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We're more than a museum. We're 21 of them & the National Zoo. Legal: s.si.edu/legal
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“I will never take your service for granted nor live a day not speaking our language. You left West out of our sacred lands to fight and accomplish one mission. Some of you came back, some of you didn’t. Through it all the Holy Ones watched over you from your journey to your last days on our Earth."—J. T. Willie (Diné [Navajo])
During World Wars I and II, hundreds of American Indians joined the United States Armed Forces. In WWI, some Choctaw and other Native soldiers transmitted battle messages in their tribal languages by telephone. During WWII, the army recruited soldiers from several tribes to transmit coded messages. After a demonstration of coded messages in the Navajo language, the U.S. Marine Corps recruited 29 Navajo Nation members within two weeks.
Native soldiers developed two types of Native American Code Talking (NACT). Type One Codes used coded collections of words or phrases assigned to military subjects in Native languages. Type Two Codes used existing Native languages. Both worked because they were based on languages unknown to the enemy and not mathematical or cipher systems.
During WWII, about 420 members of the Navajo Nation served as Code Talkers—the most from any tribe. Artist J. T. Willie honors their legacy and Navajo culture with this traditional deer hide bag. The portrait and patch are made of glass, gold, and turquoise beads. Navajo-Churro wool tassels, dyed red, white, and blue, at the four corners represent the sacred mountains that border the Navajo homeland. Willie also beaded Navajo codes and their definitions: "Wo-la-chee," the word for "ant" represented the letter "a" and "Ło-Tso," or “whale” was code for "battleship.”
The @smithsoniannmai in Washington, DC, is home to the National Native American Veterans Memorial. The memorial honors all Native Americans, including Code Talkers, who have served in the United States Armed Forces.
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J. T. Willie (Diné), “Dine Bizaad yee Nidaazbaa'igii: A Tribute to Our Navajo Code Talkers,” 2015. National Museum of the American Indian. 26/9693
11 Nov 2026
Picture it; it’s 1851 and you have FOMO about missing the biggest event of the year. What to do? Well, if you’re a subscriber to the “Illustrated London News,” you could get your very own hand-colored, panoramic scroll of London’s Great Exhibition!
This 22-foot scroll, printed using boxwood engravings, not only showcases the different exhibits; it also includes data visualizations of the crowds and detailed scenes featuring the latest fashion. This scroll is in our @CooperHewitt library, part of @Smithsonian_LibrariesArchives.
10 Nov 2026
Sarah Winnemucca (Northern Paiute), also known as Thocmetony, meaning “shell flower,” was a writer, lecturer, and interpreter. A polyglot, she spoke five languages and used her voice to support all Native peoples by sharing not only her personal story, but those of her community.
Winnemucca was born in 1844 in what is now known as Nevada. In 1883, she published "Life Among the Piutes,” considered the first book written by a Native American woman. A blend of autobiography and a cultural history of the Paiute people, the book informed white audiences of the oppression of Native peoples in an effort to combat negative stereotypes. In it, Winnemucca also reflected on her experience as a translator during the Bannock War of 1878, a conflict between the United States military and allied Bannock and Northern Paiute nations.
With experience advocating for the Northern Paiute in lectures across the East Coast, Winnemucca learned that wearing her traditional regalia attracted more attention to her community’s fight for their ancestral lands. Dressed in traditional Paiute regalia, she became one of the first Native American women to testify at a congressional hearing in 1884.
This portrait of Winnemucca was taken by Baltimore city photographer, Norval Busey, during her East Coast speaking tour and was the inspiration for a statue of Winnemucca that now stands in the U.S. Capitol. The portrait appears in the @SmithsonianNPG’s upcoming exhibition “Photographic Memory: Fifty Years of Collecting,” on view starting Nov. 14.
09 Nov 2026
With 700,000 pages transcribed, the stories of thousands of individuals are now more discoverable. For 10 years, Smithsonian volunteers have made these records easier to search through @NMAAHC's Freedmen’s Bureau Seach Portal, helping connect family historians, genealogists, and scholars to the lives of formerly enslaved individuals.
With a fresh new look, it’s now even easier to explore and transcribe on @SmithsonianTranscriptionCenter. Anyone can add to a transcription, whether it's a word or a whole page!
