hiroshima, Japan. In an instant, over four square miles…
www.manhattanprojectvoices.org www.manhattanprojectvoices.org
apjjf.org

Defending the Indefensible: A Meditation on the Life of Hiroshima Pilot Paul Tibbets, Jr. - The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus

[…]
apjjf.org apjjf.org
 
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BarnBuster

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On August 9, 1969, members of Charles Manson’s cult kill five people in movie director Roman Polanski’s Beverly Hills, California, home, including Polanski’s pregnant wife, actress Sharon Tate. Less than two days later, the group killed again, murdering supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary in their home. The savage crimes shocked the nation and turned Charles Manson into a criminal icon.

Manson was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1934 to an unwed 16-year-old mother. He spent much of his childhood in juvenile reformatories and his early adulthood in prison. After his release in 1967, Manson moved to California and used his unlikely magnetism to attract a group of hippies and set up a commune, where drugs and orgies were common, on the outskirts of Los Angeles.

Manson preached his own blend of eccentric religious teachings to his acolytes, who called themselves his “Family.” He told them a race war between blacks and whites was imminent and would result in great power for the Family. Manson said they should instigate the war by killing rich white people and trying to make it look like the work of blacks.

Roman Polanski (Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown, The Pianist), was not the cult leader’s intended target. Manson, an aspiring musician, chose the Polanski house because he had once unsuccessfully tried to get a recording deal from a producer who used to live there. Polanski was out of town at the time of the murders, but his wife and her friends, including coffee heiress Abigail Folger, were shot or stabbed to death. Manson stayed out of the Polanski house on the night of the crime and didn’t take part in the LaBianca killings either. However, he would later be charged with murder on the grounds he had influenced his followers and masterminded the crimes.

After initially eluding police suspicion, Manson was arrested only after one of his followers, already in jail on a different charge, started bragging about what had happened. Manson’s subsequent trial became a national spectacle, in which he exhibited bizarre and violent behavior. In 1971, he was convicted and given the death penalty; however, that sentence became life behind bars when the California Supreme Court overturned the death penalty in 1972.

Manson has been the subject of numerous movies and books, including the best-seller Helter Skelter (the title is a reference to a Beatles’ song of the same name, through which Manson believed the group was sending secret messages to start a race war). Manson died in prison in 2017.
 
curious2garden

curious2garden

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After being torpedoed and limping through Ironbottom Sound she was sunk 78 years ago today with the loss of all hands.

"The destroyer, continuing to retire westward, had little speed, no radio communications, and few operative guns; but she refused aid from the destroyer Blue upon being sighted at 0325. After daybreak a Saratoga-based scout plane sighted her 40 miles off Guadalcanal, trailing fuel oil and down by the bow. That was the last time Americans saw her."
 
BarnBuster

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Admiral C.M. "Savvy" Cooke Jr commander USS Pennsylvania stated in his after action report 16Dec41:
"0802 to 0805 (Exact time not known). Pennsylvania commenced firing at enemy planes, – reported as first ship opening fire by personnel on board. All anti-aircraft batteries were rapidly brought into action. After release of torpedoes three planes came in low from the port beam, strafing Pennsylvania, – strafing attack not effective. During the torpedo attack, one enemy plane was observed to burst into flames about 2,000 yards on the starboard bow"

Lieutenant J.C. FORD, USS Jarvis (DD-393) stated in his after action report 12Dec41:
0757 - Ensign CHILES called me – said "Someone is bombing us."
0758 - General Quarters was sounded by SIMONIN (S.M.1c.). Ford Island bombed.
0759 - I reached bridge followed closely by Lieutenant JOHANSEN. Japanese torpedo planes were coming in at 30 to 60 second intervals, approaching from Merry Point direction and attacking Battleships.
0800 - Ensign GREENE, Officer-of-the-Deck, came to bridge. I had seen him directing activities around the quarterdeck up to this time. On finding me on bridge he asked what I wanted him to do. I sent him aft to get the after battery firing. Ensign CHILES was actively organizing the forward battery without orders. Ensign FLEEGE was on the director prior my arrival on bridge. I gave him orders to open fire on any enemy planes within range as soon as possible. He relayed that order to guns and machine guns, put forward 5" battery in automatic with director control, after battery in local control.
0804 - (About) Machine guns opened fire.
0805 - (About) 5" opened fire. 33 gun believed to have fired the first shot of any 5" gun in harbor.

From: U.S. Congressional Joint Committee on Pearl Harbor Attack Hearings: Pt. 24, Proceedings of the Roberts Commission, pp. 1570-1611.
CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION PEARL HARBOR ATTACK
Cincpac File No A16-3/ (0208
From: Rear Admiral H. E. Kimmel, U. S. Navy.
To: The Secretary of the Navy.

NARRATIVE OF EVENTS OCCURRING DURING JAPANESE AIR RAID ON DECEMBER 7, 1941​

0800: COMINBATFOR Comincraft in OGLALA ..Torpedo hit OGLALA and HELENA simultaneously. These ships were moored abreast of B-2 of ten ten dock OGLALA outboard. Both ships opened fire with A. A. battery.

