Smithsonian magazine is a monthly magazine created for modern, well-rounded individuals with diverse interests. It chronicles the arts, history, sciences and popular culture of the times. Each subscription includes a complimentary membership to the Smithsonian Institution.

About Smithsonian Institution:

The Smithsonian Institution (pronounced /smɪθˈsəʊniən/) is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its shops and its magazine. Most of its facilities are located in Washington, D.C., but its 19 museums, zoo, and eight research centers include sites in New York City, Virginia, Panama, and elsewhere. It has over 142 million items in its collections.

A monthly magazine published by the Smithsonian Institution is also named Smithsonian.

The Smithsonian Police protects the visitors, staff and property of the museums.

Smithsonian Networks is a new multiplatform network that uses Smithsonian archives and resources to create original HD programming. (wikipedia.org)

Smithsonian's History

In 1826, James Smithson, a British scientist, drew up his last will and testament, naming his nephew as beneficiary. Smithson stipulated that, should the nephew die without heirs (as he would in 1835), the estate should go "to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men."

The motives behind Smithson’s bequest remain mysterious. He never traveled to the United States and seems to have had no correspondence with anyone here. Some have suggested that his bequest was motivated in part by revenge against the rigidities of British society, which had denied Smithson, who was illegitimate, the right to use his father’s name. Others have suggested it reflected his interest in the Enlightenment ideals of democracy and universal education.

Smithson died in 1829, and six years later, President Andrew Jackson announced the bequest to Congress. On July 1, 1836, Congress accepted the legacy bequeathed to the nation and pledged the faith of the United States to the charitable trust. In September 1838, Smithson’s legacy, which amounted to more than 100,000 gold sovereigns, was delivered to the mint at Philadelphia. Recoined in U.S. currency, the gift amounted to more than $500,000.

After eight years of sometimes heated debate, an Act of Congress signed by President James K. Polk on Aug. 10, 1846, established the Smithsonian Institution as a trust to be administered by a Board of Regents and a Secretary of the Smithsonian.

Read Smithsonian Magazine, September 2008 Online

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FEATURES:
Our Imperiled Oceans: Victory at Sea
The world's largest protected area, established this year in the remote Pacific, points the way to restoring marine ecosystems

At first sight, the people of Kiribati, a nation of tiny islands in the central Pacific, would not appear to be model conservationists. Trash is abundant all along Tarawa, the capital island, a skinny atoll shaped like a backward L and crammed with 40,000 people. (It was the site of one of the costliest landings in World War II, in which 1,000 U.S. marines were killed.) The rustic charm of the traditional thatched houses, which have raised platform floors and no walls, is offset by the smell of human waste wafting from the beaches. The groundwater is contaminated. Infant mortality is high, life expectancy low. And yet this past January impoverished Kiribati established the world's largest protected area, a marine reserve the size of California. ...

Face the Nation
Abraham Lincoln's debates with Stephen A. Douglas for the U.S. Senate in 1858 turned the backwoods rail-splitter into presidential timber

Lost & Found
Ancient gold artifacts from Afghanistan, hidden for more than a decade, dazzle in a new exhibition

Four for a Quarter
Photographer Nakki Goranin shows how the once ubiquitous photobooth captured the many faces of 20th-century America

Macau Hits the Jackpot
In just four years, this 11-square-mile outpost on the coast of China eclipsed Las Vegas as gambling's world capital

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