In July of 1976 Queen Elizabeth II came to the US to commemorate the Bicentennial of the American Revolution. One of her stops while in Washington, DC, was the Smithsonian Institution Building, or the “Castle,” and the National Mall. The night…

Now called the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, the first Festival of American Folklife was created by Secretary of the Smithsonian S. Dillon Ripley and James R. Morris. Smithsonian Secretary Dillon Ripley wanted to change museums from stuffy…

The 1937 Boy Scout Jamboree was the first ever “jambo” event, now held every four years. 25,000 Scouts from around the country attended the event, camping for more than a week around the Washington Monument and Tidal Basin. Scouts rode in the…

Even before the Tidal Basin was constructed, planners proposed to use it as a recreational bathing beach. On August 24, 1918, the Tidal Basin bathing beach officially opened with a water carnival. Diving competitions, swimming competitions, and canoe…

In November 1938 a group of white women led by Eleanor Patterson, owner of the Washington Times-Herald, protested the removal of cherry trees from the Tidal Basin to make way for the Jefferson Memorial. On November 18, the women chained themselves to…

Resurrection City, organized by Ralph Abernathy, was part of the 1968 Poor People's Campaign, a demonstration for full employment and living wages. During May 1968 thousands of demonstrators representing communities across the country lived in a…

In 1902 the Senate Park Commission announced a plan to renovate the National Mall. Named after the committee chair, Senator James McMillan, the McMillan Plan redesigned the layout of the Mall from a system of informal gardens to today's streamlined,…

In 1850 President Millard Fillmore asked Andrew Jackson Downing, the nation's preeminent landscape gardener and advocate of a rural American style, to design the landscaping for the largely undeveloped National Mall and Smithsonian grounds. Downing’s…

In February 1978 the American Indian Movement began The Longest Walk, a cross-country march beginning on Alcatraz Island in California, to support tribal rights and bring attention to 11 pieces of legislation before Congress affecting American…

The first Run to the Wall event, now known as Rolling Thunder, was held on Memorial Day in 1988. The rally was organized by Vietnam veteran Ray Manzo who wanted to bring national attention to the plight of prisoners of war and soldiers missing in…