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The article focuses on Dolley Madison, wife of U.S. President James Madison, and her role in the War of 1812 with Great Britain. Madison's role as an informal political adviser to her husband is considered. An overview is presented of the U.S. conduct of the war, with emphasis placed on the extreme difficulty of financing it due to reluctance within the Congress and U.S. states to appropriate funds for the armed forces. Dolley Madison's involvement in saving government documents and art objects from the White House when Washington D.C. was occupied by British forces in August, 1814 and many of its public buildings burned is described. INSET: WITNESS TO HISTORY..

The article focuses on the creation of the United States Capitol building and its designer William Thornton. It offers a history of the designing process and describes significance behind its location and design. The article talks about how the government of President George Washington solicited for designs for the Capitol in 1792 and how the location of the nation's capital in the Middle States was intended to unite the North, South and West States. Thomas Jefferson's role in the matter is discussed, including that he came up with the name Capitol Hill.

Profiles Henry and Clover Adams, John and Clara Hay, and Clarence King, who made up an elite circle of friends known as the `Five of Hearts' in Washington, D.C. during the 1880s. Literary achievements; Political philosophies and roles; Dynamics of the friendships; Personal lives; Successes and tragedies; Influence on the times.

Presents a look at the history of the Piscataway and Anacostan tribes which lived in what is now the Washington, D.C. area. Loss of land to the English settlers; Number of Native Americans living in North America in 1492; Increasing numbers as of 2004; Details of the American Indian Movement.

Focuses on the black, cast-metal bell in the National Museum of American History's 'On Time' exhibition in Washington, D.C. The bell which summoned workers to the Davis and Furber textile machine factory in North Andover, Massachusetts; Why the bell was needed; Women employees at mills as the first generation of an industrial working class in the U.S.; Factory-town culture; Working conditions at the mills.

Explains how the generous bequest of Englishman James Smithson to the United States eventually led to the formation of the Smithsonian Institution in 1846. Background of Smithson; How British sovereigns provided by Smithson were reminted and used to fund the institution; United States President James K. Polk's signing of the Smithsonian Institution bill into law in 1846.

The article focuses on the donation of Phyllis Diller's joke cabinet to the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of American History. Diller, a stand-up comic, wrote most of her jokes herself and filed them by topic in a large card catalog cabinet. A brief overview of Diller's career is provided. The nature of Diller's jokes is discussed. Diller also donated a dress and a cigarette case from her 1967 tour of Vietnam with Bob Hope. Comments on the joke cabinet are provided by Dwight Blocker Bowers of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.

The article focuses on biographies about James Smithson, the founder of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Smithson willed his wealth to the United States in order to create the Smithsonian Institute after his death. Heather Ewing's book, "The Lost World of James Smithson: Science, Revolution, and the Birth of the Smithsonian," describes Smithson as an ambitious scientist with an interest in the progressive nature of the United States in the nineteenth century. "The Stranger and the Statesman: James Smithson, John Quincy Adams, and the Making of America's Greatest Museum: The Smithsonian," by Nina Burleigh, reveals the relationship between Adams and Smithson, which helped insure the creation of the Smithsonian Institute.

What the computer has been to our time, what the printing press was to an earlier age, still photography was to the 19th century--a technological innovation of startling power. The history of photography and the history of the Smithsonian do not quite coincide, but they come close. Researchers used the camera to advance the Institution's mission, documenting everything from the variety of species to the variety of the U.S. landscape. Though the primary purpose of the first color photograph of the solar spectrum, taken in 1908, was scientific, the result resembles nothing so much as a brilliant abstract painting from mid-century In fact, there's artistry in the most utilitarian of the photographic holdings we've compiled over the past century and a half.

There are perhaps ten exceptional collections of musical instruments in Europe and the United States, and the Smithsonian's is among the very best of them. It comprises some 5,000 objects under the care of the Division of Cultural History in the American History Museum (not because the instruments are all American in character, but because the museum was originally a museum of history and technology)and a like number of instruments housed, because of their ethnographic character, in the National Museum of Natural History. The part of the collection we have the space to exhibit publicly at any one time can only hint at what's behind the scene.Some of the items in the Smithsonian's collection are astonishingly beautiful (stringed instruments by the Italian master Antonio Stradivari); some are barely functional (an impossibly heavy banjo made from a World War I Get-man artillery shell, with bullet casings for tuning pegs); and many are wayward and fanciful (a peanut-shaped harmonica with a Jimmy Carter smile). The greatest treasures of the collection are neither out of sight nor only for silent display. These are the stringed instruments by Stradivari 1644-1737), who could put the geometry of a barely discernible curve in wood to heavenly purpose. We're now renovating a gallery in the American History Museum in which all these rare and beautiful objects (and other prized examples of the luthier's art) will be on display in 2003.

Discusses the history of the sale of the Spirit of St. Louis, the plane flown by Charles Lindbergh. The need for Lindbergh to consult the investors who paid for the plane; The book 'Charles Lindbergh and the Spirit of St. Louis,' by Van Der Linden and Dominick A. Pisano, curator at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Describes the benefits of the Smithsonian Institute's ability to run long-range research programs that monitor the state of the natural world. Long-term monitoring of specific uninhabited natural sites to measure ecosystem changes; The monitoring of coral reefs by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI); The monitoring programs of the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC); The natural flux of gases; The monitoring of watersheds.

Shares the history of the Smithsonian Institution during the Civil War in the United States. Suggested but never used as a war infirmary; Difficulties of Secretary John Henry because of friendship with Jefferson Davis; Henry instrumental in introducing President Abraham Lincoln to balloonist Thaddeus S.C. Lowe; Fire in 1865 collapsing second floor.

Looks at the history of volunteer contributions at the Smithsonian Institution as part of a year-long celebration of its 150th anniverary; Beginnings of volunteerism in 1846, when the museum was founded; James Conaway's book `The Smithsonian: 150 Years of Adventure, Discovery, and Wonder'; How volunteerism began; Proponents of this ideal, the first Secretary Joseph Henry and his assistant Spencer F. Baird; Establisment of philanthropy by James Smithson.

Celebrates the 150th anniversary of the Smithsonian Institution by recounting the events that lead to its creation. Bequest of the fortune of James Smithson to the United States as a trustee to found an `Establishment for the diffusion of knowledge'; Reaction of President Andrew Jackson and Congress in 1835; The peculiar nature of the Smithsonian; Maintaining the integrity of the institution.