National Museum of American History

This glass tube, part of the museum’s collection, once contained a sample of helium. Its paper label reads, “HELIUM / SIR W. RAMSAY, K.C.B., LL.D., F.R.S. / THOMAS TRYER & CO., Ltd. / STRATFORD, LONDON, ENGLAND.”

The History of Holding Helium

Helium is the second most abundant element in the universe, but how do you hold it?

Team USA stamps

The Science Behind a Faster, Higher, Stronger Team USA

The unsung heroes behind the Summer Olympics are the scientists and engineers whose inventions and innovations help athletes become “Faster, Higher, Stronger”

Cher Ami, April 1918–June 1919 (NMAH)

Solving a 100-Year-Old Mystery About a Pigeon

Animal hero celebrates its Smithsonian centennial

Museum visitors participate in a flag folding while singing (or humming) the anthem (NMAH)

Why is the National Anthem So Hard to Sing?

If people whose livelihood is singing can't do it, what are the untrained to do?

The first stanza of the national anthem is projected prominently on the wall above the Star-Spangled Banner in the museum. (NMAH)

Why is There a Question Mark at the End of the National Anthem?

When we sing the anthem, we don't end it questioningly, but with a firm, declarative (sometimes over-warbled) note

The Star Spangled Banner, the flag that inspired our national anthem (NMAH)

8 Things You Didn't Know About the Star Spangled Banner

There is more to the story of this flag than meets the eye

The Story Behind the Iconic Photo of Gay Dads Kissing

Life Magazine published a 12 page article, but without the most meaningful image

Title page to Garrard Conley's workbook from the gay-conversion camp Love in Action (NMAH)

The History of Getting the Gay Out

Conversion therapy made being different dangerous

Matt Shepard in high school, taken in Lugano, Switzerland (NMAH)

Matt Shepard's Objects at the Smithsonian Show Us the Familiarity of an Icon

Beyond the tragedy of how he died at 21, Matt Shepard is interesting because of so many familiar things about how he lived

Leo Baker's personalized skateboards (NMAH)

How LGBTQ Skateboarders Have Carved Out a Place at the Park

The Smithsonian has collected from members of the diverse and fiercely dedicated LGBTQ skate community

Transgender flag designed by Monica Helms (right), and friends. The flag's stripes represent the traditional pink and blue associated with girls and boys and white for intersex, transitioning, or of undefined gender. Helms served in the United States Navy and became an activist for transgender rights in the late 1990s in Arizona where she grew up. She designed the flag in 1999. (NMAH)

Can an Object Be Gay? LGBTQ Collecting

Curator Katherine Ott reflects on collecting and interpreting LBGTQ material culture.

Picket signs carried by protestors at the White House and Independence Hall in Philadelphia, 1960s (Frank Kameny Collection, NMAH)

The Most Radical Thing About Stonewall Wasn't the Uprising

Much of the staying power of Stonewall’s reputation rests upon the Pride marches that began on the first anniversary of the uprising.

Miscellaneous objects from the museum’s collection that feature rainbows, including “That’s So Gay!” trivia game, coasters, and flags promoting marriage equality and immigration equality (NMAH)

Where Did the Rainbow Flag Come From, Anyway?

Where did the so-called "pride" flag come from?

Speaker’s card advertising Walker’s services as a lecturer. Walker described herself as

Mary Walker, the Original "New Woman"

Walker described herself as "the original new woman," referring to an emerging term for an independent woman who stood up for herself, regardless of social roles.

In a scene from the HBO series, Tulsa’s masked police force prepares for a raid. Detective Wade Tillman (known as “Looking Glass”) is played by Tim Blake Nelson. Detective Angela Abar (known as “Sister Night”) is played by Regina King (Mark Hill for HBO).

When Watchmen Were Klansmen

While Watchmen is a work of fiction, only a century ago, at the time of the Tulsa Massacre, America faced law enforcement organizations that were aligned with, and even controlled by, the Klan

Alice Tetsuko Kono in her Women's Army Corps uniform, around 1943 (NMAH)

Why Japanese American Alice Tetsuko Kono Joined the WAC During World War II

Japanese-American Alice Tetsuko Kono served a country that considered her an "enemy alien" and enlisted with the Women's Army Corps during WWII

This black metal suitcase belonged to Iku Tsuchiya. It went with her to Tanforan Assembly Center, then to the Topaz camp, and back home to San Leandro, California. (NMAH)

What Happened to Japanese American Houses During Incarceration?

As the federal government evicted and incarcerated Japanese American citizens living in the western United States, their homes were neglected, ransacked, and looted

While held at the Poston camp in Arizona, Yasu Takei made this one-thousand-stitch sash to bestow good luck and protection to her son Jim Kuichi Takei, who was fighting with the 442nd in Europe. (NMAH)

Memories of Japanese Incarceration Camps Remind Us That Our Freedoms Are Fragile

Seventy-nine years ago, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066. For years afterward, people like my grandmother were forced to live behind barbed wire, under the gaze of armed guards.

The all-star team from Gila River (Arizona) that played at Heart Mountain (Wyoming). Tetsuo Furukawa is in the top row, fourth from the right. (NMAH)

Baseball Behind Barbed Wire

Prisoners in WWII Japanese incarceration camps were still American, and took part in baseball, the great American pastime

Norman Granz and Ella Fitzgerald at a microphone, 1950. (Ella Fitzerald Papers, NMAH Archives Center)

How Norman Granz Revolutionized Jazz for Social Justice

Granz fought Jim Crow America, identifying the potential of jazz music to combat racial inequality.

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