0800: CASTOR CASTOR 3" A. A. and 30 cal. machine guns commenced firing against enemy torpedo planes, low and close aboard, and against dive bombers.

0800: DOLPHIN Machine guns and rifles manned and fired at enemy aircraft which were flying very low. Ready identification could be made by the large red balls on each wing. Report received plane

0800: JARVIS Ensign Greene OOD of JARVIS reported on bridge. Prior to this he had been directing activities around the quarterdeck. He was told to go to the after firing battery. Ensign Chiles was actively organizing the forward battery without orders. Ensign Fleece already on the director. Orders given to open fire.

0800: RALEIGH Opened fire with AA battery of 3"/50 cal. 1.1" and .50 cal. guns.

0801: SUMNER Opened fire #3 gun manned and commenced firing four minutes after the attack on Navy Yard was observed, and before any other gun in the vicinity had commenced firing. Made direct hit on and destroyed torpedo plane making approach on BBs.

0801: HELENA Opened fire. Hit by torpedo, range 500 yds., starboard side, approximately frame 75, 18 feet below water line. Four near misses from bombs received and one strafing attack with little damage. Issued gas masks and protective clothing. Once gun opposition was in full swing, Japanese plans were noted to turn away from gunfire or keep at respectable altitude.

0802: DEWEY Four .50 caliber machine guns fired at planes attacking battle ships and Ford Island.

0802: TREVER Opened fire with .50 caliber machine guns.

0802: NEVADA Opened fire with machine guns on enemy planes approaching on port beam. One plane brought down 100 yards off NEVADA's port quarter; one plane dropped torpedo which struck the NEVADA on port bow.

0802: PENNA. Attack by Torpedo planes from west and south, about 12 or 15. PENNA. Reported as first ship opening fire on plane. After release of torpedoes three planes came in low from port beam strafing PENNA., though not affected. Bearing of torpedo attack and one enemy plane observed to burst into flame 2000 yds on stbd. bow. Dive bombing attacks and torpedo attacks on Pearl Harbor, and dive bombing attacks on Hickam Field.

0803: CUMMINGS After Machine guns opened fire on Japanese Torpedo planes.

0803: CALIFORNIA Opened fire with machine guns and ready guns, on torpedo planes.

0803: SWAN Opened fire with 3" A. A. guns. All sea valves and hatches closed and commenced placing boilers in commission.

0803: NEVADA NEVADA opened fire with 5" A. A. Members of crew claim both broadside scored direct hit on torpedo plane which disintegrated in midair.

0804: JARVIS Machine guns opened fire.

0804: WHITNEY Commenced firing with .50 cal. AA guns. Received signal to get underway.

0805: MUGFORD Opened fire with 50 caliber MGs. Shot down Japanese plane, altitude 800 feet on the stbd. quarter, passing aft on stbd. hand. This plane had fired a torpedo at the USS OGLALA.

0805: NEW ORLEANS Sighted enemy torpedo planes on port quarter, flying low across stern. Rifle fire and pistol fire opened from fantail as first planes flew by to launch torpedoes at battleships. Manned 1.1 battery and machine guns aft in time to fire at three or four enemy planes.

0805: VESTAL Opened fire, and shortly after A. A. breach jammed blast from ARIZONA cleared gun station, killing one man. Fired with machine guns on enemy planes until they were withdrawn.

0805: HELM Opened fire with after machine guns at planes over main channel, followed shortly by forward machine guns firing at passing torpedo planes.

0805: HULL #4 machine gun opened fire.

0805: CURTISS Firing with 5" local control and .50 caliber machine guns. Lighted off boilers 1, 2 and 4.

0805: JARVIS 5" opened fire. #3 gun believed to be the first 5" gun in harbor to open fire.

0805: BREESE Opened fire with 3" A. A. Guns.

0805: RAMSAY Sounded general quarters and opened fire with .50 cal. And 3" guns. RAMSAY liberty party returning in MONTGOMERY boat was strafed by torpedo planes which were observed to fire 3 torpedoes into UTAH and RALEIGH.

0805: GAMBLE Mounted and commenced firing with .30 cal. machine guns on galley deck house.
0805: BLUE Opened fire with .50 caliber machine guns on Japanese planes diving on ships in harbor.

0805: CASSIN Observed HELENA open fire followed by PENNSYLVANIA.

0806: BOBOLINK and TURKEY commenced firing. Directed other boats in nest to tie up to destroyer buoys adjacent to battle rafts in order to disperse.

0807: BLUE Opened fire with 5"/38 caliber guns on Japanese planes. The engine room was ordered immediately to light off No. 2 boiler (#1 already steaming) and made all preparations for getting underway. Repair party cleared the ship for action, and made all preparations for slipping quickly from the mooring.

0807: HELM Opened fire with 5" battery. Not hits observed.

