Smithsonian Institution

Eid Mubarak to those who celebrated this weekend! This phrase, written in Arabic calligraphy, is at the center of this 2001 commemorative stamp from the collections of our National Postal Museum. Eid al-Fitr, or "The Feast of Breaking the Fast," marks the end of Ramadan, the ninth month on the Islamic lunar calendar. Across the world, Muslims gather with family and friends to offer special prayers, exchange gifts, and feast together. 📷 : ©USPS. All rights reserved.

Millions of our collection images are available for anyone to explore, use, transform, and share through Smithsonian Open Access. You can make discoveries, build knowledge, and create whatever you can imagine. si.edu/openaccess Music: Maple Leaf Rag by James P. Johnson, Pops Foster, and Baby Dodds, from our Smithsonian Folkways Recordings Video description: Objects from the Smithsonian's collection, including portraits, airplanes, postage stamps, orchids, and more, show on screen to jaunty music.

As a teen, Hazel Ying Lee worked as an elevator operator to pay for flight lessons. In 1932, she became one of the first Chinese American women to earn a pilot’s license. After the Chinese Air Force rejected her service as a pilot because she was a woman, Lee returned to the U.S. where she was accepted into the organization of aviators that became Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) during World War II. She was one of two Chinese American women accepted. To enable men to serve in combat roles, the women of WASP ferried planes between bases, towed targets for training, and performed test flights. Lee died in the line of duty in November 1944, just under a month before the program was disbanded. She was one of 38 WASP pilots who died in service to the United States. Learn more about more about women in WASP from our National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution. https://s.si.edu/4hXhOqx

Actor, spy, captive. Pauline Cushman's life and career had it all. During the Civil War, the war widow and mother gave up performing on the theatrical stage for “method acting” as a spy for the Union Army. Cushman briefly worked as an actor in New York City and New Orleans, before landing a role in Kentucky, where she was welcomed into Confederate circles by publicly feigning Southern sympathies. As a spy for the Union Army, Cushman discovered locations of supply routes, uncovered a plot to poison the Union soldiers’ food, and gained access to Confederate camps. Her acting skill may have also saved her life. Caught by the Confederate Army and sentenced to death, Cushman fell ill—or so it seemed. Her sentencing was delayed long enough for the Union Army to rescue her. For her bravery, she earned the honorary rank of Brevet Major. Because there’s no business like show business, after the war, Cushman returned to the stage in a one-woman show produced by showman P.T. Barnum. 🖼️ : National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; Frederick Hill Meserve Collection, 1864. #SmithsonianWHM

Looks like a few presidents snuck out of their frames… 👀 The Washington Nationals Racing Presidents stopped by our National Portrait Gallery before their #OpeningDay game tomorrow. If you’ve been to the Portrait Gallery’s “America’s Presidents,” these four will be familiar faces: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abe Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt.

Juliette Gordon Low (1860-1927) founded Girl Scouts of the USA, which has served over 50 million members for 113 years. The 1948 3-cent Juliette Gordon Low Issue stamp from the National Postal Museum collection features her portrait and the Girl Scout Trefoil. Today, Low appears on the newest coin in the American Women Quarters™ Program, a collaboration between our museum and the United States Mint. 🗓️ Celebrate her legacy this Wednesday, March 26, at 4:00 p.m. at the National Postal Museum in Washington, DC, with Girl Scouts of the USA and Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace Museum. RSVP: https://s.si.edu/4l0815L 📷: Copyright United States Postal Service. All rights reserved.

Pippin Peppers add color and flavor to dishes, but did you know they were almost lost to history? When Harlem Hellfighter and artist Horace Pippin returned from World War I, he collected fish peppers in the Philadelphia area. Pippin traded these rare spicy peppers seeds with farmer H. Ralph Weaver in exchange for bees, which Pippin used to treat a wartime wound. Decades later, Weaver’s grandson found the seeds in a freezer and shared them with the public. Today, Smithsonian Gardens horticulturists plant a variety of peppers associated with artist Horace Pippen in the Heritage Garden at our Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. The colors are bold and vibrant, a reflection of Pippin’s career as a painter. Discover Pippin’s story and more Smithsonian connections to plants, gardens, and the natural world in our new educational activity guide with USA Today. s.si.edu/HumanNatureGuide 🖼️ : Portrait of Horace Pippin by Carl Van Vechten in 1940. In the collection of our National Portrait Gallery.

We remember boxing heavyweight champion, Olympian, and businessman George Foreman. In this photo, Foreman is hyping up the crowd in Kinshasa, Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, before facing Muhammad Ali in a match known as "The Rumble in the Jungle." Watched by 60,000 attendees and TV viewers around the world, the match has often been called one of the greatest sporting events of the 20th century. Heading into the Rumble, Foreman had been undefeated. He won a gold medal in the heavyweight division at the 1968 Summer Olympics and beat Joe Frazier in a stunning 1973 matchup in Jamaica. In Kinshasa, Ali won by a knockout, putting Foreman down just before the end of the eighth round. Years later, Ali and Foreman forged a friendship. This photo is in the collection of our National Museum of African American History and Culture.

If you know, you know. Neon lights, televisions, steel, and wood make up Nam June Paik’s “Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii” at our Smithsonian American Art Museum. The Korean-born artist included a mix of borrowed and original footage in his 51-channel video installation. Some collages are inspired by Paik’s personal connections to a state. Others incorporate existing media representations, such as musicals and documentaries. Over the decades, Paik considered how new technologies would reshape the world. “Electronic Superhighway” engages with three of these forces—the U.S. interstate highway system, cable television, and the emergent internet of the 1990s. 🎵: Hozier, "Northern Attitude" Artwork credit: Nam June Paik, “Electronic Superhighway: Continental U.S., Alaska, Hawaii,” 1995, fifty-one channel video installation (including one closed-circuit television feed), custom electronics, neon lighting, steel and wood; color, sound, approx. 15 x 40 x 4 ft., Smithsonian American Art Museum

While crossing a bridge in Selma, Alabama, 600 unarmed civil rights demonstrators were forcefully attacked by law enforcement officers 60 years ago this month in 1965. The peaceful march to Montgomery was in protest to the obstructions restricting Black Americans from voting—poll taxes, literary tests, and intimidation—as well as the killing of voting-rights advocate Jimmie Lee Jackson. Scenes of the violent confrontation interrupted television programs across the nation, sparking greater public outrage. On March 21, 1965, Selma captured headlines again when Martin Luther King Jr. led thousands of nonviolent demonstrators on a four-day march that finished on the steps of the capitol in Montgomery. The commitment of these protestors in Selma accelerated the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act five months later. 📸 Collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture © 1965 Spider Martin