06 Nov 2026
Everybody poops. Including astronauts living in space! 💩🚀
The newest exhibition at our @AirAndSpaceMuseum features a reproduction of the Universal Waste Management System, @NASA’s latest space toilet. Astronauts use this cutting-edge throne on the International Space Station and the Orion spacecraft, which recently carried the Artemis II crew on its historic mission. Compared to the previous toilet model, it’s 65% smaller and 40% lighter.
Museum educators will be using this space toilet as a teaching object to answer the popular question: “How do you go to the bathroom in space?” See it up close and personal in the museum’s latest exhibition “At Home in Space,” open today.
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Video description: The video begins with a formal portrait of the Artemis II crew followed by a photograph of the four astronauts floating in space. We then see two shots of the Artemis II launch with an “x” and fire emoji on screen. Then, the speaker appears. He is wearing a construction hat and vest and standing next to a complicated machine with footrests that barely resembles a toilet. A toilet and poop emoji appear on screen. When the speaker talks about “fecal bags,” he holds up what looks to be a flimsy, white upside-down top hat. He inserts the bag into the toilet opening. In the part where he mentions the light vacuum suction, the text “microgravity = needs suction” appears on screen. We then get close-ups of the small toilet “bowl” and the foot rests with straps. The speaker then wraps up the fecal bag and pushes it down the toilet bowl with his hands. He then grabs what kind of looks like a plunger and begins compressing the bag down. He points to a bucket at the bottom of the toilet, then we see him holding it up for the camera. The last three visuals are images. The first is of Earth with a pop emoji on screen. The next features the Cygnus carrier near the ISS. The final image is of the supply ship burning up in space.
05 Nov 2026
This is your reminder to paws. You deserve a break! 🐾🖤
This drawing is by artist Christina Malman, best known as a cartoonist for The New Yorker. In “Woman and a Dog," she depicts the modern yet familiar figures in a kind of rounded, candid profile as though caught in a fleeting moment of stillness. The artwork was published in a 1935 issue of the magazine, just as Malman was starting her career.
This is one of dozens of drawings by Malman in the collections of our @CooperHewitt.
01 Jan 1970
"We wanted to continue telling our stories in pictorial form, like we have always done. And so we used the paper from military forts and general stores around us to continue telling our stories. So ledger art, it was historically a male art form...but what I did with ledger art...is I told the stories of women." —Lauren Good Day (Arikara/Hidatsa/Blackfeet/Plains Cree) on the "Matriarch Movement" podcast, 2024
Artist and fashion designer Lauren Good Day learned beadwork, quillwork, and ledger art from her mother and grandmother. Today, she portrays contemporary Native experiences of women and families through traditional art forms. Pictured here are examples of her ledger art in the collections of our @SmithsonianNMAI.
Historically, Plains Indians painted their histories and traditions on animal hides, clothing, and tipis. But as bison were hunted nearly to extinction, and U.S. policies forced Native peoples onto reservations in the 19th century, storytellers looked for new canvases.
When government officials and non-Native settlers arrived in the Great Plains, they brought with them accounting or ledger books. On the found pages of these books, Plains Indians reclaimed their stories, recording communal events and successes in battle.
Today, Good Day, along with her contemporaries, uses ledger art and other traditional art forms to propel Indigenous art and fashion design forward.
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Lauren Good Day (Arikara/Hidatsa/Blackfeet/Plains Cree, b. 1987). “Generations of Knowledge,” 2012. USA. Museum purchase from the artist. 26/9021.
Lauren Good Day (Arikara/Hidatsa/Blackfeet/Plains Cree, b. 1987), “Independence Day Celebration,” 2012, antique ledger paper, colored pencil, graphite, ink, felt-tipped marker. 26/9025.
Lauren Good Day (Arikara/Hidatsa/Blackfeet/Plains Cree, b. 1987), “Blessed by the Mother and Father,” 2012, antique ledger paper, colored pencil, graphite, ink, felt-tipped marker. 26/9022.
02 Nov 2026
BOO.
Telescopefish (Gigantura chuni and Gigantura indica) live in tropical and subtropical areas, between 1,600 and 6,500 feet deep.
👀 They see things.
Their tubular eyes likely capture even the smallest amount of light. Looking through the vastness of the sea, a shimmer of bioluminescence can mean a potential meal. Detecting that light requires acute eyesight.