0807: HULL #l 5"/38 cal. opened fire.

0808: CUMMINGS Opened fire on horizontal bombers approaching over Navy Yard from southerly direction.

0808: CONYNGHAM Opened fire with 5" gun and machine guns on attacking planes.

0808: MUGFORD USS OKLAHOMA had capsized. W. VA. listed heavily to port, ARIZONA blew up.

0809; HULL #5 gun, 5"/38 cal. Opened fire, followed by guns #2, #3, and #4. First dive bombing attack ended.

0810: CUMMINGS Commenced preparation for getting underway in accordance general signal. Opened fire main battery on dive bombers over BBs.

0810: NEW ORLEANS All batteries NEW ORLEANS except 8" battery in action. Area around berths 14-19 incl. subjected to dive bombing attack by approximately ten enemy planes. Attack turned away by combined fire of HONOLULU and NEW ORLEANS. Observed three bombs drop: one falling ahead of and another falling astern of the RIGEL. These failed to explode. Third bomb landed midway between RIGEL and NEW ORLEANS exploding and causing damage from flying fragments. During raid yard power failed or was cut off leaving vessel in darkness without power except auxiliary battery power. Heavy drain of machinery raising steam for getting underway exhausted auxiliary batteries so much that lighting was very dim and of practically no use. All work in engineering spaces, magazines and ammunition passageways conducted by flashlight. Hoists and guns worked by hand with consequent reduction of volume of fire. AA directors were off ship.

0810: PHOENIX mg battery opened fire on attacking planes.

0810: DEWEY Guns 1-2-3 and 5 5", no power on ship.

0810: HELM Fire from port machine gun hit plane approaching from South. Plane observed to veer sharply, catch on fire and crash behind trees near Hickam Field. Damage to enemy: 1 plane shot down by machine gun fire.

0810: CALIFORNIA Opened fire with 5" guns on dive bombers.

0810: WHITNEY Set condition affirm. Commenced firing with 3" A. A. guns.

0810: REID Opened fire with after machine guns.

0810: RAIL At coal docks nested with 4 minesweeps. Opened fire with 3" A. A. 15 minutes after first bomb dropped on Pearl. Opened fire with .30 machine guns, rifles and pistols 20 minutes after first attack. A string of 20 bombs fell in channel astern. Shrapnel fell throughout ship. No material or personnel damage

0812: HULL All machine guns plus two automatic rifles on

WWII - Pearl Harbor Attack

www.history.navy.mil www.history.navy.mil
 
BarnBuster

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After a decade of debate about how best to spend a bequest left to America from an obscure English scientist, President James K. Polk signs the Smithsonian Institution Act into law on August 10, 1846.

In 1829, James Smithson died in Italy, leaving behind a will with a peculiar footnote. In the event that his only nephew died without any heirs, Smithson decreed that the whole of his estate would go to “the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” Smithson’s curious bequest to a country that he had never visited aroused significant attention on both sides of the Atlantic.

Smithson had been a fellow of the venerable Royal Society of London from the age of 22, publishing numerous scientific papers on mineral composition, geology, and chemistry. In 1802, he overturned popular scientific opinion by proving that zinc carbonates were true carbonate minerals, and one type of zinc carbonate was later named smithsonite in his honor.

Six years after his death, his nephew, Henry James Hungerford, indeed died without children, and on July 1, 1836, the U.S. Congress authorized acceptance of Smithson’s gift. President Andrew Jackson sent diplomat Richard Rush to England to negotiate for transfer of the funds, and two years later Rush set sail for home with 11 boxes containing a total of 104,960 gold sovereigns, 8 shillings, and 7 pence, as well as Smithson’s mineral collection, library, scientific notes, and personal effects. After the gold was melted down, it amounted to a fortune worth well over $500,000. After considering a series of recommendations, including the creation of a national university, a public library, or an astronomical observatory, Congress agreed that the bequest would support the creation of a museum, a library, and a program of research, publication, and collection in the sciences, arts, and history. On August 10, 1846, the act establishing the Smithsonian Institution was signed into law by President James K. Polk.

Today, the Smithsonian is composed of several museums and galleries including the recently opened National Museum of African American History and Culture, nine research facilities throughout the United States and the world, and the national zoo. Besides the original Smithsonian Institution Building, popularly known as the “Castle,” visitors to Washington, D.C., tour the National Museum of Natural History, which houses the natural science collections, the National Zoological Park, and the National Portrait Gallery. The National Museum of American History houses the original Star-Spangled Banner and other artifacts of U.S. history. The National Air and Space Museum has the distinction of being the most visited museum in the world, exhibiting such marvels of aviation and space history as the Wright brothers’ plane and Freedom 7, the space capsule that took the first American into space. John Smithson, the Smithsonian Institution’s great benefactor, is interred in a tomb in the Smithsonian Building.

Smithsonian Institution

www.si.edu www.si.edu

Virtual Tour

naturalhistory.si.edu naturalhistory.si.edu
 
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