Nixon Inaugural Ball in the Museum of History and Technology The Smithsonian Museum of History and Technology (now the <a href="http://mallhistory.org/items/show/48">National Museum of American History</a>) hosted one of the five Inaugural Balls for Richard Nixon's second Presidential Inauguration in January 1973. During the party, a rooster escaped from an exhibit on early American farm life and started bothering some of the guests. Secretary of the Smithsonian <a href="http://mallhistory.org/items/show/134">S. Dillon Ripley</a> rescued the rooster and returned it to its exhibition, but not before a newspaper photographer caught the wayward bird on camera. Smithsonian Institution Archive. <a href="http://siris-sihistory.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&amp;profile=all&amp;source=~!sichronology&amp;uri=full=3100001~!11959~!0#focus">View original</a>. 01/20/1973 <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=38&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1950-1979">1950-1979</a>