🦷 They eat BIG things.
With a special jaw, the telescope fish can eat prey larger than their own bodies. In one instance, scientists discovered prey two times the size of the telescopefish folded inside its stomach.
Learn more about the dapper deep-sea telescopefish with our @SmithsonianNMNH's Ocean Portal at the link in our bio.
📷:
Smithsonian image by Dave Johnson of Harvard MCZ specimen 60585
Illustration that accompanied the scientific paper describing Gigantura chuni in 1901
31 Oct 2026
Are your pumpkins ready for Halloweekend?
In autumn, the @SmithsonianZoo places pumpkins in a variety of habitats as a way for the animals to stay active and healthy and use their natural behaviors. As you can see, lemurs enjoy eating their fruit salad in a pumpkin bowl made for them by the Zoo’s Primate team!
At Smithsonian’s National Zoo, the Great Ape House has a rooftop garden where our animal care team grows hibiscus, marigolds and squash flowers. In summer, keepers collect the flowers and give them to the primates as a special enrichment treat. Of all the flowers, the lemurs’ favorite seems to be hibiscus—they eat the entire bloom! In addition to fruit and flowers, lemurs also eat leaves, insects, herbs, and small vertebrates.
29 Oct 2026
We remember Dolores Huerta, a community leader, organizer, and negotiator who spent her life advocating for the rights of workers and women.
Beginning in the 1960s, Huerta, who was born in New Mexico, became a leading voice in the California farm workers’ movement and the Mexican American civil rights movement. During the Delano grape strike, she served as the union’s chief lobbyist and contract negotiator for farm laborers. Her leadership culminated in the landmark Agricultural Labor Relations Act of 1975, which granted farmworkers in California the right to collectively organize and bargain for better wages and working conditions.
Huerta remained an active community organizer throughout her life and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012.
She has also generously shared her expertise and experiences with us here at the Smithsonian. In 2019, she reflected on her legacy of organizing with students and educators at the Smithsonian’s National Youth Summit. More recently, in 2022, she shared her continued drive with our @SmithsonianNPG’s PORTRAITS podcast.
“I know it’s not easy to make change. And that in the process, you get a lot of push back, a lot of criticism. And you have to put up that shield to say, no matter what you do, you’re not going to stop me. You’re not going to get in my way.”
📷:
“Dolores Huerta” by Barbara Carrasco, 1999. @smithsoniannpg, Smithsonian Institution; acquisition made possible through the Smithsonian Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the @uslatinomuseum. © 1999 Barbara Carrasco
“Dolores Huerta” by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, 2012. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Catherine and Ingrid Pino Duran. © 2012 Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
Rudy Rodriguez, 1974. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of George Rodriguez in memory of his brother. © Estate of Rudy Rodriguez
Dolores Huerta on stage at the Smithsonian’s National Youth Summit at our @AmHistoryMuseum in 2019.
28 Oct 2026
They’re everywhere, and they do everything. 🪲
With over 400,000 known species, beetles make up one of the most diverse animal groups on Earth, and their roles in our ecosystems are just as varied.
From flesh-eating beetles helping Smithsonian scientists clean animal skeletons to pollinators keeping ecosystems thriving, these tiny powerhouses make a huge impact.
Go behind the scenes with @SidedoorPod to explore the fascinating world of beetles and meet the scientists dedicated to studying them.
🎧 Listen to the new episode of Sidedoor at the link in our bio!
28 Oct 2026
What’s your favorite scary movie?
In 1997, the U.S. Postal Service issued five classic movie monster commemorative stamps. The stamps feature five legendary movie monsters and pay tribute to the actors who portrayed them. The series was the result of a fortunate coincidence—as the Postal Service began to develop the idea of monster stamps, the adult children of three classic movie-monster actors began campaigning to commemorate their fathers on stamps. The two paths converged, resulting in five of the spookiest stamps of the 1990s.
Featured in the series were:
🌹Lon Chaney as The Phantom of the Opera
🧛 Bela Lugosi as Dracula
🖤 Boris Karloff as The Mummy
🐺 Lon Chaney Jr. (yes, the son of Lon Chaney) as The Wolf Man
🧟Boris Karloff (again!) as Frankenstein’s Monster
These stamps are in the collection of the @NationalPostalMuseum.
©USPS
27 Oct 2026
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